Blow

Colour, 35mm
USA, 2001, 124 min
Section: Official Selection - Competition

Synopsis

In the seventies international drug sales rose sharply and a completely inconspicuous and entirely average American found himself in the middle of it all. Over the course of just a few years, small-town football star George Jung became the main cocaine importer for Columbia’s Medellín cartel. Blow is one of the many bizarre stories life offers filmmakers. The film picks up George Jung in the sixties during his first contact with the world of drugs on the beaches of California. At that time, marijuana deals for him were still a means of attaining the American Dream. Then, thanks to his acquaintance with recruiters for the Medellín cartel, he becomes a professional smuggler. He is just one link in a chain transporting white powder from Latin America to customers in the US. The film employs a rather dry humour to show how the son of a poor but respectable construction worker was transformed over night into a nouveau riche, who has trouble storing his wall to wall cash. With probing detail the film outlines the rise and fall of a small-town boy who blows all his dreams through greed.

About the director

Ted Demme (b. 1964, New York) is the nephew of director Jonathan Demme. He began directing for television (TV movies: Subway Stories, Tales from the Underground). In addition to Blow, he has also made Snitch (1998) about a gang of car thieves. In 1999 he co-directed Bruce Springsteen’s Streets of Philadelphia, and shot the film Life. He also acts and produces.