The Lieutenant begins less sympathetic, but his cold and corrupt heart melts quickly as he sees the harm he has wrought and how it crashes everything around him. Sera might elicit some sympathy given how she is treated by the men in her life, but that soon withers once her privilege leaks into deadly power and manipulation. And each of these people's lives now revolve around drug dealer and poet Renato, whom we only meet at the climax of his life.Īs the hurricane bears down on the island, the wind slowly picking up, the waves intensifying from subtle to monstrous, so too does the insidious manifest slowly into these character's lives. Enter Candela, a Cuban drag queen, who might be respected on stage but it proverbial (and likely) spit on in the streets. Enter Lieutenant Perez, a police detective who is not above stealing alcohol and drugs from a crime scene, yet is still compelled to solve the case if it brings him closer to his estranged daughter, despite threats from those in power. Except when she isn't playing, and only her societal position gives her the power to try and cover up her crime. Told in threee parts, the story begins with poor little rich girl Sera, tired of her opulant life where she must play a very specific part - but then she goes to play another part, 'slumming' in the seedy part of town, enjoying sex with strangers and playing at being bad. In this corner of the Dominican Republic, the authorities warn of an impending hurricane, currently brewing off the coast, to soon make landfall. The first feature film from Dominican filmmaker Andrés Farías Cintrón, is a neon-and-music-soaked queer thriller, with blurred lines of loyalty and sexuality, all under threat of mother nature and a haunting spirit that might be death in disguise. But, corruption and crime are everywhere, and it's just the rich who get away with it.Ĭandela is the kind of mid-budget thriller that we rarely see nowadays, as well as being a dark tapestry of life of those living on the proverbial edge, in society and the political spectrum. One could argue that, given it's the rich and powerful who hold all the proverbial cards, that 'seedy' side might contain a little more virtue and honesty that is perceived. Likely any town or city has a 'seedy' side - the ones filled with the dregs of society, the 'sons of bitches' who bear the brunt of cruelty and stereotyping of crime and social dejection.
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