Sin tetas no hay paraíso

Catalina is thirteen and lives in a poor neighbourhood in Colombia. Everything around her says the same thing: the only way up for a woman here is to catch the eye of a drug boss, and for that her breasts need to be large. Hers are not large enough. She starts saving for the operation; her mother supports her and her brother objects. One night at a club she catches a boss's eye. The world she enters seems to give her everything and takes it all away just as fast. Adapted from the novel by Gustavo Bolivar, this was reworked from the series into film form. Isabel Cristina Cadavid, Linda Lucia Callejas and Juan Sebastian Calero are in the cast. It is a Colombian production. The source novel and its first television adaptation caused great controversy in Colombia; the subject rests on a real social phenomenon in the country, young women entering the drug world for cosmetic surgery. The matter it treats is the body turned into an investment; the work does not draw a clean line between criticising this and displaying it. The production sets the violence and the money of the criminal world side by side. The narrative does not present Catalina as purely a victim or purely responsible; the decisions are hers, but her options are narrow. The film shows the poor neighbourhoods of the city in detail. The narrative moves fast and its structure, coming from a series, is felt in the episodes. The ending closes like a warning. Its limit is tone; the narrative both criticises the subject and puts it on display, and that contradiction is uncomfortable. Who it is for: viewers who like Latin American social drama. Who it is not for: it is uncomfortable, has exploitative scenes, and the ending dark.