The Art of Losing () is a 2004 Spanish-Colombian thriller film directed by Sergio Cabrera from a screenplay by Jorge Goldenberg based on the novel by Santiago Gamboa. It stars Daniel Giménez Cacho, César Mora, Martina García, and Víctor Mallarino.
A grim history, but also human and fun, led by Colombian Sergio Cabrera (Golpe de estadio, La Estrategia del Caracol), the movie exposes the corruption rampant in the South American country - and the unholy nexus between Politicians, Land Developers, the mafia and the Military Police. The film is a Tornasol Films and Latinia PC production.
Based on the novel "Method of Losing" by Santiago Gamboa ( the quote is from Juan Sepulveda : "Defeat is often a Question of Method," which in the movie is put into the mouth of the ageing and psychotic mentor of the journalist, Guzman ).
The novel was adapted by screenwriter Jorge Goldenberg (Ilona Arrives with the Rain), we are shown a Colombia from a very particular angle: through the daily struggle between the romantic and the nihilistic . Daniel Jiménez Cacho (La Mala Educación) plays the journalist Victor Silampa and Martina Garcia (Golpe de Estadio) plays the 16-year-old prostitute Quica, while Cesar Mora, in a role worthy of an Oscar-nomination, plays Sancho Panza to the journalist's Don Quixote, as Estupinan - probably the most human and sympathetic of all the characters - representing the Colombian "Everyman".
Plot
A fisherman (Jorge Ali Triana) and his dog out for a walk and discover an Impaled corpse. A journalist named Victor Silampa (Gimenez Cacho) is writing an article about Peter Gay, about bourgeois attitudes about Romantic Love through the 17th to 19th centuries. Silampa receives a call from the Police-Colonel Aristophanes Moya (Benjumea) who calls him to the station immediately notifying him of the crime. Moya suggests an exchange of favors (Silampa had a criminal record), whereby the journalist would actively investigate the case while Moya will provide him with protection if, in addition, the journalist will "ghost-write" for him a speech for a slimming non-conformist Evangelical Christian sect, originating in Memphis, called "The Last Supper".
Silampa arrives at the crime scene - obtaining carte blanche through his dropping of the Colonel's name - where he takes photos of the corpse. Later the body is carried to Legal Medicine (Colombian Forensic Institution). The corpse is unrecognizable and the fingerprints had been burned off - the body bloated and discolored after nearly two months in the temperate jungle in accordance with Piedrahita, the forensic. A short, bald, fat man named Emir Estupiñan (Mora) who is searching for his brother, Osler, a taxi driver who has gone missing - and who claims that "something about the corpse is familiar", i.e. reminiscent of his late brother.
Silampa goes to a Psychiatric Hospital where he meets with a former colleague - also mentor, as Silampa calls him "el Maestro" - known as Guzman, who is schizophrenic, warns him that impalement is a crime used to scare people. Guzmán gives Silampa a mannequin installed by the window of his apartment-for speaking with someone due his loneliness as he has recently been dumped by his girlfriend. One night Silampa goes to a brothel called "Lolita" where Estupiñan has invited him to talk with a truck driver named Lotario Abuchija who had been paid by a beautiful woman to take "a package" from Tunja to an abandoned house in Chocontá. Silampa feels bad due to hemorrhoids and asthma, but when leaving he is accosted by a beautiful young prostitute named Quica. Quica is already busy with a table of drunks and offers him another appointment because she was busy.
The next day Silampa and Estupiñan go where Abuchija, the truck driver had dropped "the package" - and they enter to a small abandoned house near the lake and discover important clues: a construction sign of Vargas Vicuña, a chair with some blood on it, and a sign of Turkish baths "The Earthly Paradise." Estupiñan is involved with the case just to find his brother, who is possibly the impaled corpse was supposedly murdered - and confuses Silampa to work for the "secret police" because of his "education" and "access" to governmental corridors.
A lawyer named Emilio Barragan calls Councilman Marco Tulio Esquilache; apparently both are involved in the crime, as well as being related : Barragan is married to the niece of Esquilache. At the same time, the councilman also calls Vargas Vicuña, a civil engineer - who is very interested in the land near the lake where the body was found impaled.