Perder es cuestión de método
Encyclopedia
Perder es Cuestión de Método (English: Method of Losing or The Art of Losing) is a movie co-produced by Spain and Colombia in 2005. It is directed by Sergio Cabrera, and starring Daniel Gimenez Cacho, Cesar Mora, Martina Garcia, Victor Mallarino and Sain Castro.
A grim history, but also human and fun, led by Colombian Sergio Cabrera (Golpe de estadio, La Estrategia del Caracol
), the movie exposes the corruption rampant in the South American country - and the unholy nexus between Politicians, Land Developers, the mafia and the Military Police.
Based on the novel "Method of Losing" by Santiago Gamboa ( the quote is from Juan Sepulveda : "Defeat is often a Question of Method," which in the movie is put into the mouth of the ageing and psychotic mentor of the journalist, Guzman ).
The novel was adapted by screenwriter Jorge Goldenberg
(Ilona Arrives With The Rain), we are shown a Colombia from a very particular angle: through the daily struggle between the romantic and the nihilistic . Daniel Jiménez Cacho (La Mala Educación) plays the journalist Victor Silampa and Martina Garcia (Golpe de Estadio) plays the 16 year old prostitute Quica, while Cesar Mora, in a role worthy of an Oscar-nomination, plays Sancho Panza to the journalist's Don Quixote, as Estupinan - probably the most human and sympathetic of all the characters - representing the Colombian "Everyman".
corpse. A journalist named Victor Silampa (Gimenez Cacho) is writing an article a la Peter Gay, about bourgeouise attitudes about Romantic Love through the 17th to 19th centuries. He refers the corrections to a mannequin installed by the window - mockingly asking her for advice, and referring to her as 'Laura' with mock endearments. This appears to be a device to assuage his loneliness as he has recently been dumped by his wife, Silampa receives a call from the Police-Colonel Aristophanes Moya (Benjumea) who calls him to the station immediately notifying him of the crime. Moya suggests an exchange of favors (Silampa had a criminal record), whereby the journalist would actively investigate the case while Moya will provide him with protection if, in addition, the journalist will "ghost-write" for him a speech for a slimming non-conformist Evangelical Christian sect, originating in Memphis, called "The Last Supper" - who advocate losing weight through Bible Study, confession and dietary changes.
Silampa arrives at the crime scene - obtaining carte blanche through his dropping of the Colonel's name - where he takes photos of the corpse. Later the body is carried to Legal Medicine (Colombian Forensic Institution). The corpse is unrecognizable and the fingerprints had been burned off - the body bloated and discolored after nearly two months in the temperate jungle in accordance with Piedrahita, the forensic. There is a hilarious scene where grieving relatives of "Missing Persons" line up at the door to the mortuary and are quickly paraded past the various bodies, with most leads being inconclusive except for a short, bald, fat man named Emir Estupiñan (Mora) who is searching for his brother, Osler, a taxi driver who has gone missing - and who claims that "something about the corpse is familiar", i.e. reminiscent of his late brother. After Silampa goes to a Psychiatric Hospital where he meets with a former colleague - also mentor, as Silampa calls him "el Maestro" - known as Guzman, who is alternatingly psychotic and a savant and later warns him that impalement is a crime used to scare people.
For other hand a lawyer named Emilio Barragan calls Councilman Marco Tulio Esquilache; apparently both are involved in the crime, as well as being related : Barragan is married to the niece of Esquilache - and is the perfect caricature of the snobbish philanderer. At the same time, the councilman also calls Vargas Vicuña a civil engineer who is very interested in the land near the lake where the body was found impaled.
One night Silampa goes to a brothel called "Lolita". Estupiñan has invited him to talk with a man who might have some information about the murder. They drink together convivially, and Silampa is told by the truck driver named Abuchija that he had loaded "a package" to take it from Tunja to Choconta to an abandoned house. He cynically reports that he "asked no questions", only by business and played by a beautiful woman. Silampa feels bad by the hemorrhoids and the asthma
but when leaving he is accosted by a beautiful young prostitute named Quica. Quica is already busy with a table of drunks and offers him another appointment because she was busy.
The next day Silampa and Estupiñan go where Abuchija, the truck driver had dropped "the package" and enter a small abandoned house near the lake and discover important clues : a construction sign of Vargas Vicuña, a chair with some blood on it, and a sign of Turkish baths "The Earthly Paradise." Estupiñan is involved with the case just to find his brother who apparently went missing right around the time the impaled corpse was supposedly murdered - and confuses Silampa to work for the "secret police" because of his "education" and "access" to governmental corridors which are closed to Estupinan.
Meanwhile, Vargas Vicuña calls Barragan, from the grounds of the lake and asks him to be his lawyer to help him acquire the land as soon as possible. Silampa reports his research to Colonel Moya and the Colonel appears more interested in, and emphasizes that the journalist continue writing his speech for "The Last Supper" congregation. Silampas decides to investigate the Turkish baths "The Earthly Paradise." and goes to meet Quica that night at the "Lolita Bar". She takes him up to a room. Silampa is very drunk and cannot have sex with her, although she undresses and he takes a picture of her - and the room (Significance to be revealed later) He wakes up the next morning in Quica's house where she says that because he was so drunk, some people helped put him in a cab to her house. Trying to act tough and older than her years, she claims he owes her money, to which the journalist smilingly agrees - but she reveals her soft-hearted side and her growing fascination with him and gives him a coffee while he is in the shower. Silampa offers to take her out - but by day - revealing that he is getting emotionally attracted to the young prostitute. Estupiñan drives round with Silampa's car, picks him up for breakfast and the journalist goes home and continues to write Colonel Moya's speech.
Esquilache and Barragan spend the weekend together at their palatial hacienda, going riding in the morning and playing snooker and drinking and talking business at night. Esquilache asks Barragan about the deed to the land where the body was found. He tells that the document or Deed of Ownership of the recently-deceased entrepreneur named Casiodoro Pereira Antunez, but the Deed does not appear to be in the files of the city, and no one has claimed inheritance. Esquilache warns that the land would pass to the district if no one claims ownership and then Colombia Constructions would own the land, and be responsible for developing the area - but this would mean more bribes to be passed around, and less for Esquilache and Barragán. Both go to meet Heliodoro Tiflis - the flamboyant ( and possibly bi-sexual ) owner of the "Lolita" bar, requesting him to track down the Deed for the land at the lake, pleading with him that not finding the Deed of this land would be catastrophic, as it would then be expropriated by and for the district.
Silampa and Quica both arrive in the Turkish baths "The Earthly Paradise, where there is a sect devoted to naturism
and nudity
. While registering, Silampa notes a portrait of the founder Casiodoro Pereira Antunez - the same man who owned the land now wanted by all since his demise. In a hilarious sequence, the naked Silampa goes "detecting" and sneaks out and reads the registration of a suspicious car mentioned by Abuchija. he goes back inside and spends time with Quica and meets the supposed car-owner named Susan Caviedes, who is the Manager of the Baths.
Later Quica and Silampa go to the "Lolita" nightclub where they dance. Quica tells him that her brother, was killed by soldiers, not knowing if they were paramilitary, the army or guerrillas. Silampa invites Quica to his house and they spend the night together. Silampa finds in the newspaper archives a photo of the burial of Pereria Antunez, and asks a colleague who identifies Vargas Vicuña, Barragan, Esquilache and Tiflis were all in attendance. He asks his colleague to help a bit but the other reporter wants to take Silampa's car; he leaves with the keys only to come back and notifies him that the vehicle has been seriously damaged. Silampa goes to take a look at the vandalised car - windshields knocked in, and a turd on the bonnett, with graffiti that reads "AQUI ESTUVIMOS, AQUI COMIMOS Y AQUI NOS CAGAMOS" ("We came here, we ate here, and here we shat."). Silampa realizes that both he and Quica were in danger, and asks Quica to not go to work anymore in the bar and escape with him temporarily.
Tiflis meets and taunts Vargas Vicuña and mocks the engineer by offering several prostitutes. Tiflis becomes aware of Silampa and asks his henchmen to monitor the journalist's home and wait for him to arrive. Silampa has however already moved in with Quica. Estupiñan offers to do him a favor and disguises himself as a plumber, enters the home and picks up Moya's speech and some elements of the investigation. Moya asks Silampa to get away from the investigation but at the same time gives a cell phone to connect with him. Susan, the manager of the Turkish baths turns out to be a former prostitute, and Silampa follows her up to Tiflis hotel penthouse. Apart from the obvious luxury of being on the top floor of a City Hotel. When Tiflis and Susan leave after having sex, Silampa goes to the top floor residence of the don and he finds the Deed
documents. The journalist steals the document and flees the scene accompanied by a taxi driver met on the road. Silampa reviews the Deed that night at the home of Quica. The next day while Esquilache and Vargas Vicuña are driving around looking for the Deed, from the registrar's office they get the name of the journalist and Nancy, Barragan's secretary. Vargas and his thugs arrive at the apartment of journalist, and exchanged shoots with those of Tifilis who are already entrenched in there. Esquilache and his driver come soon after and then leave, while Estupiñan and Abuchija, the driver as witnesses. Quica and Silampa are assaulted by a gunman of Tifilis in search of the document and to defend Quica, Silampa takes a beating and is wounded. Quica accidentally kills the assassin with a knife.
While interrogating Tiflis and his thugs, Esquilache is urbanely told by the gangster that if the Deed turns up, Tiflis will share it for an unspecified share of the profits. An increasingly belaboured Councilman Esquilache calls the lawyer Barragan, who also denies having the Deed, although he has a copy. The next day Tiflis angrily reproaches his lover and his henchman for the loss of the documents, and asks his gunman to keep Susan hostage until he finds the document.
Silampa and Estupiñan go to the Psychiatric Hospital to meet with Guzman, and are told by him that this impaled body was probably Pereira Antunez. They express disbelief as by that time Antunez had already been buried for a month or more. Guzman counters by saying:"You have been looking for a dead man amongst the living." It is also during this visit - when Silampa expresses that he feels defeated - that he quotes Juan Sepulveda : "Lost is a Question of Method...". He gets increasingly agitated as Silampa is expressing being disheartened - ultimately having to be calmed down by staff, cutting short the visit. At night, Estupiñan and Silampa go to a bar by the Cemetery, where the lady who owns it introduces them to a grave-digger, who has obvious visible signs of Leprosy. He takes them into the cemetery to see the tomb of Pereira Antunez and with the help of Jaime Bengala, the leper grave-digger open the tomb only to discover that the body was that of Osler, Estupiñan's brother. This decides Estupinan that no matter what the danger, he is going to avenge his brother. As they part ways, Jaime Bengala repeatedly tells them his name, asking them not to forget it. Silampa shakes his hand, alive to the fact of the leper's social marginalisation - but as he is walking away, he turns back and invites the leper to come drink with them. The three men sit drinking at a cheap bar table until dawn, when Estupiñan and Silampa stagger home. The camera rises over the panorama as they walk away and the misty high-rises of Bogota become visible barely a stone's throw away from this down-trodden area of the city where they have spent the night in shared humanity with a leper as upon the heartless world of the crime-ridden metropolis.
Esquilache is being followed by Abuchija and Estupiñan as he arrives in his official car at an apartment where he confronts Barragan - who is extremely agitated and hysterical, and pulling a gun, alternately levels it at the Councilman and his own temple. He has discovered that Esquilache was complicit in the impalement of Pereira Antunez and this is the impaled. The Councilman cannot hide his despising his niece's husband, and in a sudden reversal, Barragan who has been putting the gun into his mouth and to his temple, shoots Esquilache and is killed by the lawyer. The body falls dramatically several floors. Quica and Silampa arrive at the scene and seeing the corpse of Esquilache, Silampa asks Estupiñan to take care of Quica. the police arrive and handcuff Silampa - as Barragan in his elegant suit calmly walks away after casting a slight glance at the body. Silampa is taken to the police station where Moya congratulates him on the case being practically solved:
Pereira Antúnez was forced to transfer land to Tifilis, possibly after being roughed up. After which Vargas Vicuña manages to kidnap him from Tiflis and wants to force Pereira Antunez to sign the Deed. Silampa has deduced that the signature of the document took place in the room of the bar “Lolitas” where Silampa had been with Quica and taken her picture. Later Pereira had been kidnapped by Vargas Vicuña, but Pereira died of diabetes - and Vargas and his thugs - unable to get the Deed - impaled him to scare the nudists of the Turkish baths. They also killed Osler Estupiñan, who had a resemblance to Antunez, and buried him as Pereira Antúnez. Moya tells Silampa when he is brought to the Police station that as he has already solved the case, he should now go home and rest, specially as Vargas, Tifilis, Susan and, separately, Barragán have been captured. Moya asks him to go home and finish his speech. In the school-room where they are being held, Tifilis confesses to Vargas that it was he had kidnapped Pereira Antúnez - for thinking that his partner, Susan, had not succeeded when Pereira would not sign the document. Accusations and counter-accusations fly -as each reveals the facts about the other. Susan, Vargas and Tiflis get into a fight. Colonel Moya enters the room, and sits in the school-teacher's chair, after fishing out from the trash can a tape-recorder that has the whole incriminating conversation on it. He calmly proposes to them to collaborate with him, and make him a beneficiary in the land deal - stating Barragan would take the rap for all the crimes, while all of them would enjoy the spoils.
Moya, sitting at his desk, recounts for Silampa's benefit the police's closing report - "the Official Version" ! Silampa is enraged at the neatly self-serving concoction of Truth that Moya is pandering but helpless in front of the Colonel's power. The Colonel reminds him that in fucking Quica he was having sex with a minor, and that the body of Tifli's henchman Morsita was found stabbed to death in Quica's apartment - and if Silampa is going to be exceedingly particular about "justice" - Moya requests Silampa to forget about justice, to go along and publish "the official version" as his journalistic effort and "win the Simon Bolivar Prize for Journalism" so that his girlfriend will return to him upon his getting famous, if not rich - and also to finish the speech for "The Last Supper" and deliver it to him. Silampa leaves impotent, chastened and hemmorhoidal and surprised when sees Vargas Vicuña and Susan Caviedes goes free.
Osler Estupiñan is finally buried in his own tomb - with Estupinan, Silampa and the leprous grave-digger Bengala in attendance, as mourners.
As Silampa finishes writing the speech of Moya, Quica visits Silampa as she has got a job as a crooner in Cartagena, arranged by Estupiñan. She is happy about the opportunity but obviously wants to be with Silampa. In a touching cinematic movement, she initially enters the doorway of his apartment, but as it becomes clear to her that Silampa chooses his loneliness over the possibility of happiness with her, she slowly drifts outside of the threshold again - reproaching him wistfully for his choosing his mannequin over the living, breathing woman.
The credits start to roll as Moya - sitting on the centre of a ballroom dinner - starts declaining his speech. The title track once again plays as the creme de la creme of Colombian society mutually applaud each other on this sham scene of a religious vow "to starve" - even as the viewer becomes aware that it is not just food, but the very nation that they are greedily feeding upon.
A grim history, but also human and fun, led by Colombian Sergio Cabrera (Golpe de estadio, La Estrategia del Caracol
La estrategia del caracol
La Estrategia del Caracol is a 1993 Colombian comedy-drama film directed and produced by Colombian filmmaker and director Sergio Cabrera. The film is starred by Frank Ramirez, Florina Lemaitre, Humberto Dorado, Fausto Cabrera and Carlos Vives. The film is a winner of the Berlin International Film...
), the movie exposes the corruption rampant in the South American country - and the unholy nexus between Politicians, Land Developers, the mafia and the Military Police.
Based on the novel "Method of Losing" by Santiago Gamboa ( the quote is from Juan Sepulveda : "Defeat is often a Question of Method," which in the movie is put into the mouth of the ageing and psychotic mentor of the journalist, Guzman ).
The novel was adapted by screenwriter Jorge Goldenberg
Jorge Goldenberg
Jorge Goldenberg Hachero is a prolific screenwriter from Argentina.Jorge Goldenberg was born in San Martín, Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1941.He studied film direction at the Film Institute of the National University of the Litoral in Santa Fe....
(Ilona Arrives With The Rain), we are shown a Colombia from a very particular angle: through the daily struggle between the romantic and the nihilistic . Daniel Jiménez Cacho (La Mala Educación) plays the journalist Victor Silampa and Martina Garcia (Golpe de Estadio) plays the 16 year old prostitute Quica, while Cesar Mora, in a role worthy of an Oscar-nomination, plays Sancho Panza to the journalist's Don Quixote, as Estupinan - probably the most human and sympathetic of all the characters - representing the Colombian "Everyman".
Plot
One misty morning, as the beginning credits roll, on the out-skirts of Bogota, a fisherman (Jorge Ali Triana) and his dog out for a walk on a mountain-side besides the Lake Tuesno discover an ImpaledImpalement
Impalement is the traumatic penetration of an organism by an elongated foreign object such as a stake, pole, or spear, and this usually implies complete perforation of the central mass of the impaled body...
corpse. A journalist named Victor Silampa (Gimenez Cacho) is writing an article a la Peter Gay, about bourgeouise attitudes about Romantic Love through the 17th to 19th centuries. He refers the corrections to a mannequin installed by the window - mockingly asking her for advice, and referring to her as 'Laura' with mock endearments. This appears to be a device to assuage his loneliness as he has recently been dumped by his wife, Silampa receives a call from the Police-Colonel Aristophanes Moya (Benjumea) who calls him to the station immediately notifying him of the crime. Moya suggests an exchange of favors (Silampa had a criminal record), whereby the journalist would actively investigate the case while Moya will provide him with protection if, in addition, the journalist will "ghost-write" for him a speech for a slimming non-conformist Evangelical Christian sect, originating in Memphis, called "The Last Supper" - who advocate losing weight through Bible Study, confession and dietary changes.
Silampa arrives at the crime scene - obtaining carte blanche through his dropping of the Colonel's name - where he takes photos of the corpse. Later the body is carried to Legal Medicine (Colombian Forensic Institution). The corpse is unrecognizable and the fingerprints had been burned off - the body bloated and discolored after nearly two months in the temperate jungle in accordance with Piedrahita, the forensic. There is a hilarious scene where grieving relatives of "Missing Persons" line up at the door to the mortuary and are quickly paraded past the various bodies, with most leads being inconclusive except for a short, bald, fat man named Emir Estupiñan (Mora) who is searching for his brother, Osler, a taxi driver who has gone missing - and who claims that "something about the corpse is familiar", i.e. reminiscent of his late brother. After Silampa goes to a Psychiatric Hospital where he meets with a former colleague - also mentor, as Silampa calls him "el Maestro" - known as Guzman, who is alternatingly psychotic and a savant and later warns him that impalement is a crime used to scare people.
For other hand a lawyer named Emilio Barragan calls Councilman Marco Tulio Esquilache; apparently both are involved in the crime, as well as being related : Barragan is married to the niece of Esquilache - and is the perfect caricature of the snobbish philanderer. At the same time, the councilman also calls Vargas Vicuña a civil engineer who is very interested in the land near the lake where the body was found impaled.
One night Silampa goes to a brothel called "Lolita". Estupiñan has invited him to talk with a man who might have some information about the murder. They drink together convivially, and Silampa is told by the truck driver named Abuchija that he had loaded "a package" to take it from Tunja to Choconta to an abandoned house. He cynically reports that he "asked no questions", only by business and played by a beautiful woman. Silampa feels bad by the hemorrhoids and the asthma
Asthma
Asthma is the common chronic inflammatory disease of the airways characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and bronchospasm. Symptoms include wheezing, coughing, chest tightness, and shortness of breath...
but when leaving he is accosted by a beautiful young prostitute named Quica. Quica is already busy with a table of drunks and offers him another appointment because she was busy.
The next day Silampa and Estupiñan go where Abuchija, the truck driver had dropped "the package" and enter a small abandoned house near the lake and discover important clues : a construction sign of Vargas Vicuña, a chair with some blood on it, and a sign of Turkish baths "The Earthly Paradise." Estupiñan is involved with the case just to find his brother who apparently went missing right around the time the impaled corpse was supposedly murdered - and confuses Silampa to work for the "secret police" because of his "education" and "access" to governmental corridors which are closed to Estupinan.
Meanwhile, Vargas Vicuña calls Barragan, from the grounds of the lake and asks him to be his lawyer to help him acquire the land as soon as possible. Silampa reports his research to Colonel Moya and the Colonel appears more interested in, and emphasizes that the journalist continue writing his speech for "The Last Supper" congregation. Silampas decides to investigate the Turkish baths "The Earthly Paradise." and goes to meet Quica that night at the "Lolita Bar". She takes him up to a room. Silampa is very drunk and cannot have sex with her, although she undresses and he takes a picture of her - and the room (Significance to be revealed later) He wakes up the next morning in Quica's house where she says that because he was so drunk, some people helped put him in a cab to her house. Trying to act tough and older than her years, she claims he owes her money, to which the journalist smilingly agrees - but she reveals her soft-hearted side and her growing fascination with him and gives him a coffee while he is in the shower. Silampa offers to take her out - but by day - revealing that he is getting emotionally attracted to the young prostitute. Estupiñan drives round with Silampa's car, picks him up for breakfast and the journalist goes home and continues to write Colonel Moya's speech.
Esquilache and Barragan spend the weekend together at their palatial hacienda, going riding in the morning and playing snooker and drinking and talking business at night. Esquilache asks Barragan about the deed to the land where the body was found. He tells that the document or Deed of Ownership of the recently-deceased entrepreneur named Casiodoro Pereira Antunez, but the Deed does not appear to be in the files of the city, and no one has claimed inheritance. Esquilache warns that the land would pass to the district if no one claims ownership and then Colombia Constructions would own the land, and be responsible for developing the area - but this would mean more bribes to be passed around, and less for Esquilache and Barragán. Both go to meet Heliodoro Tiflis - the flamboyant ( and possibly bi-sexual ) owner of the "Lolita" bar, requesting him to track down the Deed for the land at the lake, pleading with him that not finding the Deed of this land would be catastrophic, as it would then be expropriated by and for the district.
Silampa and Quica both arrive in the Turkish baths "The Earthly Paradise, where there is a sect devoted to naturism
Naturism
Naturism or nudism is a cultural and political movement practising, advocating and defending social nudity in private and in public. It may also refer to a lifestyle based on personal, family and/or social nudism....
and nudity
Nudity
Nudity is the state of wearing no clothing. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic. The amount of clothing worn depends on functional considerations and social considerations...
. While registering, Silampa notes a portrait of the founder Casiodoro Pereira Antunez - the same man who owned the land now wanted by all since his demise. In a hilarious sequence, the naked Silampa goes "detecting" and sneaks out and reads the registration of a suspicious car mentioned by Abuchija. he goes back inside and spends time with Quica and meets the supposed car-owner named Susan Caviedes, who is the Manager of the Baths.
Later Quica and Silampa go to the "Lolita" nightclub where they dance. Quica tells him that her brother, was killed by soldiers, not knowing if they were paramilitary, the army or guerrillas. Silampa invites Quica to his house and they spend the night together. Silampa finds in the newspaper archives a photo of the burial of Pereria Antunez, and asks a colleague who identifies Vargas Vicuña, Barragan, Esquilache and Tiflis were all in attendance. He asks his colleague to help a bit but the other reporter wants to take Silampa's car; he leaves with the keys only to come back and notifies him that the vehicle has been seriously damaged. Silampa goes to take a look at the vandalised car - windshields knocked in, and a turd on the bonnett, with graffiti that reads "AQUI ESTUVIMOS, AQUI COMIMOS Y AQUI NOS CAGAMOS" ("We came here, we ate here, and here we shat."). Silampa realizes that both he and Quica were in danger, and asks Quica to not go to work anymore in the bar and escape with him temporarily.
Tiflis meets and taunts Vargas Vicuña and mocks the engineer by offering several prostitutes. Tiflis becomes aware of Silampa and asks his henchmen to monitor the journalist's home and wait for him to arrive. Silampa has however already moved in with Quica. Estupiñan offers to do him a favor and disguises himself as a plumber, enters the home and picks up Moya's speech and some elements of the investigation. Moya asks Silampa to get away from the investigation but at the same time gives a cell phone to connect with him. Susan, the manager of the Turkish baths turns out to be a former prostitute, and Silampa follows her up to Tiflis hotel penthouse. Apart from the obvious luxury of being on the top floor of a City Hotel. When Tiflis and Susan leave after having sex, Silampa goes to the top floor residence of the don and he finds the Deed
Deed
A deed is any legal instrument in writing which passes, or affirms or confirms something which passes, an interest, right, or property and that is signed, attested, delivered, and in some jurisdictions sealed...
documents. The journalist steals the document and flees the scene accompanied by a taxi driver met on the road. Silampa reviews the Deed that night at the home of Quica. The next day while Esquilache and Vargas Vicuña are driving around looking for the Deed, from the registrar's office they get the name of the journalist and Nancy, Barragan's secretary. Vargas and his thugs arrive at the apartment of journalist, and exchanged shoots with those of Tifilis who are already entrenched in there. Esquilache and his driver come soon after and then leave, while Estupiñan and Abuchija, the driver as witnesses. Quica and Silampa are assaulted by a gunman of Tifilis in search of the document and to defend Quica, Silampa takes a beating and is wounded. Quica accidentally kills the assassin with a knife.
While interrogating Tiflis and his thugs, Esquilache is urbanely told by the gangster that if the Deed turns up, Tiflis will share it for an unspecified share of the profits. An increasingly belaboured Councilman Esquilache calls the lawyer Barragan, who also denies having the Deed, although he has a copy. The next day Tiflis angrily reproaches his lover and his henchman for the loss of the documents, and asks his gunman to keep Susan hostage until he finds the document.
Silampa and Estupiñan go to the Psychiatric Hospital to meet with Guzman, and are told by him that this impaled body was probably Pereira Antunez. They express disbelief as by that time Antunez had already been buried for a month or more. Guzman counters by saying:"You have been looking for a dead man amongst the living." It is also during this visit - when Silampa expresses that he feels defeated - that he quotes Juan Sepulveda : "Lost is a Question of Method...". He gets increasingly agitated as Silampa is expressing being disheartened - ultimately having to be calmed down by staff, cutting short the visit. At night, Estupiñan and Silampa go to a bar by the Cemetery, where the lady who owns it introduces them to a grave-digger, who has obvious visible signs of Leprosy. He takes them into the cemetery to see the tomb of Pereira Antunez and with the help of Jaime Bengala, the leper grave-digger open the tomb only to discover that the body was that of Osler, Estupiñan's brother. This decides Estupinan that no matter what the danger, he is going to avenge his brother. As they part ways, Jaime Bengala repeatedly tells them his name, asking them not to forget it. Silampa shakes his hand, alive to the fact of the leper's social marginalisation - but as he is walking away, he turns back and invites the leper to come drink with them. The three men sit drinking at a cheap bar table until dawn, when Estupiñan and Silampa stagger home. The camera rises over the panorama as they walk away and the misty high-rises of Bogota become visible barely a stone's throw away from this down-trodden area of the city where they have spent the night in shared humanity with a leper as upon the heartless world of the crime-ridden metropolis.
Esquilache is being followed by Abuchija and Estupiñan as he arrives in his official car at an apartment where he confronts Barragan - who is extremely agitated and hysterical, and pulling a gun, alternately levels it at the Councilman and his own temple. He has discovered that Esquilache was complicit in the impalement of Pereira Antunez and this is the impaled. The Councilman cannot hide his despising his niece's husband, and in a sudden reversal, Barragan who has been putting the gun into his mouth and to his temple, shoots Esquilache and is killed by the lawyer. The body falls dramatically several floors. Quica and Silampa arrive at the scene and seeing the corpse of Esquilache, Silampa asks Estupiñan to take care of Quica. the police arrive and handcuff Silampa - as Barragan in his elegant suit calmly walks away after casting a slight glance at the body. Silampa is taken to the police station where Moya congratulates him on the case being practically solved:
Pereira Antúnez was forced to transfer land to Tifilis, possibly after being roughed up. After which Vargas Vicuña manages to kidnap him from Tiflis and wants to force Pereira Antunez to sign the Deed. Silampa has deduced that the signature of the document took place in the room of the bar “Lolitas” where Silampa had been with Quica and taken her picture. Later Pereira had been kidnapped by Vargas Vicuña, but Pereira died of diabetes - and Vargas and his thugs - unable to get the Deed - impaled him to scare the nudists of the Turkish baths. They also killed Osler Estupiñan, who had a resemblance to Antunez, and buried him as Pereira Antúnez. Moya tells Silampa when he is brought to the Police station that as he has already solved the case, he should now go home and rest, specially as Vargas, Tifilis, Susan and, separately, Barragán have been captured. Moya asks him to go home and finish his speech. In the school-room where they are being held, Tifilis confesses to Vargas that it was he had kidnapped Pereira Antúnez - for thinking that his partner, Susan, had not succeeded when Pereira would not sign the document. Accusations and counter-accusations fly -as each reveals the facts about the other. Susan, Vargas and Tiflis get into a fight. Colonel Moya enters the room, and sits in the school-teacher's chair, after fishing out from the trash can a tape-recorder that has the whole incriminating conversation on it. He calmly proposes to them to collaborate with him, and make him a beneficiary in the land deal - stating Barragan would take the rap for all the crimes, while all of them would enjoy the spoils.
Moya, sitting at his desk, recounts for Silampa's benefit the police's closing report - "the Official Version" ! Silampa is enraged at the neatly self-serving concoction of Truth that Moya is pandering but helpless in front of the Colonel's power. The Colonel reminds him that in fucking Quica he was having sex with a minor, and that the body of Tifli's henchman Morsita was found stabbed to death in Quica's apartment - and if Silampa is going to be exceedingly particular about "justice" - Moya requests Silampa to forget about justice, to go along and publish "the official version" as his journalistic effort and "win the Simon Bolivar Prize for Journalism" so that his girlfriend will return to him upon his getting famous, if not rich - and also to finish the speech for "The Last Supper" and deliver it to him. Silampa leaves impotent, chastened and hemmorhoidal and surprised when sees Vargas Vicuña and Susan Caviedes goes free.
Osler Estupiñan is finally buried in his own tomb - with Estupinan, Silampa and the leprous grave-digger Bengala in attendance, as mourners.
As Silampa finishes writing the speech of Moya, Quica visits Silampa as she has got a job as a crooner in Cartagena, arranged by Estupiñan. She is happy about the opportunity but obviously wants to be with Silampa. In a touching cinematic movement, she initially enters the doorway of his apartment, but as it becomes clear to her that Silampa chooses his loneliness over the possibility of happiness with her, she slowly drifts outside of the threshold again - reproaching him wistfully for his choosing his mannequin over the living, breathing woman.
The credits start to roll as Moya - sitting on the centre of a ballroom dinner - starts declaining his speech. The title track once again plays as the creme de la creme of Colombian society mutually applaud each other on this sham scene of a religious vow "to starve" - even as the viewer becomes aware that it is not just food, but the very nation that they are greedily feeding upon.
Cast
- Daniel Gimenez Cacho as Victor Silampa: A journalist who, through an exchange of favors with the police solved the case of a body impaled on the territories of a lake near Bogota.
- Cesar Mora as Emir Estupiñan:A man searching for his brother alive or dead, which ends up being a victim of this crime.
- Martina Garcia as Maria "Quica" Gomez Castañol: A prostitute who has a relationship with Silampa almost falls for her even as a minor and ends involved in the events.
- Victor Mallarino as Councilan Marco Tulio Esquilache: A Bogota councilman seeking control of the land of the lake and is an accomplice of the impalement of the landowner Pereira Antunez.
- Carlos Benjumea as Coronel Aristofanes Moya: An obese police colonel investigating the case of impalement. He has a close friendship with Silampa and this research gives a speech in return for a sect of thinning.
- Jairo Camargo as Angel Vargas Vicuna: A civil engineer who seeks control of land in the lake, is complicit in Esquilache and Tiflis and who impaled Pereira Antunez.
- Humberto Dorado as Heliodoro Tiflis: An emerald and entrepreneur eccentric owner of a hotel and bar "Lolitas" who inherited of Pereira Antunez the land from the lake.
- Sain Castro as Emilio Barragan: A lawyer, husband of the niece of Esquilache. Deed completely legalize reasons for whoever controls the land of the lake.
- Gustavo Angarita as Guzman: An ezquisofrenic former journalist mentor of Silampa.