MAGICAL REALISM OF TERROR

CORRUPTION POISONS THE MIND LIKE A CONTAGION

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

The accident prone flight attendant misses the scheduled flight and loses her job.

The situation gets worse as the company learns of the missed plane being hijacked and that Edilma’s penchant for missteps may have been transferred to the company in the Netflix Original streaming series, The Hijacking of Flight 601 (SERIES 2023).

Monica Lopera stars as the flight attendant who eventually rejoins the crew and passengers in a bid to regain her job. A first time flight attendant, played by Ilenia Antonini, left alone onboard is reduced to tears, quivers and shakes as her first day on the job becomes a solo flight into terror.

Director David Pombo shows through the performances of Lopera and Antonini in the early scenes how the hijacking of Flight 601 by armed revolutionaries is symptomatic of Columbian society and the incompetencies of corrupt government officials that has kind of trickled down to daily life in 1973 Columbia.

Pombo also uses the flight attendant’s employment issues to establish a second narrative about the drama within the company that runs parallel with the narrative about the chaos of the hijacking onboard Flight 601.

The parallel operations move forward with a bit of magical whimsy. But this tone and atmosphere gradually gives way as the trauma of the event sets in, even among the two hijackers as they inevitably realize just how deep in trouble they have found themselves.

Valentin Villafane as Ulises and Alian Devetac as Tora play the desperate hijackers who at times gain a bit of empathy from the people around them and the audience.

The script personifies Ulises and Tora as the structural poor in Latin America while revealing the limits of the society as everyone at times serves their own self interest.

The flight attendants and the pilot eventually put the safety of the passengers over their own safety, but they too will revisit, from time to time, the many human frailties that surface when death begins to seem inevitable.

Pombo creates good character development over the 6 episodes of the Original Netflix streaming series with each character having a personal struggle that gets in the way of heroic action during the mid-air crisis.

The backstory of the two hijackers is told during Episode 4, eventhough the main issues have already been alluded to, such as Ulises continually remembering having had to wake up and go to bed hungry until he become radicalized by the influential writings of a real life Marxist revolutionary, made to look like Cuban revolutionary, Fidel Castro.

The hijackers incrementally become so disgusted by the wealth of some Columbians that the first class passengers are moved out of first class and made to sit with everyone else on the plane.

Felipe Linares makes the score move many scenes but at certain times the music seems overly dramatic, perhaps meant to underscore the surreal consciousness as the camera moves deeper into the trauma while the characters become more and more aware of their situation.

Eventually the back story comes flashing forward as the hijackers become exhausted and increasingly desperate.

Enrique Carriazo plays the airplane company flight manager, Pirateque, who takes on the task of resolving the crisis by negotiating directly with the hijackers, at one point even taking part of the ransom demand to another airport during a stop over.

Carriazo shows the struggle between personal self interest and his duty to the passengers on the plane conditioned at times by his corporate responsibilities.

But the company manger is not the first hero of Flight 601. Marulanda, a television news anchor, played by Carlos Manuel Vesga, is leaked the story and becomes the self described hero, after being enticed on-board to document the chaos.