Crazy Life
La vida loca
Crazy Life
La vida loca
Spain, Mexico, France, 2008
directed by
Christian Poveda
screenplay
Christian Poveda
cinematography
Christian Poveda
Music
Sebastián Rocca, Yuri Buenaventura
editing
Mercedes Alted
producer
Luis Angel Bellaba
production
Aquelarre Servicios Cinematográficos Arlabán – Madrid (Spain)
E aquelarrecine@ctv.es
world sales
Wide Management
E wide@widemanagement.com
format
35 mm, barvni/colour/colore
running time
90'
Photo journalist and director Christian Poveda follows the everyday life of the 18th street gang in a poor quarter in San Salvador for a year. A precisely built story, situated in the global world, draws the roots of one of the biggest myths of organised crime with modern metaphors.
Poveda shows the violence, imported from the USA with an elaborated rough cinematography, where there's a contrast between the big scene and footages made with a hand-camera, and a proliferation of impressive portraits of individuals.
Behind the clique, which works as an equal community, the self-proclaimed brotherhood of half-homeless and half-child soldiers, pictures of hope and fear are taken. Mares, named after insatiable Amazon ants, are one of the most powerful youth gangs in Central America. Jails are full of its members and a lot of cells are waiting for them- there are approximately 100.000 of them altogether. They act like their role models from Los Angeles and are organised on strong principles, like the mob.
As far as Poveda is concerned, the vast majority of the gang members in El Salvador are »victims of society, of our society. A desperate reaction to a desperate situation. This violence is the result of a childhood at once terrifying and hateful. It is the hatred of those who have had everything taken away and have been given nothing back in return. It is the hatred of those who have never had anything. The hate born of exploitation, submission and daily humiliation.« 20 years after the war of the revolution, which devastated the nation, the poor are fighting against the poor, or, as Jean Baudillard would say: »a perfect crime of globalisation.«
»La Vida Loca( Crazy life) is what life is really about over there: youths who suffer, who defy us, who look down on us, who resent and dislike us. Though this vision of evil stirs up our fears and provokes nightmares, I also hope it shall invoke compassion and cause us to question our notion of the world. And so, like cornered dogs, this lost generation responds with pessimism, revolt and death.« (Christian Poveda)
Christian Poveda
Born in 1955 in Paris. His political membership during the war in Vietnam led him to experiment with the power of the image, while his inspiration led him to photo-journalism and making documentaries. He filmed about 16 documentaries, such as Los guerreros de la sombra (1987), Sube tu guardia, hombre (1995), No sólo matamos el tiempo (1996), Viaje a la extrema derecha (1998), En el nombre del Hijo (1999), Los proscriptos (2000), Una vuelta de jugarreta (2000) in Un striptease de terciopelo (2004). He concentrates on important socio-political problems in his work.
