The “woodpeckers” of the title of this film are inmates of the Najayo prison in the Dominican Republic, who climb up to a high window and perch there so that they can signal in code to the inmates of the women’s prison 100 yards away. This is how they form “relationships” with women on remand—or fellow criminals—whom they’ve never met and may never meet in the flesh.
Into this strange world Julián Sosa (Jean Jean) is plunged when he arrives on some unspecified charge involving robbery—Julian was apparently the driver of the getaway car. The viewer never learns much more of his life outside the jail, but instead, like Julián himself, is instantly immersed in and almost overwhelmed by this new, brutal institutional culture. The prison guards are gatekeepers, but the prisoners easily manipulate them—cellphones, guns, knives and drugs are readily available—and in effect the cell blocks are run by some of the worst of the inmates.
The self-contained Julián (Haitian actor and filmmaker Jean Jean), quiet but tough, is addressed as “fresh meat,”, but quickly finds his feet, makes clear he can’t be intimidated, and forms precarious quid-pro-quo “friendships” with some of the older hands. He’s no angel: there’s no question that he’s guilty of whatever offence he’s charged with, and he doesn’t abide by the law inside the jail either, and yet despite this and his taciturn demeanour, he’s a sympathetic character.
One of his early allies is Manaury, who is put into solitary confinement and asks Julián to send messages in the meantime to his girl behind the fence of the women’s prison, the beguiling Yanelly. That’s when Julián’s real troubles start: though they’re so different, he and the hot-tempered Yanelly are drawn to each other. Manaury becomes suspicious; and he’s a killer whose violence is extreme even in this environment. He’ll go to any lengths to get his revenge, unable to grasp or to care about the consequences. In this chokingly enclosed world, feelings run high. One short conversation carried out in sign language can become a matter of life and death.
Thanks to Manaury, Julián is moved to another prison that is even more of a hellhole: Najayo seems merely lively by comparison. Once again Julián shows he can handle himself—but as a newcomer he’s not in on the other prisoners’ plans, and doesn’t know a riot is about to start just as Yanelly comes to visit him. While the other inmates focus on hoping to break out, Julián, Yanelly and Manaury have other agendas—and the guards are too distracted by the riot to notice what else is going on.
All the action of the film takes place in the tightly closed spaces of the prisons, or in the equally claustrophobic expanse of grass between them. Director José María Cabral, who researched prison culture and used real prisoners in making the film, deftly recreates the hothouse atmosphere, including the surprising romances: it seems that even among the desperadoes who inhabit these cells, love will find a way. These swift, intense affairs in this tiny world behind bars, carried out at a tantalisingly close yet unbridgeable distance, evoke powerful infatuations and obsessions, and bitter quarrels; but are these real feelings that can survive once the prisoners have served their sentences? The otherwise sanguine Julián believes they are.
Carpinteros provides a fascinating glimpse into an unusual facet of an underworld known for its harshness—which infects even the tenderness of this desperate, ingenious form of love.
FILM INFO
Carpinteros (Woodpeckers), 2017, Dominican Republic
Director: José María Cabral
Language: Spanish, with English subtitles
Genre: Narrative Feature
Runtime: 106 minutes
Screening times
September 23, 9 pm,
MovieTowne PoS, Screen 7
September 26, 8.30 pm
MovieTowne PoS Screen 8
For more info visit:
ttfilmfestival.com
