Hugo Chávez’s visit to the UK this month gave him ample opportunity to extol the successes of his Bolivarian revolution. But despite the best efforts of El Presidente, a rather darker vision of contemporary Venezuela will soon be hitting these shores. Secuestro express, a film by the 28-year-old Venezuelan director Jonathan Jakubowicz, has caused a furore in his homeland. No less a figure than the vice-president, José Vicente Rangel, denounced it as a “miserable film, a falsification of the truth with no artistic value”. Jakubowicz, who is Jewish, was denounced in racist terms in the national press, and is awaiting decisions on court charges relating to the film, one of which carries a penalty of six to ten years in jail.
The public took a different view, flocking to cinemas in unprecedented numbers and making Secuestro express the highest-grossing Venezuelan film of all time. “People from the poorest barrios, who had never been to the cinema in their lives, went to see this movie,” says Jakubowicz.
The film tells a story only too familiar to any Latin American: that of a wealthy young couple who, after a night out partying, are kidnapped and driven through Caracas by gangsters determined to extort a hefty ransom from their families. It is, on the one hand, an expertly told, adrenalin-pumping adventure story. On the other hand, Secuestro express takes a nuanced and empathetic look at a country in the middle of a violent face-off between the rich and the poor. It was inspired by Jakubowicz’s own experience: he was held hostage in his car in 2000 and driven from bank to bank with a gun to his head. “It’s so common in my society that you forget it isn’t – or needn’t be – normal,” he says.
During filming in Caracas a couple of years later, Jakubowicz was supported by some of the most committed members of the Chávez government as he attempted to shoot the film in the middle of the biggest political crisis in Venezuela’s history. The production crew was protected in the dangerous city-centre streets by police and even intelligence officers provided by the government. So it came as a surprise when the authorities turned against the film two weeks after its release. Chávez supporters brought a private lawsuit in an attempt to get the film banned from Venezuelan cinemas, and the authorities have subsequently refused to send it to Cannes or to nominate it for the Academy Awards.
Given that Secuestro express delivers a forceful message about the corrosive effects of social inequality, it is difficult to understand why a left-wing government would object to it so strongly. According to Jakubowicz, Chávez the military man was particularly offended by a scene in which a soldier is shown at a homosexual brothel. Indeed, in a speech, he called for “laws that make sure the armed forces are protected from insults like those in this film”. The authorities also objected to its use of controversial real-life footage of a Chávez supporter, Rafael Cabrices, shooting at opposition protesters during the 2002 attempted coup.
Neither explanation rings true to Jakubowicz. “The film was not conceived as anti-Chávez. In fact, I voted for him,” he says. “But all this has shown me that his revolution is based on social hatred. Secuestro express promotes social evolution, based on dialogue and
understanding between social classes. Chávez
knows that the moment the rich and the poor get together to work for a better Venezuela, that’s the day the revolution is dead.”
The director’s view is shared by one of the film’s stars, Pedro Perez, a Venezuelan rapper who plays one of the kidnappers. Perez grew up in one of the most poverty-stricken and dangerous barrios in Caracas. “People in my neighbourhood have 100 per cent supported Secuestro express,” he says. “Is life getting better under this government? Absolutely not. We are experiencing a war between the rich and the poor. The message of this film is that we have to look after ourselves. We can’t rely on the government to do it.”
A Hollywood career is in the pipeline for Jakubowicz, but meanwhile he has a radical solution to Venezuela’s situation. “As English people love him so much, I’m campaigning for Chávez to become mayor of London. Really, you’re welcome to him.”
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