ZERO HOUR

Oh my God! What a contradictory land where I come from! I´m just like that charming monkey on my avatar (which is the cover of Abel Posse´s book Daimón, drawn by Horacio Salinas Blanch), squatting behind the bushes with a sword on my hand. Although I would prefer an axe. I´m sheltered between strange weeds and sharply-edged branches with thorns, watching all happening in the jungle of the streets. I tell you now that I can´t understand a thing.

Some people here in my land (the majority, but not by much, I may say) could claim that they are fervent anti-violent individuals, post anti-bullfighting propaganda on their facebook profiles, and then openly enjoy in a morbid and bizarre way videos of brutal quartering of an inmate in the most horrible prison that has ever existed. Yes, because that happens. The prison is called Tocorón, by the way, if you wanna search it on the Internet.

Most of the population seems to hate delinquents but at the same time idolize or at least respect them, and of course fear them. In the nineties the “malandro” was the boss. I mean that he had power, influence, balls. One could hear college boys taking advantage of others using the manners and expressions (innate or pretended) of the predominant bad-ass of the moment. Now this “hero” could be a reggaeton singer, a famous criminal of a specific time/zone, a “Pran” which is something horrible that maybe I will talk about later, a charismatic politician, or a movie actor.

Maybe this last one is a good example. I think “La Hora Cero” (2010), in English: Zero Hour, is a very good movie. It’s true that it’s about the same subjects most of the “relevant” venezuelan movies share: delinquency, violence, corruption. But it’s really well-made and has a lot of throbbing signals of our convulsed culture. Here is the trailer if you wanna check it out:

This is my favorite malandro-movie, especially because it shows you how some people really see the villain: like their last savior.

Weird, right?