Being from Ecuador I find this film an insult to my country's people. I feel outraged at how Rodents portrays Ecuadorians in an unrealistic, shallow way. The characters are awfully underdeveloped, they have no history, no personality, they are just stereotypes, dummies with no morals or spirit, each and every one of them exists only to give birth to a new incoherent plot element.
For instance, when the writer was in need of an epilepsy attack he created an empty young man from Quito's poorest corners. No compassion for him, no real drama in him, the writer uses the kid only to contrast with his favorite characters. There are thousands of deep dramas in the life of a 'serrano' young person who strives amongst poverty and family disapproval, none of them is richly portrayed here. Oh, but there is epilepsy!
The film looses itself in too many plot lines, all of them confusing and incoherent, it has dozens of characters, and no focus in any of them. The result is simply unreal.
Another example of the shallowness of the script is the protagonist (if there is any), the robber from Guayaquil. He carries all the wrong attitudes that can exist within a desperate person, but then again, we don't see desperation, lack of alternatives or suffering, not to the extent that can justify killing or abandoning friends.
The entire plot is non-existent, just ask yourself after seeing this movie, what was the storyline? where was the climax? did any drama develop throughout the movie? I don't mean general ideas, like "this is a description of the drama within the different social classes of Ecuador". A compelling movie is one that tells us a concrete story to exemplify it's point, Rodents is a spaghetti of situations which occur in too short a span of time to be believable.
If you wish you can disregard all my film criticism, may be I am wrong and the film is pure art. But there's only one point that I ask you to consider: Please don't judge us by this movie, Ecuador is not a rat-hole, the vast majority of our poor people literally starve to death or illness, yet very few of them even think about robbing or killing. As I write this, my country is living one of it's most difficult moments in it's entire history; 'dolarización' seems to come as the last blow to an already dying economy, it seems to me that the least we can do is not to lie about our people, and less with an awful, vapid movie.
For instance, when the writer was in need of an epilepsy attack he created an empty young man from Quito's poorest corners. No compassion for him, no real drama in him, the writer uses the kid only to contrast with his favorite characters. There are thousands of deep dramas in the life of a 'serrano' young person who strives amongst poverty and family disapproval, none of them is richly portrayed here. Oh, but there is epilepsy!
The film looses itself in too many plot lines, all of them confusing and incoherent, it has dozens of characters, and no focus in any of them. The result is simply unreal.
Another example of the shallowness of the script is the protagonist (if there is any), the robber from Guayaquil. He carries all the wrong attitudes that can exist within a desperate person, but then again, we don't see desperation, lack of alternatives or suffering, not to the extent that can justify killing or abandoning friends.
The entire plot is non-existent, just ask yourself after seeing this movie, what was the storyline? where was the climax? did any drama develop throughout the movie? I don't mean general ideas, like "this is a description of the drama within the different social classes of Ecuador". A compelling movie is one that tells us a concrete story to exemplify it's point, Rodents is a spaghetti of situations which occur in too short a span of time to be believable.
If you wish you can disregard all my film criticism, may be I am wrong and the film is pure art. But there's only one point that I ask you to consider: Please don't judge us by this movie, Ecuador is not a rat-hole, the vast majority of our poor people literally starve to death or illness, yet very few of them even think about robbing or killing. As I write this, my country is living one of it's most difficult moments in it's entire history; 'dolarización' seems to come as the last blow to an already dying economy, it seems to me that the least we can do is not to lie about our people, and less with an awful, vapid movie.