2.Main Content
Secuestro Express preview plus a conversation with Jonathan Jakubowicz
Tue 30 May 2006
The National Film & Television School and The Script Factory, in association with Buena Vista UK, present
Secuestro Express (cert 18)
A preview screening followed by a conversation with writer/director Jonathan Jakubowicz
A ‘secuestro express’ is a short sharp kidnapping perpetrated by small groups of poverty-stricken thugs who randomly pick off apparently upper class victims to extort quick money from their wealthy parents. A thriving and profitable business - and a major problem for contemporary Latin America - this is the background for Secuestro Express, the frightening and visceral story of one young couple's nightmare as they careen through the underbelly of Caracas, Venezuela, in the hands of three thugs who've made them their latest payday. Carla (Mia Maestro) and Martin (Jean Paul Leroux), are a young beautiful upper-class couple fresh from a night of dancing and partying who cross paths with three men who make quick cash by kidnapping unwitting young adults. Carla and Martin become the next victims and are sent on a terrifying overnight journey through the city as they wait for Carla's father Sergio (Ruben Blades) to hand over twenty thousand dollars - a small amount for a rich Caraqueno, but the equivalent of close to 5 years of the Venezuelan minimum wage.
The biggest grossing film in its home country (out-performing everything from Titanic to The Passion of the Christ) the film has hit a major nerve at home (getting deep under the skin of President Chavez – coincidently a visitor to London this week as a guest of Ken Livingtone), and is causing shock waves internationally as much because of its jolting violence.
With comparisons to City of God and Amores Perros coming thick and fast, the stakes are high for its 27-year old writer/director, Jonathan Jakubowicz, who was mentored throughout by Robert Rodriguez. In London to launch the film, Jakubowicz joins us to talk about shaping his high-octane action feature with a social heart.
Tuesday 30 May
6.30 for 6.45pm
£7.50 (£6 concs)
Screen on the Green, Upper Street, Islington N1
Box office 020 7226 3520 (open from 2.30pm daily)
What the press say about Secuestro Express
UNCUT MAGAZINE - Film of the Month
“It is a political film, and Jakubowicz is a director with serious intentions. But he's just as committed to entertainment. Frequently, he achieves a mix of both approaches… Mostly, Secuestro is a riot of speed, danger and movement. When he showed a rough cut to his mentor, Robert Rodriguez, the Sin City director told him to slow it down, as the audience could only be expected to cope with so much jeopardy. Jakubowicz added a few contemplative interludes, but Secuestro remains a rare example of a film where the director's cut would be shorter”.
TOTAL FILM – 4 stars
“The whole thing packs a tasty punch and odd-but-fascinating Pulp
Fiction-style quirks, and while the low-budget production values don’t make for eye candy, they do ramp up the realism. Some scenes are so sweatily intimate you’ll feel slightly dirty afterwards. This grim tone means Secuestro Express won’t appeal to fans of movie fluff, but this film isn’t supposed to make anyone comfortable – it works as much as an exposé of these shocking everyday kidnappings and the socio-political reasons why they happen as it does a piece of stand-alone storytelling. That, in itself, is an impressive achievement”.
LA TIMES
“Jakubowicz is a whiz at setting up an exceedingly tense predicament and then building upon it a nearly unbearable suspense with ingenuity and insight. Secuestro Express goes full-throttle; it has so much energy that its strobe cuts, split screens, constantly fluid camerawork are expressive and exciting rather than distracting”.
NY TIMES
“The film, written and directed by Jonathan Jakubowicz and shot on digital video, uses a variety of surprisingly effective gimmicks. The jarring speeded-up and slow-motion scenes effectively evoke a sense of dread, raw urgency and adrenaline-filled drug rushes (reflecting the perpetual narcotic intake of both captors and captives). Split-screen segments, commonly used to bring proximity to characters separated by great distances, here cleverly reveal the simultaneous actions of people located in the claustrophobic setting of one car. Brief moments of peace occasionally materialize from within the chaos, and it's then that the complexity of the characters - perfectly cast across the board - can be glimpsed. As stereotypes are stripped away, the villains become more human, even sympathetic. And while Martin's truly unflattering colors reveal themselves, Carla begins to feel more at ease with her kidnappers, perhaps because their cruelty isn't as personal or painful.
Whenever a feeling of calm or security starts to set in, the film spins out of control again - each time escalating to an even more extreme level. The constant threat of violence and rape is difficult to endure, but the unpredictable Secuestro Express is more than just a dizzying thrill ride laced with small doses of pitch-black comic relief. It manages to raise awareness of frightening real-life class wars and deep-rooted corruption in a world where the cops are more treacherous than the crooks, and no one can be trusted. Even the most hard-core criminals have to watch their backs, because there is always someone more dangerous lurking around every corner”.
Together, The National Film and Television School and The Script Factory stage regular screenings, Q&As and masterclasses, in a programme supported by Skillset through the Film Skills Fund.
