Los debutantes

Los debutantes, a surprising success back home, is a cleverly constructed gangster trilogy. Two brothers from the country quickly lose their innocence after their mother dies. They get bogged down in the underworld of the big city when the eldest, 25-year-old Silvio, takes his younger brother Victor to a brothel on his seventeenth birthday. Victor falls madly in love with the striptease dancer Graciella and her cream act, while the sturdy Silvio becomes driver for the gangster Don Pascual. Silvio quickly climbs through the ranks in the organisation and then gets involved in a dangerous liaison with his boss’s moll -the same Graciella for whom his younger brother fell… Events in the first part are told from the perspective of Victor, the surprising additions in the second part come from Silvio and the third parts is seen through the eyes of the femme fatale Graciella. In the clever cutting, the different motifs are gradually revealed and given a significance. Scenes that started previously and ended abruptly, are later completed from someone else’s perspective. As the dénouement of this social-realistic crime drama approaches, the various points of view come together. Chilean débutant Waissbluth reveals himself to be an energetic and effective narrator who manages to capture beautifully the raw energy of the young ‘survivors’ in the hackneyed criminal milieu.