Plaza Catedral

The dramatic (shocking) opening to Plaza Catedral as Alicia (Ilse Salas) a Mexican architect imagines throwing herself off a high-rise construction, provides some insight into her state of mind.

This is further developed as she drives through Panama City her mind in turmoil. Until she reaches home where street boy Chief (Fernando Xavier De Casta) offers his protection for the car for three dollars. He’s wangled down to one though he’s there or thereabouts for a time; exchanging banter when he washes her car without her knowing, trying to get a few more dollars.

Then one evening she gets home and a trail of blood leads her to Chief. He’s been shot and against his will takes him to the hospital where she dumps him. He later turns up at her block, having left the hospital, just patched up, pleading for her to take him in. Naturally reluctant she does, checking him for weapons. He’s read the house rules and Alicia tends to his wound.

They slowly begin to develop a rapport through music and recounting their troubled lives. His is one of a boy on the streets having left a gang because he didn’t want to do what they asked, she the failure of her marriage after the death of her son, for which her husband blames her for. The latter having a profound psychological effect, compounded by her being forced to sell rather than design apartments. Chief’s story is of delinquency and family problems, and the matter-of-fact violence that is endemic in his area.

Clean yet beautiful visuals of the sleek Panama City skyline lit up at night are purposely set against the derelict districts of the city by director and writer Abner Benaim. It’s a non-too subtle metaphor for Alicia and Chief.

The story is neatly balanced by visits to Alicia’s former life in her luxury apartment, finally accepting the death of her son and end of her marriage. Later given a glimpse into Chief’s life when Alicia, after an incident, goes to see if she can find him at his home, where she is shocked by what she finds there and about him.

However the film revolves around Alicia and Chief, and they give wonderful heartfelt performances as they tease and come to know each other. Though it is Salas who is maybe asked to carry the heavy drama as her life appears to fall apart, having shown Chief some compassion she desperately tries to understand why he has done what he has. By contrast De Casta is fairly cool and natural turning on the street boy scamp charm when needed, with a latent capacity for violence.

As said before Benaim layers on the social differences with a trowel but the film is given an appalling authenticity when the credits roll revealing dreadful news that De Casta was murdered in Panama City in 2021.

Plaza Catedral was presented at the UK Jewish Film Festival 2022.