La virgen de los sicaros

La virgen de los sicaros was a film that centered around the film of Fernando, an older homosexual man and his younger, homosexual partners, Alexis and Wilmar, and the violent difficulties they endured towards gangs and attempting to live within the city of Medellin, Columbia.  They city is over-run with gangs that were previously formed by assassins that were apart of the old cocaine cartel and hierarchy.  After the fall of one of the major drug lord in cocaine trafficking history, these assassins attempted at life without their normal illegal structure of life.  The negative aspect of this attempt was the fact that these assassins only knew one way of life, murder and violence.  This way of life led to what Medellin became during the time period la virgen de los sicaros took place in.  The city became a target for irrational and erratic violent behavior that caused hundreds of deaths within any given period.  Ricardo Vargas wrote in his article, “State, Esprit Mafioso, and Armed Conflict in Colombia”, “values such as vengeance and the violent setting of scores are an increasing part of everyday life.”  We see this exhibited in the film with the numerous murders that were accounted for and the constant ‘reasoning’ behind everyone.  When Fernando and Alexis first started seeing each other, Fernando was informed that there was a gang looking for Alexis to kill him for a certain reason.  Which gives the impression that Alexis is a victim within this world of crime and it isn’t until the film continues and the audience sees Alexis’ unwavering aggressiveness to murder anyone that even made a cross remark towards himself or Fernando.  After Alexis’ death and Fernando started seeing Wilmar, was when the audience finds out that Alexis was not just a victim of the constant hate crimes seen in Medellin but he was an active part in it.  He had cold-heartedly murdered Wilmar’s relative and Wilmar in turn sought revenge.

In Forrest Hylton’s article, “Evil Hour in Columbia: La Violencia,” he states “In terms of power and authority, the world was briefly turned upside down…”  Hylton continues with describing different aspects of this statement and the shere abnormality that everyday events and understandings transformed in to.  He uses examples such as “the persecuted becoming the powerful” and “prisoners executed guards,” etc.  The idea of backwardness that Hylton addresses is seen within the film with the people of Medellin becoming accustomed and desensitized to murder and death.  The single response of the innocent towards these random shootings was simply to not accidentally get shot, to not become the victim, to not be apart of this violent turmoil in which they find themselves attempting to live peacefully.  The single act of noticeable concern was from a woman who started screaming after a shooting killed a young boy.  The woman yelled that an innocent boy was just murdered, when in fact he wasn’t innocent at all but another pawn in the continuous battle of who-can-dodge-bullets-faster, but the fact this boy wasn’t innocent at all wasn’t the point of this scene.  The point was simply that this woman showed concern and terror when she saw this murder.  The violence had become so accustomed to everyday life for the people of Medellin that no one responded to murder any longer and those that did were considered ridiculous or irrational.  From her action the audience automatically assumed that the woman was either a) a relative of the young boy, or knew him in some way or b) does not live in Medellin.  The thought of just simply caring for the young boy doesn’t occur in one’s mind until the end of the scene when neither (a) or (b) was mentioned.