Film Review: Pelo Malo

As his mother, Marta, pounds on the bathroom door, nine-year-old Junior stares at himself in the mirror, slicking his hair back with water in an effort to undo his tight curls. Junior’s determination to straighten his hair so he can look like his idol, Venezuelan rock star Henry Stephen, is an ongoing source of tension with his mother—and the axis around which reflections on issues of race, gender, homophobia, and violence in contemporary Venezuela revolve in Pelo Malo, a film by Venezuelan director Mariana Rondón.

Pelo Malo, literally “bad hair,” is a term used...

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