B Happy Gonzalo Justiniano

In rural Chile, 14-year-old Katty (Manuela Martelli) grows up amid a crumbling family; her father leaves jail only to rob stores before skipping town. Burdened with raising two children herself, Katty's mother passes away. Her brother comes out of the closet and joins his musician/lover somewhere up north. Katty herself is wrongly accused of theft at school and everything goes wrong bit by bit. As her family disintegrates, Katty finds solace and sexual release in the kind Chemo (Ricardo Fernández), a newcomer to town. This relationship doesn't last, as Katty goes searching for her irresponsible father in a prison, but winds up in detention herself. Soon, she flees prison only to enter the world of prostitution. Director Justiniano tells a sad tale that is intriguing but falls short of touching an audience. A large problem is the portrayal of Katty herself, who begins the film as a morose young woman and ends up a slightly wiser, yet still morose young woman. There is minimal range in Martelli's characterisation, with few sides of her character shown. Often Katty appears passive, lacking drive or a sense of fight. Another problem is Justiniano's editing style; he insists on fading in and fading out almost continually from scene to scene. In film conventions, fading tells the viewer that we're skipping forward in time. In B-Happy this is not the case and conventional transitions would have made the film flow far better. As it stands, the fading technique is annoying and unnecessary. Sadly, Katty's story is a common one in South America, where the chances of succeeding in life are stacked against children. However, B-Happy fails to elicit sympathy for its hero and ultimately isn't convincing. (Sahara/CineCorp/Igeldo/Joel)