Movies depicting the illegal drug industry in the Americas have had a considerable impact on the film world over the past few decades. But these grandiose films -- think of "Blow," "Traffic" and "Scarface" -- have focused primarily on the heady, opulent experiences of up-and-coming drug lords' lives, or on the complex bureaucratic web of drug wars and not on the experiences of those who work at the rock bottom of the drug-trafficking food chain.
In his feature debut, Joshua Marston takes the smuggling of illegal drugs back to its deepest roots. "Maria Full of Grace," a movie in Spanish with English subtitles, is neither flashy nor smart, and its heroine is a far cry from the familiar drug cartel boss. Nevertheless it packs a troubling and poignant wallop into an hour and a half.
The story's heroine is 17-year-old Colombian native, Maria Alvarez, who supports her family working long hours in a flower plantation de-thorning long-stemmed roses for American export. Fed up with her job and her passionless relationship with an ambitionless boyfriend, Maria learns that she is pregnant and decides to leave town. Her ticket out is a new job which, she is told, "involves traveling" -- from Bogotá to New York City, with a stomach full of cocaine, that is.
Maria, though aware of the physical and legal risks involved with becoming a cocaine mule, never so much as flinches as she prepares for her trip. Instead, she confers with her best friend Blanca, who has also signed on the job, practices swallowing techniques with a bowl of grapes and gets tips from her new confidante Lucy, who has completed two round trips as a mule. When Maria asks how her previous two trips went, Lucy replies with a tiny, sad smile, "I'm still here, aren't I?"
So, hidden behind a shady pharmaceutical storefront in Bogotá, Maria methodically swallows 62 latex-wrapped pellets of cocaine. It is surely a horrific experiment in human self-discipline and control, but Marston's camera never judges the scene. Rather, the film's direction is remarkably organic, its cinematography reserved and non-intrusive. The result is a documentary-esque story, quietly spellbinding and as unflinching as Maria herself.
Maria's maiden airplane voyage is a harrowing experience, and just as tense and real for the audience as it is for her. First, she must keep an eye on her bumbling friend Blanca. Then Lucy starts feeling sick halfway to New York: a pellet has burst inside her stomach and she is in danger of overdosing.
The situation worsens at Kennedy Airport, where a fourth mule is apprehended and Maria, who fits the U.S. customs officials' profile of drug-smuggling suspects, is pulled aside for questioning. During this tense sequence, the audience begins to realize how much they sympathize with this young girl who is, in fact, an illegal drug-smuggler.
Unlike in modern movies today, there are no one-dimensional characters in this film. Maria, certainly, is an economic victim but she is also taking on an actively criminal role. What is remarkable, however, is that "Maria Full of Grace" in no way preaches to its audience. None of the film's characters pity themselves, and each of the story's ugly happenings is simply a fact of life. Each player realizes that, whether they participate or not, drugs will find their way from Colombia to the United States.
For Maria and the other mules, the dilemma is not the moral one typically presented by drug films, rather, it is whether or not seven million pesos outweigh the physical danger to themselves and the threat hanging over their families' heads should so much as one pellet be missing at the final transaction.
Because the morality presented onscreen is extremely subtle, it is entirely up to the audience to decipher the ethical issues in the film. Is "Maria Full of Grace" a story of morality and choice or a documentary of risk and necessity? Is Maria, played with a combination of severe vulnerability and heartbreaking tenacity by first-time actress Catalina Sandino Moreno, (who shared the best actress award with Charlize Theron at the 2004 Berlin Film Festival) truly "full of grace" -- in the spiritual or literal sense -- or is she merely the helpless product of her surroundings?
The film, which won the Audience Award at this year's Sundance film festival, also stirs the waters of the "American dream" complex. Regardless, Marston injects the brutal experience of cocaine mules with poignant humanity and thereby manages to draw in completely an audience for whom this world of drug-smuggling is completely foreign.
To be sure, "Maria Full of Grace" is a far cry from the up and down, rags-to-riches-to-ruin drug lord life cycles depicted by so many drug movies. Indeed, drug usage is never even depicted in the film. Unlike these larger than life, mythological cinematic legends however, Maria's story is, as the film's tag line reads "based on 1,000 true stories."
This film has its last showing at Vinegar Hill Theater tonight; it runs at 7 p.m. and at 9:05 p.m. If you have been fascinated by past drug movies, then this is a film that will show you the side that you have not been introduced to yet. It will open your eyes to a sad new world.
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