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FLICKS: Beirut & Women of Venezuelan Chaos

Posted on 12 April 2018 by LeslieM

By “Cinema” Dave

http://cinemadave.livejournal.com

Women of Venezuelan Chaos and Beruit are two serious and timely movies that open this weekend at local theaters. Both films are riveting dramas. Beruit is based on terrorist drama that began in 1972, while Women of Venezuelan Chaos is a documentary based on recent news from South of the Border.

Directed by Margarita Cadenas, Women of Venezuelan Chaos interviews five women of various economic status of post-Chavez Venezuela.

Kim (who attended an Apr. 9 screening at Silverspot Cinema in Coconut Creek) is married with children and is also a nurse. We see her providing healthcare, but many medicinal supplies are lacking.

Maria is a community manager who works from her home. She talks about bartering milk for diapers and how the Venezuelan economy is turning the population into a community of hoarders.

Eva is unemployed, therefore, she must wait in line to receive a lottery number to get rice and flour from the black market.

Luisa is a retired police officer whose grandson is imprisoned for being critical of the Venezuelan government.

Olga is a waitress with a tragic story to tell about government oppression and the murder of children.

Spoken in Spanish with English subtitles, Women of Venezuelan Chaos is newsworthy. When it was “cool” to mock President Bush, Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez was upheld as a poster boy for socialized healthcare by some. When Chavez died and his house of cards crumbled, Nicolas Maduro became president. As poverty increased, the main stream media seemingly lost interest in the plight of the Venezuelan people. Through the voices of these five women, this documentary sheds some light upon their struggles for survival under the rule of graft politics and thug leaders.

Beirut deals with the growing world of terrorist thugs. In 1972, Diplomat Mason Skiles (Jon Hamm) hosts a party in which he states, “Christians are in one corner; Muslims in the other corner with Jack Daniels in the middle.”

During the party, Mason learns that a student they are sponsoring is the brother of the No. 1 terrorist involved in the murders in Munich during the 1972 Olympics. That night, the terrorist invades the party and the student is abducted.

Ten years later, the CIA recruits Mason for a hostage negotiation in Beirut. The simple negotiation becomes an elaborate affair when many greedy organizations haggle over the hostage fee. During this complication, Mason learns that his old student is now grown and is involved in the kidnapping.

The summer movie blockbuster season is almost upon us. However, don’t let the serious fare like Beirut and Women of Venezuela Chaos get lost in the crowd.

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