I have always been a huge fan of movies and of the camera and visual images. When we moved to the US my dad bought a camera, which we still have, and he took it everywhere!He loved just standing there and taking hours and hours of video, sometimes is was video of a road trip. The whole tape was the highway and the trees and people laughing in the background and some music. My dad somehow figured out I liked the camera and that soon became my job. If my dad knew I would one day change from an Accounting major to Communications major in college because of that what he did I don't think he would have given me the camera lol.
Below you will find what I call my baby! You know when you make something, it could be a paper you wrote, a song you sang, a painting you well painted, and you are so proud of it, every time you see, hear or read it? That's how I feel about this project.
I posted it on facebook and shown it to almost everybody that walks into my house. I have never given the full explanation of all my decisions and the history behind it and how it came about. So now that I blog I can do it :). First we watch then we will talk about it....
Ok hope you see it before you read this part, obvious spoilers coming up.
I was going to give you the whole story of how I came up with the story but its too long. Ok so the movie. I wanted to give special attention to the wardrobe of each character, I wanted it to tell a story. In the first scene we see the son and father are both wearing gray, and the "bad guys" are wearing black. The gray represents the trauma the characters about to face. The dad will die and the son will be scared by this event. The black represents that they are the bad guys, dark and well evil.
The next scene we see the boy is now an adult and is still reliving the trauma of his dads death. He is wearing a white button down shirt with a gold tie, representing justice and "the good guy". When the conversation starts it is revealed he is a cop, but just not any cop but a general, this is how the rankings work in Colombia, where the story takes place. By the greeting of the Cabrera we can see this is not the first time these two cross path. I choose to only show the eyes and the mouth of Cabrera while the conversation is happening to reveal that he is the one that killed the general at the end of the conversation. At the end of the conversation you will also notice that he is no longer wearing black but a grayish color, Cabrera has indeed changed, he is looking to redeem himself. By the content of the call we find out that Cabrera is trying to make some type of deal with the general and that he is not accepting it. The general gets angrier and angrier to the point that he doesn't even wants to talk to the man and hangs up. He takes a deep breath and opens his desk and we see a gun and a shield, each representing choices. He picks up the shield, which represents justice, this is his father shield, which I didn't make very clear. We then see that it changes from color to black and white, representing that he is now in the same state of mind as in the beginning of the movie, also in black and white, and that state of mind is to kill and he picks up the gun, and yes I know my props are horrible, student film here, give me a break lol. The music has also changed for that reason as well. he gets up and puts on a black jacket, representing, yep you guessed it, his evil plan to go take revenge. He grabs the gun then the shield, remember the shield represents justice so he is taking justice into his own hands, cliche maybe clever, you be the judge.
Next scene we see him going to the house of Cabrera. Ok I had a happy accident happen to me here at 2:55 the music is on cue with the actor as he moves his head, love it. Ok he is looking at his prey, Cabrera seems relaxed drinking coffee and just chilling in his kitchen, representing his new life. The general takes the shield once again and kisses it, this action means he is doing it in the name of his father, keeping a promise to do justice.
Next scene he comes busting through the door, calls him a parasite and has him just were he wants him, on the floor. Then he says a key line. "Do you think I can accept peace from the man responsible for all my nightmares?" Ok, I love this line, call it what you will but like everything there's a meaning. The conversation on the phone was about a deal that Cabrera is trying to make with the General, it is in this line that we find out that he is trying to negotiate a peace treaty with him. Cabrera doesn't know who the General is, they have never met, although they have talked on the phone, however the General is not there as the himself or his title but as his fathers son. By Cabrera's face we know he knows exactly who he is and that he is in trouble.
Ok now this is where I wanted to get a bit tricky, he delivers the line "This is for my father", the screen goes black we hear a gun shot...his dad falls dead, not Cabrera! We jump back to the scene in the kitchen to find the General with the gun still in his hand, you may think Cabrera is dead, the General looks up and we see a face of a young boy, wearing white, which represents innocents. By showing his face only, we don't know where is his in the scene, then we open the scene to see that Cabrera is still alive and that the body is watching the whole scene. Then comes my favorite part of the movie! The camera goes behind the General and we can see the boy looking at him, the camera moves and the boy is switch by the General as a young boy. This means that the General sees himself in the boy.
He then takes out the shield, looks at it. The gun, revenge, is on top and the shield, justice, on the bottom. He then brings the gun down and the shield up, meaning the feeling of justice takes over the feeling of revenge. The color also comes back meaning he gets out of the evil, killing state of mind. He realizes what he is doing and not wanting to rewrite history and lets Cabrera go and leaves.
And thats my movie and thats what it all means :)
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