Footpath to heaven

Men with Guns

(1997)

This is one of those DVDs I bought when I was buying anything I could get really cheap that I remembered liking, but this is the first time I've seen the film since it was new, more than a decade ago, so it was nearly new to me again, and oh, my--it proves to be one of my favorite Sayles films, which is tall cotton.

Dr. Fuentes, recently widowed and not far from death himself--and uncomfortably comfortable with a government that helps pay his salary and is, so far as he knows, only rumored to be oppressive in its pursuit of the rebels in this unnamed Latin American country--sets out to find the young doctors he trained to treat the indigenous people in remote areas, but ends up searching for the perhaps mythical village of Cerca del Cielo (which, I believe, translates roughly to "next door to heaven"--or you could just call it Oz). We get 100% of Sayles's humanity with only about 5% of his sometimes sticky earnestness.

Fuentes, incidentally, is played by the Mexican actor Federico Luppi, who is also a favorite of Guillermo del Toro's, starring in Cronos and El espinazo del diablo and also appearing in El laberinto del fauno.