Movie: Máncora

Máncora, 2008, directed by Ricardo de Montreuil; originally in Spanish

Máncora is a road trip movie about Santiago, a troubled youth, who feels the need to escape the dreary, oppressive city of Lima for the beach town of Máncora, in the north of Peru.  Accompanying him are Ximena, his step-sister, a Spanish photographer, and her narcissistic husband Inigo.  As they arrive in Máncora, a young people’s haven where people are free and inhibitions are low, the trio push the boundaries of their relationships, causing all sorts of trouble for themselves.

The movie was the third Peruvian film I have seen, and like La Teta Asustada, it was internationally showcased (Sundance 2008).  Like No Se Lo Digas a Nadie, it featured a lot of sex and drugs.  Unlike the two other Peruvian movies, I didn’t think it was very good.  It’s not that Máncora was bad, it’s just that the plot wasn’t very original and the characters weren’t very sympathetic.  The only remarkable things about the movie were the fact that a) it was filmed in Peru and b) that I could actually recognize a few of the locations used in filming.  Even though it was Peruvian, the cast wasn’t.  The main character was Peruvian, but Ximena was Spanish, Inigo was Cuban/American, the hitchhiker they picked up was Brazillian, and one of the love interests is Mexican.

The weird part for me is that I had some friends who saw it when it was in theatres last year and they all told me that it was amazing, so I was expecting it to be a reasonably good movie.  Oh well.