Movie of the Month: Part 30



I recently reviewed the

following DVD for Video

Librarian, and thought the

results were worth sharing.



GODS / Dioses [***]

(Josué Méndez, Peru, 2008, 91 mins.)



Gods presents a side of Peru not often seen in the United Stat-

es: the lives of the country's super-rich. The story starts off with

two seemingly unrelated narratives: a wary brother looks after

his flirtatious sister at a nightclub, while a lower-class woman so-

cializes with her upper-class fiancé's friends at a dinner party.



Mr. Augustín (Edgar Saba), as it transpires, is the father of Die-

go (Sergio Gjurinovic), a college student, and Andrea, a part-time

model. At one point, Augustín tells his son, "A woman who thinks

is a man." If his unsophisticated fiancée, Elisa (Maricielo Effio),

who shares their oceanfront compound just outside Lima, seems

nice enough, the kids are spoiled brats, and Diego also expresses

an unhealthy interest in Andrea, who finds out she's pregnant, but

has no idea who the father might be (suffice to say, it isn't Diego).



By the time she tells her father, it's too late for an abortion, so he

comes up with a plan designed to save the family's reputation.







Meanwhile, Elisa hangs out around the house, reading and talk-

ing to the help, whom most everyone else ignores unless some-

thing goes wrong or unless one of Diego's drunken friends is feel-

ing frisky (she also appears to come from a family of domestics).



If Elisa enjoys spending Augustín's money, she has little inter-

est in his shallow social circle, in which the men talk business

(and hot babes) and the women babble about more superficial

matters, not counting their hypocritical Bible study sessions.



Taking on the rich and clueless is like shooting fish in a barrel,

but director Josué Méndez isn't heartless, and it's hard not

to feel something for each of these characters. Plus, he incor-

porates a few maids in the action, including the patient Inés

(Magaly Solier), who serve as a sort of Greek chorus, rein-

forcing the Rules of the Game impression. Recommended.



Click here for Movie of the Month, Part 29: Little Red Riding Hood







Endnote: Slightly revised from the original text. (I didn't

select a movie for July.) Image from Global Film Initiative.