Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

good back-story, and good acting

From my favorite movies..

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Satanas (Satan) begins with a women confessing in church, she is worried because she can't provide food for her children. The priest offers to get some food for them. When he returns with food they are all gone. The next time he sees her, she's in church at the foot of a statue of St. Michael and covered in blood. She tells him that she has freed her children.Then we meet Eliseo a lonely penniless man who finds refuge in literature. He was a former soldier for the US, at times seems generous but perhaps his generosity is because he is just impatient with people. He's a hygiene-freak, constantly cleaning himself with hand sanitizer. He lives with his mom but their relationship is just about hurting each other verbally in every exchange they have. He plays chess regularly but doesn't want to talk to his partner. He spends a lot of time in libraries and gets along well with a librarian who calls him "doctor", who respects him and isn't nosy. He is also a private English tutor and tutors a beautiful well-to-do teen girl.Our third main character is an attractive woman who sells coffee in a large central meat and produce market. She seems depressed, she's better than the people she has to deal with: butchers, produce sellers. One day she is approached by two sleazy guys with a business proposition. The deal is that she will go out to clubs, hook up with a guy, get him drugged so that her business partners can rob him. In exchange she gets a cut of the money and to live in a nice apartment. At first this makes her sick, but eventually she enjoys as she also becomes close to one of her partners.For the most part all these stories are unconnected but all these characters undergo a deep transformation. The priest visits the infanticidal mother in jail, but she is drawn to evil- pasting her cell wall with newspaper articles of atrocities, she tries to seduce the priest, and reads biblical passages that makes reference to the devil.The priest in turn is having an affair with the church maid and decides to leave the priesthood for her.The attractive woman ends up one day raped by a taxi driver and his associate and she decides she wants ultimate revenge.And Eliseo transformation is more of a slow descent into madness. He is anti-social and good-natured. But his good nature is tested again and again forcing him to leave it behind. He becomes much more confrontational and downright misanthropic. One day he locks himself up in his room to read Jeckyll and Hyde. When he comes out he is transformed. He doesn't put up with annoyances anymore. He takes his gun, some ammo, then withdraws all the money out from his bank. He pays a visit to everyone he knows. Then he walks into a restaurant. Other patrons include the former priest and his lover, the rape victim who know is a server at the restaurant.At the end we find out that this movie is based on a novel about a real life massacre that took place years ago in Colombia.This movie is quite good. All the stories are believable and well acted. The pace slows down quite a bit when it comes to Eliseo's story, but that is because he is seemingly such a measured and calculating man. But inside trouble was brewing. The portrayal of his madness is pretty good. He is an introvert. He doesn't scream and make scenes. He absorbs it all into himself until one day he can't take it anymore.Overall, a very good and enjoyable movie. A success for Colombian film-making. I didn't know the background of it or where it would go so it was very interesting to see how it all turned out. The music is good, it keeps things tense. The cinematography is well done also. While it may seem the stories are disconnected, they are not insofar as all these people become someone they are not. It may seem that their coming together at the end is forced. At the same time, if you think about it and were to pick some people from a restaurant and follow their lives, you may find something akin to what this movie shows.

I did not know anything about this movie or the book it was based on until today. My brother's former wife emailed me that me she saw a powerful Colombian movie about a ex-Vietnam vet who goes on a killing spree. Not until the end of the movie did she realize what she was watching was the murder of my cousin Roberto Montes and his girlfriend. Of course she was completely rattled. Roberto was a wonderful young man and adored by his family. Especially since he was the only boy in the family of three sisters. He had just finished graduate school and had dreams of embarking on his career and I imagine marrying the woman he loved. Tragically the night they were killed they were celebrating their birthday which they shared. It was a truly horrifying time and I am not sure if I will ever see the movie. We glorify the killers and forget the victims.Lisa Ackel Judge

I had to watch this film for my Latin American film class the other day. At first, I thought it had the appearance of a well budgeted, well filmed movie with a lot of potential. Although it was obvious mostly bad things were to come, I was excited to see what was going to happen next. The three stories slowly built themselves up, peaked my interest and then the movie took a turn for the worse.The climax seemed clumsy, too many parts falling together too quickly, too loosely. Rape scenes typically turn my stomach and this one wasn't the worst I've ever seen, but it appeared unnecessarily long and graphic. I thought it would have been more interesting to explore WHY Eliseo was so affected by the War. Instead, the movie HINTED at that and was inartistically blatant with everything else.Finding out that this movie was based on a true story was one of the only redeeming qualities about it, for me of course. It is always interesting for a film, especially Latin American, to question the sanctity of the church, but to find out the side stories and their gratuitous violence were absent of the real life story made them lose whatever hint of substance they had.I also think it's a weak effort to have 3 stories barely intertwined come together at the end with a quick murder scene.If you haven't seen it, go ahead, it's a good effort but falls short.

I just saw the world premier last night at the Miami International Film Festival with my wife. From the opening scene, I had the feeling that things were only going to get worse. This is the story of several people in Bogota, Columbia, set in the mid-1980's. It follows each of them into what I can only describe as a descent into hell, climaxing in a convergence of their worlds with an ending that will stay with viewer for a long time.This film has a sense of realism that reminds me of other films such as Amores Perros and City of God (Cidade de Deus). There are some very graphic scenes of violence and there may be some who are offended, as it decidedly breaks many taboos. The name is Satanás, meaning Satan, so do not delude yourself into thinking there are any high or happy moments. The tagline reads 'Every city has its demons'; believe it.In spite of it's dark subject matter, the film is still very effective. There are some weaknesses, mostly from a technical standpoint, but the story is strong enough to make up for these. The other weakness is that the film rambles on for a while, so the viewer is not quite sure where the story is going, or even if it is going to end abruptly. But the director and writer had a purpose, and that is to bring us to the end. The climax brings everything into strong focus, and you see that the rambling is, in effect, the build-up.I believe this film has universal appeal. This film could have been shot in any major city in the world. In fact, the director did such a good job in filming this, that I forgot where the movie was taking place. I gave it the highest vote in the audience award, and this film deserves to win it.