Aside (2002)

• 75%
• 2002
• Documentary
• Mario Handler

This is a documentary with rare images of real life stories in the so-called "asentamientos" in the poor underbelly of Uruguay's capital, Montevideo, and in its youth jails. It centers on the life of a family, and some of its teenage neighbors. Filmed at times by only one discreet camera, the documentary exposes the youth legal system and youth jails in Uruguay, as well as the daily lives of its former or future prisoners: teenage prostitutes, petty thieves, single mothers, and their miserable lives, contrasting with upper middle class neighborhoods. A former prostitute now "single" grandmother is a central character, being the mother of a few teenage criminals, a single mother who is also a prostitute, and a repeat offender who eventually dies of AIDS in jail, and whose burial we witness in the film.