Once on the way back from an apparently dodgy region of Asia, I was stopped a strip-searched. The customs officers x-rayed all my belongings repeatedly but made a big deal over two items a packet of condoms and a roll of dental floss. What did I use them for? 'What does anyone use them for?' I replied, totally puzzled. They pointed out that drugs could be put in condoms, tied with dental floss and swallowed. I retorted that if I ever wanted to smuggle drugs I would at least know how to do it thanks to their explanation.
Maria Full of Grace goes into a bit more detail on how, exactly, drugs are packaged in condoms and then smuggled in the stomach of 'mules' willing operators who swallow them in one country and sh*t them out in another. It also includes some harrowing detail on how customs try to detect such operations and what happens if one of the packages bursts. It is not difficult for young Colombian girls such as Maria to be tempted. Their lives are filled with desperation, available work is scarce, and the ways to escape from the drudgery of life in their home country are few and far between. The simple and quite touching performance by Catalina Sandino Moreno as Maria earned her an Oscar nomination. And if you like Latin music, the soundtrack has some fine stuff. The overall feel is one of documentary story-telling with believable characters and understated drama. Maria Full of Grace is a quietly significant film that avoids moralising but lets the facts reveal the very real dilemmas. By humanising the 'mules', characters that are popularly demonised, we might question if more money might be put into humanitarian aid rather than military solutions and fumigation of coca fields. The grace that Maria ultimately finds is within herself and from herself; the development of her understanding and indeed her character can provide salutary lessons in getting a human perspective on the drug trade rather than the simplistic moral high ground of the well-to-do Westerner.
Maria Full of Grace goes into a bit more detail on how, exactly, drugs are packaged in condoms and then smuggled in the stomach of 'mules' willing operators who swallow them in one country and sh*t them out in another. It also includes some harrowing detail on how customs try to detect such operations and what happens if one of the packages bursts. It is not difficult for young Colombian girls such as Maria to be tempted. Their lives are filled with desperation, available work is scarce, and the ways to escape from the drudgery of life in their home country are few and far between. The simple and quite touching performance by Catalina Sandino Moreno as Maria earned her an Oscar nomination. And if you like Latin music, the soundtrack has some fine stuff. The overall feel is one of documentary story-telling with believable characters and understated drama. Maria Full of Grace is a quietly significant film that avoids moralising but lets the facts reveal the very real dilemmas. By humanising the 'mules', characters that are popularly demonised, we might question if more money might be put into humanitarian aid rather than military solutions and fumigation of coca fields. The grace that Maria ultimately finds is within herself and from herself; the development of her understanding and indeed her character can provide salutary lessons in getting a human perspective on the drug trade rather than the simplistic moral high ground of the well-to-do Westerner.