“Lavaperros is not a drug trafficking film, it’s something more,” says Cali director Carlos Moreno, referring to his latest film. Although it was due to premiere in April last year, the pandemic took an unexpected turn. “I think I felt like someone was in a coma,” Moreno recalls in a discussion with EL TIEMPO in Chile, where he ends a miniseries about the rock band Los Prisioneros.
We invite you to read: Music, tropics and crime: Carlos Moreno’s cinema
“I thought it would be stored, but we’ll meet again,” he adds of the film, which mixes action and a touch of raw humor. But now Moreno has managed to recover from the “cinematic coma.”
Dogwash, with writers’ screenplay Pilar Quintana (recent winner of the Alfaguara Novel Award) and Antonio García Ángel, will premiere on Friday, March 5 on Netflix. And the idea is to be able to take it to the cinemas soon. “We live in a situation that first brought us to the platform (…). What has happened in the world invites filmmakers to stand firm in order to tell stories no matter where they are seen. I exclude myself from any agenda of those who want to give priority only to cinemas, in reality it is about telling people something, and with this premiere on the platform I am very proud of the film “, he says.
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And what is Dogwash? The answer is simple: it’s an adventure that revolves around characters who have their lives hanging by a thread. Some move in the criminal world, and others dream of being able to solve their problems quickly. There is a declining gangster (Don Óscar, played by Christian Tappan); a bodyguard – called Bobolitro – who seems to combine his work very well with his faith and dedication to Jesus Christ and, with them, other characters who move between a wave of betrayal and violence, told in a style sometimes visceral and sometimes fun.
Boboliter is a character full of contrasts in the plot.
“There is a character who, in fact, is in charge of bathing other types of dogs in this universe of small bandits who are believed to be a great thing. The naming of this film with this title was a challenge, because all the time history plays at the limit and proposes to the spectators something that determines them to make wrong assumptions “, says Moreno.
“The film talks about the social misery we are all in and touches on politicians, unions or the one who bathes dogs. It shows those who are always subjected to contemptuous tasks or dirty work (…). Decadent characters with crooked morals in a very small universe “, emphasizes the director, who took the opportunity to inject a little humor and a certain caricature into the plot.
Without going into details, Lavaperros also reveals something lost and which is essential for the protagonists to have some peace. It goes from silver to innocence or health, through a story in which laughs several times, while the situation of the protagonists gradually becomes more complicated.
The film seems to be influenced by characters like those of Jackie Brown, by Quentin Tarantino, that cult classic from 1997 in which a stewardess ends up betraying her principles and those who move around her while life does not seem to give her a way out. Not for nothing is it one of Moreno’s favorite movies.
Show them to those who are always subjected to contemptuous tasks or dirty work
Lavaperros is the fourth film by the 52-year-old director with whom he began his film career Dog eats dog (2008) and which also brought to the big screen All your dead (2011) and Long live music! –free version of the novel of the same name by Andrés Caicedo–, which was released in 2014.
He also directed the series Wild District (also for Netflix); episodes of the Rubirosa series (aired on Claro Video) and the documentary Guerras ajenas for HBO, among other productions.
Christian Tappan plays a declining tracheto who lives in Tuluá.
“There is no epic here, but rather the idea of thinking, ‘And so much role, so much violence for that?’ “” Reflects the director. The stage floor makes you not lose sight of the cruel evolution of Don Óscar, showing that he is more dangerous than he seems and that he cannot maintain his power, reflected in a cracked and almost abandoned country house, as a metaphor for his bad decisions and the violence that surrounds.
Exactly, the actor Christian Tappan stands out, thanks to a great interpretation of that type of bastard who allows himself to sink into his excesses.
Lavaperros also manages to make a social critique, sometimes awkward; leads the viewer to a kind of roller coaster in which there is a certain empathy for all that caricature of evil and lack, but then a brutality already normalized or assumed reappears to remind us that in the place where the story takes place everything moves under the idea that they are strong and subordinate and are always in conflict to taste power.
“I think there are more bandits than bandit movies, and everyone demands authority, but no one is willing to comply ”. It is a reflection that Carlos Moreno shares and could be part of the discussion that can be generated after watching the film. It’s time to see her.
Andres Hoyos Vargas
@ AndresHoy1