From dusk 'til dawn, El Velador accompanies Martin, the guardian angel whom, night after night, watches over the extravagant mausoleums of some of Mexico's most notorious Drug Lords. In the labyrinth of the cemetery, this film about violence without violence reminds us how, in the turmoil of Mexico's bloodiest conflict since the Revolution, ordinary life persists and quietly defies the dead.
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Strong and Moving!
A Disappointing Continuation
It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.
This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.
A portrait of a cemetery in Mexico, being quickly filled by the young victim's of Mexico's drug wars on both the police and gangster side. Beautifully shot, and told completely observationally (there are a few lines of narration from the night watchman of the cemetery, the titular figure). Mostly there are just the images, and the endless, horrific news reports on radio and TV of more and more killings. It took me a while to settle into this. At first its seeming lack of focus or 'plot' making it slow going. But there was a powerful accumulative effect, so by the end it's a deeply sad and disturbing piece about the loss of a generation, and a country caught in what amounts to a civil war. As we see a woman (wife?) of a slain policeman return day after day to wash his elaborate tomb, or hear the screams of loss from a mother in the distance as we watch workmen create more and more concrete graves we are taken inside a desperate way of life that is almost unimaginable to those of us lucky enough to live safe, middle-class lives.
Seldom have I seen such a touching, perfect view of a world full of atrocities seen through the eyes of a simple grave caretaker. I won't give anything away in saying that the violence in Mexico is so horrible, becoming so common place, that the dead are mourned in such a way as to denigrate the living, for the dead are cared for like princes. Watching this saddened me to no end. The film making is exquisite and the world she brings us is horrific, but I hope everyone can see this masterwork. It is a good work about bad things. This is good work in a difficult time and I revere the sincere way the Director presented such a work in a subdued and sublime manner. I wish the director the best and hope she can work on something happier next time.
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