Filming Lawless ëLadyí Director Barbet Schroederís New Work Depicts Violent Life in Medellin by Todd Hitchcock (see also: review of "Our Lady of the Assassins") Director Barbet Schroeder began this interview by clarifying a piece of frequently reported misinformation: He is not the son of a diplomat. His father was actually involved in the oil business, and so his childhood was spent in the oil-rich countries of Iran, where he was born, and Colombia, where the family moved to in the late 1940s. Schroeder was 6 years old when his parents moved to Colombia and spent the next five years there. When his parents split up, Schroeder moved to Paris with his mother. Since the late 1980s filmmaker Schroeder has produced and directed Hollywood films, including "Reversal of Fortune" (1990) and "Single White Female" (1992). But he made his name in the 1960s and 1970s as the producer of great French and German New Wave films such as "My Night at Maudís" (1969) by Eric Rohmer, "CÈline and Julie Go Boating" (1974) by Jacques Rivette, "Chinese Roulette" (1976) by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and "The American Friend" (1977) by Wim Wenders. During this time he also began writing and directing his own works, marked by a taste for stylish, extreme behavior: the drug-addicted, hippie-jet-set lovers of "More" (1969), the exploration of violence in "MaÓtresse" (1976), the manic gamblers of "Les Tricheurs" (1983). He has made several quirky documentaries as well. His subjects include Idi Amin, Koko the talking gorilla and cult writer Charles Bukowski (whose script "Barfly" Schroeder later directed, his first Hollywood effort). Schroeder has visited Colombia often since his youth. "It is one of those places dear to my heart," he said. After producing or directing his last "three movies non-stop, without a momentís rest," he treated himself to a yearís rest and travel. It was on a visit to Colombia during this time that he discovered Colombian writer Fernando Vallejoís autobiographical novel "La Virgen de los Sicarios," or "Our Lady of the Assassins." "Right there, I knew I wanted to do this as a movie," Schroeder said. "This is what I wanted to do next." Conventional wisdom among English speakers might expect magical realism from a Colombian author, a la Gabriel GarcÌa Marquez or Mario Vargas Llosa, but Schroeder described Vallejoís novel as "the opposite of that. It is hallucinatory, but not magical realism." He then joked, "Hallucinatoryóthatís just the way everyday life is, in Colombia. All the time, you say to yourself, did I just see that?" The sudden violence of "Our Lady of the Assassins" may have viewers saying the same thing. An accepted lawlessness pervades "Our Ladyís" Medellin. Youth gangs, junkies and the destitute crowd the beautiful streets, parks and churches of the old city. Murder settles scores both large and small. Societyís guardiansópoliticians, police and the churchóare overwhelmed, ineffectual and absent. In the story a middle-aged Colombian writer returns to his native Medellin after a long absence. Enamored with a poor young thug, the unlikely duo roam the streets together, bearing witness to and sometimes contributing to Medellinís decadent culture with its mix of vitality and mortality. The protagonistís love-hate relationship with his home, his need to both embrace and condemn life in Medellin drives the narrative and is embodied in the relationship with his murderous young lover. Despite the horrors his film depicts, Schroeder describes Medellin in the most pleasant terms: "a city of eternal spring, beautiful weather all year; the people are kind and polite." Schroeder shot "Our Lady" on high-definition digital video but describes his format choice as aesthetically not economically driven. "I wanted to make the town a character, in every frame of the picture. With DVD I think there is a depth of field more present" in every shot. "Our Ladyís" representation of Medellin pleases Schroeder the most: "It is a real Antioquia picture"óthe region of Colombia where Medellin is situated. "What you see is unique to there. The people, the customs are not like other parts of the country. It is unlike Bogot·, where because of the high altitude it freezes or Cartagena, where the tourists go. I donít like tourists. Medellin is a place I know I will be spared the plague of tourism." On the subject of filming a Colombian picture, Schroeder said, "We never see a picture actually shot in Colombia. If itís set there they shoot it in Mexico ñ or some place else ñ never Colombia." While security was a priority working in Colombia, Schroeder downplayed the sense of threat there. "On any production, there are security concerns. The guards who had to take care of the [$300,000] cameras were the most nervous, because they had to be obvious [carrying] sub-machine guns and everything. With me, they could be more discreet, not draw all that attention." By way of comparison, the director reminds me of his experience shooting the documentary "General Idi Amin Dada" in Uganda during the dictatorís reign, Schroeder said, "I was much more concerned there, you know, because of the threat of another coup. There were 18 attempts on Amin, and if one had happened while I was there, I was so close, that would have been it." "But you know, none of this is as dangerous as getting in your car every day. That is a hundred times more dangerous than making a film in Colombia, and we do it every day," he said. Todd Hitchcock is a freelance writer in Washington, D.C.