This is the first time I’ve got the chance to see a film in film festival, I kind of swore to myself that I have to see at least one film. I booked the ticket to El Angel almost a month ago because this story caught my eyes as soon as I saw it: a beautiful teenage boy becomes a thief, then falls in love with robbery and killing.
Before I heard about this story, I’ve seen quite a few films setting bad guys as the protagonists, also I’ve seen people arguing about it, saying that it’s the beautify of people who did the bad things and caused damages, and we should stop making crimes look romantic in the films. That of course, really make sense. It looks exciting when people fight, kill, smash things in the films, but we don’t actually want that to happen in the real life. And too much scenes of crime and violence on screen can bring negative influence to teenagers. However, what if the criminal is an angel? I mean, people are always judging others by their looking even if we know that’s not fair. How would people think and react in that case? How would I think? Will I feel sympathetic or even empathetic to this boy?
Now that I’ve seen the film. Walking out from the cinema, sunshine was blinding, but that’s fine, because those images of the film still stayed in front of my eyes: the boy’s big round shining chestnut eyes, rosy cheeks and lips looking like petals, driving fast like crazy with music in the tunnel, burning car in the field, stupid high neck crop top in all kinds of colors, the dancing in well-furnished or ratty empty rooms… The film is full of colors, music, too sweet and beautiful for a crime story, but I love it. What about the boy? The killer, the criminal, the evil angel? Do I hate him as I should feel about who his is?
The answer is that I don’t know. In this film, there’s no clear explanation of why the boy started to do all these bad things. In some stories, the criminals often have bad parents or had been through some terrible things that cause trauma. The boy in this film, Carlitos, has none. However, we can see that’s he’s not just purely evil. He takes things from others not for money, he tells his little thief pal to slow down when robbing the jewelry shop, then put on a pair of earrings and pretended to be Marilyn Monroe, he dances when police are hunting him down, even in the scene which he drove the car into the car from opposite direction and killed his friend, it’s more like he’s doing this in honor of their friendship(in some way their love) instead of committing a murder. Is he crazy? As far as I’m concerned, he is. No normal man can still look at others with such innocent eyes, or talk to who he killed like they’re playing some games. What he did is evil, but he’s such a sweet angel, not just how he looks, it’s in his personality somehow. And that makes the everything happened very ridiculous but also such a tragedy. Also–I’m not sure if everyone feels the same, it’s actually hard for me to judge a person once you know him or her well. I spent 2 hours with Carlitos in his sunny colorful world, went through all the love and betray with him, I can’t just simply decide whether I hate him or not.
Did I failed in this test of judging people by their appearance, as well as treating the crime in the film like an actual crime instead of something romantic and thrilling? (especially this film is adapted from real story) I don’t know. I actually started to doubt if that arguing really makes sense. Maybe it’s time to stop these moral arguments about films, all we want is a little bit of romance and craziness we don’t really allowed to have in the real life!!! Right, I need to stop talking because it’s obvious that I’m brainwashed by this film right now and couldn’t think straight with all the bubbles in my head.
Guess that’s how you’ll feel when you find your film.