How do you feel about early John Waters- particularly Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble? Your answer to that will be a perfect litmus test for whether or not you’ll enjoy Los Chidos, as the film strikes an almost identical vibe. A tacky story of an absurd, seemingly functional family whose lives are filled with laziness, greasy tacos, incest, trashy TV, and sexual perversity, Los Chidos is the second feature from Mars Volta musician-turned-director Omar Rodriguez Lopez.
In the film, the bizarr0 ecosystem of the Gonzales family is touched off when a rich American settles in for a brief visit. The film’s dialogue is entirely made up of ADR, which gives the whole thing an ethereal, hysterical quality that is only heightened by the shrill, overlapping, and almost perpetual dialogue. As in the Waters films of yore, the events of the film increase in insanity as the excretory abuse, dismemberment, violence, and sexual oddities stack up. No Waters film was ever shot this slickly or reached quite the allegorical heights of Los Chidos, but there’s no doubt about the trashy DNA from which this was made.
–Renn Brown
Los Chidos Details:
Director(s): Omar Rodriguez Lopez
Screenwriter(s): Omar Rodriguez Lopez
Principal Cast: Kim Stodel, María De Jesús Canales Ramírez, Manuel Ramos, Cecillia Gutiérrez, Erasmo Rodríguez, Bruno Champiz, Maimuna Achleitner Jiménez
Set amid the noisy outskirts of some unnamed Mexican metropolis, “Los Chidos” tells the story of the Gonzales Family. Proprietors of a tire repair junkyard sandwiched between two busy freeways, the Gonzales clan’s days are spent wallowing in lazy, mindless routine. When a confused American industrialist happens into the shop with a flat tire, the family’s place in the shame-free food chain is called into question. A scenario unfolds whereby the pale stranger finds himself welcomed into their fold. He is soon infatuated with the newlywed bride of the family’s neighbor. As a love blossoms, dark secrets begin emerging.