Dirty Hands (2014) Manos sucias

Director: Josef Kubota Wladyka
Stars: Cristian James Abvincula, Jarlin Javier Martinez, Hadder Blandon

Towing a submerged torpedo in the wake of their battered fishing boat, a desperate fisherman and a naive kid embark on a journey trafficking millions of dollars worth of cocaine. Shot entirely on location along the Pacific coast of Colombia—in areas that bear the indelible scars of the drug trade – Manos Sucias refuses to glamorize the drug trade but rather seeks to offer a rare glimpse of its devastating effects.

This movie is simply great. Perhaps I am biased, as I conduct research in epidemiology in the same geographic area in which this movie develops. I can attest that this movie is faithful to the complex social dynamics in the Colombian Pacific coast, and does so in a way that does not detract from the tragedy of their misery. "There are no black people in Bogota" is a sentence repeated several times in the movie, and it has a profound meaning: the disparity in development between rural and urban areas is enormous. Buenaventura, where the story begins, processes 70% of the cargo that enters Colombia, but this economic activity leaves very little behind. The lack of jobs, services, security, opportunities is inferred from this movie as the cause for the ordeal of the protagonists, but the movie avoids stereotypes and simplistic political interpretations. Character development is superb. Manos Sucias is a lesson in contemporary history.

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