LiveWire Review/ Pelo Malo

LiveWire Film Critic Shaquille Silva reviews Pelo Malo…

Mariana Rondón brings us the story of a child and mother’s daily struggles in an environment that is only volatile to them. Junior (Samuel Lange Zambrano) is manifesting somewhat effeminate traits, attempting obsessively to straighten his hair in time for his school photo or dancing more emotively than other boys. In a world very much dominated by masculinity, this arouses a homophobia in his mother, Marta (Samantha Castillo), who is desperately struggling to find a stable job and so we have our conflicts. The film follows these conflicts and the dysfunctional family story plays out in the film.

Pelo Malo is very much a tale of innocence in a very un-innocent world and I found the character of Junior very appealing. He had a certain likability and allowed you to empathise and hence sympathise with him. This is a story about Junior and his mother and so immersion into his their mindsets and perspectives of events is important. This immersion is somewhat further enhanced by the actual lack of music score. Possibly the only music you hear in Pelo Malo is through radio stations or speakers and is the focus of Junior’s attention. I felt this was a powerful way of grounding the film and also meant that capturing the tone depended more on the actors.

However, at a couple of times, the film did feel draggy with no apparent plot-line building up. Possibly this is deliberate in an effort to emulate real life; each day is usually just a jumble of events that happen to occur. At times I did notice some scenes were metaphorical or did carry some interesting symbolism but most would go over the heads of an average audience.

Nonetheless, Pelo Melo brings us to an environment that I found refreshingly different with intriguingly tense drama amongst appealingly complex characters.

Pelo Malo (15) is currently screening at Cornerhouse. Book your tickets here.