Orozco is definitely not my usual forte. Its a Mondo style documentary about an embalmer in the worst part of Columbia. We see how the people here react to death, we see how Orozco works, and we see it all in a gritty no holds barred fashion. If you can't handle the sight of dead people, flesh being cut, guts and organs, and the sound of insides sloshing around in a mixture of blood and water in an open abdomen cavity, you should probably turn away. If you can handle all that, tread on my friend. This movie was definitely a test for me. I guess I passed. I don't know if that's good or bad.
Here we are in El Cartucho, Bogata Columbia. At the time of its existence it was one of the poorest and most dangerous places in the world. Trash lines the streets. Poor people wander everywhere. Its dirty. Run down. Murders happen in the street on a regular basis. We walk down this road. Next to us is a little inconspicuous building, nothing special, its small, green and white in color. This little building houses two businesses, a convenience store selling household items, food, liquor. The other is Funeraria El Divino Rostro. This is the work place of Orozco. People bring him their dead to be prepared for burial. He's one of the best in Bogata, with thirty years and over fifty thousand embalmings under his belt. He's one of the best and it shows.
From what I can tell, Orozco likes his work. He respects the dead but he understands that he has a job to do. Its amazing seeing how fast he does his thing. First thing we get to see, Orozco begins to make an incision on the body of an overweight woman. He cuts her from her sternum to the lower part of her belly. You can hear the flesh separating as Orozco slices down her torso. Her intestines quickly slither out of the opening, he then reaches inside her and begins to pull out the organs. After getting the majority of them out, he sloshes his hand around in the hole looking for anything else, you can hear the wetness, the blood and bile mixing around inside. He tilts the body, the fluid gushes out of the cavity as he flips her over. He hoses her off, flips her back over, cleans her front off, places the organs back inside, pours some kind of fluid in, stuffs some cloth in the hole and sews her up. Then he dresses her. He's good at his work and it shows.
The shock of it all comes from how fast it all happens. You would think more of a delicate touch would be taken. We all like to think that once we die our bodies are looked after, almost worshiped. Handled with the greatest care and respect. While Orozco has respect for the dead, this is his job. And like any job, it has to get done. While later we see a rival embalmer claiming he does a better job by removing the brain and stuffing the skull with paper, I can just feel that while the other embalmer may or may not be better, Orozco has more pride in his work and respect for it.
Its interesting to see how the people here react to death. Through the course of the movie we see a few different bodies in the streets. All of them have the same sort of thing happen. People look at the body curiously. They gather. They talk. They don't shy their children away, they don't cringe in horror, they just wanna see a body. It is almost a social event. But that's the thing. Death is so common here and the dead are looked at in such a different way in this culture that its not such a horrifying thing. Where we would grieve, they celebrate a life. Where we see death as a finality, they see it as moving on. When the director asked the convenience store owners of their thoughts on Orozco using their same building, they seemed alright with it. They don't mind, that's just how their culture works.
Then there is Orozco himself. I've always sorta thought that if someone can work with dead bodies all day, cutting, sewing, painting, that they had to have something wrong with them. That deep down, they have a flaw that is just a small tick away from making them take all that cutting and sewing and putting it towards the living. But Orozco, he seems like a good guy. Genuine. He feels bad about the state of his neighborhood. He has this calming charm to him. It makes all the guts and blood a little softer, a little more palpable. You can see that when he was younger, he was a soldier, he fell on hard times, drugs, prison, then he pulled himself back up and made his life better. It may be an odd choice of vocation, but he's damn good at it.
Of course we see Orozco handle more bodies though the movie, a child, a body that had been autopsied, some men. But while that lends to the "horror" aspect of the movie, its all about Orozco and the horrible little neighborhood of El Cartucho.
You will be pleased to know that El Cartucho was demolished and a park was put in its place. I would like to know what happened to old Orozco. Is he still out there doing his work? Or did someone have to take up the knife on him?
I wouldn't really recommend this for most. Its "horror" in its subject matter. Its real, its bleak. If you like a bit of exploitation and documentaries and have the stomach, check it out. But really, not for most people.
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