Where is the murderer? Maybe over there, wallowing, in the neighbor's yard

She already wondered about it, the Colombian with the white dreams and bare feet, in that incredible, unsurpassable and even reflexive Latin pop album Dónde están los ladrones (Where are the thieves, 1998), one of the most successful of her career and among the best 500 in history, according to Rolling Stone magazine. It is also considered to be one of the 1000 recordings you must listen to before you die, according to Sony Music. In one of its choruses, she sings this:

Where are the thieves (Donde están los ladrones)
Where is the killer (Donde está el asesino)
Maybe over there wallowing (Quizá allá revolcándose)
In the neighbor's yard (en el patio del vecino)

The song, whose homonymous title is Dónde están los ladrones (Where are the thieves) sets up an ambiguity at least suggestive, as it anticipates that the dangers surrounding human obscurity are close, sometimes as close as in the neighbor's backyard...and then some. But what if the danger is you? What if the danger is you or you when you are with your group of friends?

The song itself, to sing out loud:

The Last Supper: a satirical comedy that cuts to the bone

A group of progressive, liberal friends meet every Sunday to discuss everything with a new stranger whom one of them invites to dinner. The topics include current news, feminism, environmental issues, the law. The world.

Who are the members of this group of friends? Why do they organize these meetings with strangers? What exactly are their intentions?

They are university graduates pursuing a master's degree. They are cultured, educated and stand against injustices. Such is the degree of consensus they have that there does not seem to be major disagreements among them. On the contrary, there is rather a recurrent rejoicing in their ideological coincidences, from which a special camaraderie emerges that consists precisely in knowing that they are in common with each other, on the same side of a spectrum of ideas. Surely that phrase so often used by some would apply to them: “you are everything that is right”. What does it mean to be “everything that's right” and why is this called into question in The Last Supper?

“University graduates. You don't know anything” says the first invited guest we see, a former Gulf War veteran and truck driver. In this character's words, “If you people would kill for an idea you believe in, that would be something.” The film quickly places the focus of the story.

This man claims to have traveled across 48 U.S. states with his truck. After an exchange where he gets teased a bit, the heavy artillery arrives. The guest soon reveals his Holocaust denialism, his racism and his disdain for social protest. When he becomes violent and threatens them with a knife, one of the friends stabs him in the back with a knife that kills him. After the initial shock, what do the group of educated, anti-injustice college friends decide to do with the body? They decide to bury him in their garden and pretend nothing happened.

What is happening to this group of friends? One cannot help but wonder. Faced with impotence, anger and even the violence of others, they resolve their differences with the same coin. The resolution, extreme, terminal and criminal, to kill those who think not only differently, but extremely opposed to them. They turn the intolerance of others into an extreme counter-intolerance, but in the name of “good”. Of course, the film has to exaggerate in this aspect: it is a movie.

Thus begins a series of almost planned crimes. Each dinner guest will be someone brought in for a very particular reason: so it happens with a homophobic priest; a man who relativizes sexual crimes; an anti-abortion activist...among others. Suddenly, one of the guests, a man who exercises violence against the homeless, begins to reflect on his actions. However, the friends emphasize the intolerance, because they have long crossed the line: there is something of the dark comedy code in their behavior, without a doubt, but also a reaffirmation of their madness. Remorse, guilt, and fractures arise within the group of friends, until Cameron Diaz’s character, Jude (a role the actress specifically requested to play), says in one scene, “We’re not giving people a chance.” When one of them decides to kill someone because they say they don’t like the book The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, the absurdity reaches its peak.

Sometimes, human darkness is closer than it may seem. Is this the solution a group of progressive university students finds to resolve their differences in a world full of contradictions, false and discriminatory discourses? There is something the movie exposes very well that helps to reflect on ourselves. Of course, not literally, since, once again, just to clarify, it’s a movie. But sometimes, art—especially cinema—has the ability to shed light or raise questions where the discourse of those who hold public speech cannot, do not reach, do not know, or are simply comfortable in their corner of the world where everything fits if one thinks similarly. Where difference is not questioned and discerning is seen as betrayal, instead of reading the coordinates of changing times.

Sometimes that "other," the one who is threatening, the one with authoritarian practices, is not exactly the other; sometimes, it is really ourselves. Whether we like it or not, we shape our way of perceiving the world with the same devices of society as our "opponents," those very same people we don't hesitate to identify as those who oppose us.

The Last Supper explores themes that resonate in the present and serves as a wake-up call about the reactionary ways of living in society.

As for the last guest this group of friends manages to have at their table, it's better to see it in the movie—more impactful than reading it here. But one of the friends gives a good definition of this character at the beginning of the film: “He takes any topic, no matter how trivial, and turns it into a national debate. He tells lies better than many people tell the truth.”

As the end of the cited Shakira song, says,

And what if it's them, and what if it's me (Y qué pasa si son ellos, y qué pasa si soy yo)
The one who plays this guitar (El que toca esta guitarra)
Or the one who sings this song (O la que canta esta canción)
The one who sings this song (La que canta esta canción)

BONUS: Below is the opening title sequence of the movie, because I always love them, especially when they are so original. Maybe seeing it will encourage you to watch the film, too.