Colombian Film Festival

Ran off from the office this evening with my Colombian colleague and her 70 year old mother to catch a Colombian Film Festival. We watched the film 'Satanas' directed by Andres Baiz based on a book written by Mario Mendoza on a true event dubbed as the Pozetto Massacre in Bogota, where an ex-army soldier runs amok killing 20 people in an Italian restaurant - the film of course weaves in other characters which intersect with the protagonist - capturing human weaknesses and the brutality which follows. One of the scenes that stuck in my head was that of a priest who counseled the disillusioned protagonist against viewing the dregs of society as people who needed to be 'wiped out' but proceeded later to kick the shit out of a beggar who harrassed him for money.
It was disturbing and dark - running along the theme of book featured early in the film, 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'.......showing painfully how circumstances test the limits of human endurance and pushes an individual to the brink of hell and the abyss below.
It was all after an exhausting day of clients protesting in front of the office, ending with a very dramatic show-down of a particularly belligerent individual shouting expletives and throwing large rocks at office staff, after issuing a death threat to a senior officer. Sitting at the gates refusing to move for people to leave.
This was after days of silent protests by another group, surly and convinced that they were being discriminated by the international community because of their colour.
I went home feeling very vulnerable to the big, bad world and mentally seeking refuge behind a precarious barrier against the darkness beyond. It no longer feels right to take anything for granted, it seems.
I am reminded of this every day I am here in this country.
Of course the last thing I need is to see films titled 'Satanas' - but at the same time it is not as if the plot is completely fantastical and a wasteful exercise in the despair it creates - it is quite real. Just because it's not my reality doesn't mean I should not seek it.
That said, am not sure I will sleep well tonight.