Our Lady of the Assassins

A somber, violent, poetic meditation on the day-to-day anarchy that rules modern Medellin, Our Lady of the Assassins is the story of a moneyed but world-weary Colombian writer (Germán Jaramillo) returning home for the first time since gang violence and the cocaine trade laid waste to the city of his youth. After meeting Alexis (Anderson Ballesteros), a handsome, murderous teenage gang member who becomes his plaything/lover, the writer begins seeing the city through the younger man's eyes, and sadly becomes resigned to the fact that in Medellin life is cheap. Director Barbet Schroeder probes the dichotomy of these two men and the two Columbias from which they come in this film of profound potency that loses some of its punch due to repetitiveness in the last act. Recommended, with reservations. (R. Blackwelder)