What is a place if it’s not on a map? What is a people if they’re not recognized? Felipe Holguín Caro’s “La Suprema” asks these questions within an intimate drama set in a remote Caribbean town in Colombia. La Suprema exists on no map and its Afro-Colombian population feels similarly erased. Modest in its ambitions yet brimming with a real sense of place, this lush drama about a boxing match is a quiet revelation. It serves as a vivid portrait of a community aching for glory and, perhaps more importantly, for the dignity they’ve long deserved.
Everyone in La Suprema knows of Anastasio Páez. He’s a boxer who’s making a name for himself on the world stage. His niece Laureana (Elizabeth Martínez) admires him from afar. It’s been a while since he left the town for good but his boxing skills still inspire Laureana, who spends private moments in her room practicing her left hook and her stance, photos of her uncle tacked on to her mirror (and later hidden, lest her grandmother see her indulging in such unladylike activities). So when Anatasio is set to fight for the world boxing title, Laureana takes it upon herself to find a way for the town to watch the match live.
The problem is no one in La Suprema has a television, let alone electricity. This is mostly a dirt-road town where a few families go about their days not so much ignoring the world outside as resigned to being ignored by it. And so begins a race to find a way to get the former and secure the latter — all before the match airs in but a few days. It’s a challenge that will require much of the town to come together, even as the gripes around La Suprema’s circumstances risk costing them witnessing the moment of glory they still hope will finally put them — literally and figuratively — on the map.
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Such a premise alone might have made Holguín Caro’s film play like a twee riff on any number of small-town dramas where community-driven efforts climax in some celebratory episode (as would the film that would’ve focused solely on Laureana’s boxing aspirations). Yet “La Suprema” merely uses the boxing match as a narrative anchor on which to spin a broader tale about the perils and promises of success.
As the women in the town hustle to raise money to buy a TV on sale at the nearby city of Cartagena, issues both personal and cultural bubble up throughout. There’s Laureana’s terse relationship with her grandmother when it comes to her gender presentation (the teenage girl hates dresses and gets scolded for looking like a tomboy). There’s the soured relationship with Anastasio’s former trainer, Efraín (Antonio Jimenez), who has his reasons for not even wanting to watch his former pupil’s big chance at glory. And, most pressing perhaps is the poverty and abandonment that keep La Suprema in the dark — all a result of policies and politicians who don’t see fit to invest in this Afro-Colombian community.
Holguín Caro and Andy Sierra’s script tries to shuttle between these various subplots with grace. Mostly it succeeds, but sometimes it does feel like “La Suprema” is trying to juggle too many tonal shifts. Some bits involving two teenage boys’ attempt to fix a generator and later steal some electricity from a nearby neighbor play perhaps a bit too broadly, while the quiet heart-to-heart moments between Efraín and Laureana can feel like they belong to an entirely different film.
But when “La Suprema” settles into a register where it’s surveying the lush greenery of the town’s landscapes, the film really comes alive. Mauricio Vidal has a keen eye for capturing the Caribbean region’s natural beauty, his formal framing giving careful attention to the way the environment really is a titular character here. Likewise, there’s beauty and resilience in shots of women singing and doing laundry in a nearby body of water, as they show a contentment about who they are and what they have. Who cares if a boy born there once is now on TV for the world to see?
The Afro-Colombian community, as the film shows, is often forsaken if not outright erased from both history and geography. Sports end up being one of the sole places where their achievements are celebrated. Fitting then that Holguín Caro would turn such a moment of triumph and potential glory into an interrogation into the neglect people like Laureana and Efraín experience in their everyday lives. Playfully riffing on a feel-good genre and turning it on its head with its powerful final moments, Colombia’s Oscar submission is a beautiful study in the dignity of the people it depicts.