Latin America: The Perpetrators

Colombia-Bogotá

In this, part two of his family trilogy, Jorge Hugo Marín draws on “Rope” (1948), the classic work by the master of the thriller, Alfred Hitchcock, for inspiration, adapting the tale of two college kids who murder a fellow student to prove the theory of the 'perfect murder' to the realities of contemporary Colombia.

Marín gives us three students who are finding it hard to pay the rent on the flat they share. The elderly owner has been complaining for three months when, out of the blue, he appears on their doorstep one night, drunk and angry, demanding his rent. Galvanized and desperate, the three students kill him. We meet them the morning after as they are cooking breakfast in their kitchen and wondering what to do with the body. When the cleaning lady shows up unexpectedly with her son, things get complicated.

The company Maldita Vanidad use the murder and the chamber thriller form to explore issues relating to tolerance of, and complicity in, violence.