The sins of the past haunt a troubled taxi driver seeking redemption in this intimate tale of revenge, revolution and repressed memories, a take on Peru’s troubled history of violence during the era of the Shining Path insurgency.
The great Mexican actor Damián Alcázar stars as the titular character, a run-down cab driver who, out of a misguided sense of obligation, still attends to his former army commander, a once vicious colonel now old and frail. One day, a woman, portrayed with a quiet strength by Magaly Solier, gets into his cab. Many years ago, she was accused of terrorism and taken into custody, where the colonel abused her repeatedly for more than a year while Magallanes did nothing. Wrecked with guilt over his actions — or rather his inactions — he vows to help the woman however he can, even if it means blackmail or worse. What starts as a earnest character study takes an abrupt left turn into an engrossing thriller. With his background as an actor, it’s no surprise that director Salvador del Solar emphasizes performance in his confident directorial debut. As two damaged souls struggling to overcome their shared histories, Alcazar and Solier are riveting to watch, each finding subtle ways to mark the boundaries of their characters’ volatile emotion landscapes.
DIRECTOR: Salvador del Solar CAST: Damián Alcázar, Magaly Solier, Federico Luppi, Christian Meier, Bruno Odar LANGUAGE: Spanish COUNTRY: Peru, Argentina, Colombia, Spain YEAR: 2015 LENGTH: 109 min
