Spanish with English subtitles
An imaginatively bizarre and entertaining blurring of the boundaries of fiction and documentary. Under mysterious threats of extortion, marimba player Don Alfonso – who plays himself in the film – has to rid himself of everything apart from a table, an armchair to sleep in and his beloved instrument. With his family in hiding he continues to drag the heavy wooden instrument around town, looking for work – but gigs are tough now the traditional Guatemalan instrument has gone out of fashion. His Godson, Chiquillin, a chirpy glue sniffer who is permanently damaged from being hit by a truck as a child, helps him hide his marimba. Chiquillin introduces Don Alfonso to Blacko, an ex-Satanist and established heavy metal musician on the Guatemalan scene who is on the look out for innovative sounds. The peculiar trio embark on a mission to make a new kind of metal music with the marimba. Hernández Cordón’s second feature sets up beautifully composed shots to frame the absurd and often humorous narrative, the strange fusion of fictionalised reality full of energy and warmth.
