La virgen de los sicaros (2000) — Colombia. -Katie Beeler

Katie Beeler

La virgen de los sicaros (2000) — Colombia

La virgen de los sicaros (2000) about the violent atmosphere in Medellín leads the main character to realize the violent city he left behind changes him into a desensitized citizen like the the rest of citizens living through the violence in Medellín. What I gathered from the movie was the parallel of the old generation and the youth generation and how they reacted to the violence around them in Medellín.

According to Hylton “Political and criminal violence fed into one another, and homicide became the leading cause of death among males.” This beyond evident in the movie, the violence is linked to each act in the film. One gang hates another, and the killing never stops because it is a cycle that can’t end when revenge is always called for in a culture that is run by drug related violence. Alexis’ killer killed him because of another killing that involved that boys brother.

The older culture in the movie like Alexis’ mother, Fernando, and the woman that they made fun of that cried in the street represent the culture that is shocked by the violence happening around them. They are able to respond emotionally to what they see in the streets while the younger population is completely unphased by what they see. Fernando slowly grows more immune to what is going on around him and begins to accept and even adapt and support the violence that Alexis commits.

The ironic part of the film is the scene with the dog when neither Alexis or Fernando want to put the dog out of it’s misery even though it will probably die anyway. This is the problem with the entire violent culture, even a dying dog gets more sympathy than that of a human life. In the section about violence and social control in Vargas’ reading, the violence and drug trafficking is accepted because if the trafficker supports order in a community he is at least not shunned or questioned or in extreme cases is accepted. I linked this to the scene about the dog because of the acceptance of violence and when it is accepted and when it is not. If violence or drug trafficking can be accepted and killing an animal can’t then what does that say about the values of a society as a whole?

Clearly it is like the situation in the film bus 174, at the base of the society not even the police would be trusted so the whole hierarchy of protection was thrown off. In Columbia, the values of the society were so corrupt at the core then it is impossible to have an easy transition to change the values of society away form violence.