HART, Stephen M. Latin American Cinema.
HART, Stephen M. Latin American Cinema.
HART, Stephen M. Latin American Cinema.
r e a kti on b ooks
For Dany
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
isbn 978 1 78023 365 9
Contents
Introduction
1
Inauspicious Beginnings (18951950)
2
Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano and the Time-image
(19511975)
3
Nation-image (19761999)
4
The Slick Grit of Contemporary Latin American Cinema
(20002014)
References
Select Directors Biographies
Select Bibliography
Acknowledgements
photo acknowledgements
Index
Introduction
| introduction
1
Inauspicious Beginnings
(18951950)
Images in movement
As the philosopher Gilles Deleuze has argued, the earliest stage of film,
epitomized by Auguste and Louis Lumires LArrive dun train en gare
de La Ciotat (Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station, 1895), was character-
ized by images in movement. The cinmatographe an early moving
image projector to which we owe the word cinema itself was given its
first public demonstration by the Lumire brothers in the Grand Caf,
Paris, on 28 December 1895, when they screened their film. There are
reports of the audience running out of the Grand Caf in horror when
they saw the train approaching. As Paola Marrati suggests:
Dont worry Don Ral. If you say the light at four in the
morning is not right for your little machine, well, no problem.
The executions will take place at six. But no later. Afterwards
we march and fight. Understand?5
Movement-image
The screening of actualities led again quite rapidly to a number of
experiments with the new medium of moving images. It was once
| inauspicious beginnings
photographers began to explore different ways of playing back and re-
combining the recorded images that the seventh art of the silver screen
was born: montage. It was arguably with Georges Mlis 30-scene,
fifteen-minute narrative film Le Voyage dans la lune (Journey to the Moon,
1902) that montage emerged most famously into filmic discourse, notably
in the sequence in which the spaceship is depicted landing in the moons
eye. Though Mlis editing was rudimentary it was the first hint of
what Deleuze called the creation of movement-images, of a new sense
of narrativity. As Marrati suggests:
the gang, and she sees him when she looks through a crack in the door.
El automvil gris has an excellent sense of continuity and dramatic ten-
sion; it is an action-based drama more than a piece of journalism. And
yet the documentarism of its genesis came back to haunt the film in its
closing sequence in which we see the actual criminals who had been
captured and convicted lined up against a wall and shot dead by firing
squad. The film demonstrates the osmotic nature of the medium at this
early period in Latin America. Enrique Rosas was director, screenwriter,
cameraman and producer. But just as importantly, El automvil gris
demonstrates that the mixture between fiction and documentary was
already in the dna of the Latin American cinematic tradition by 1919. It
was a legacy which would prove to be one of the distinctive characteristics
of Latin American film.
Six years later, a very significant silent film was made in Chile, differ-
ing from the Mexican film in that it was an excavation of the historical
past of that Latin American country. El hsar de la muerte, which premiered
on 24 November 1925 in Santiago, was directed by Pedro Sienna. He
also starred in the film, which tells the story of the adventures of the
guerrilla leader, Manuel Rodrguez (17851818), during the Reconquista
up until his death in 1818. The 65-minute film was reconstructed in 1962
| latin american cinema
and 1995 by the film unit at the University of Chile and is now considered
a national monument. Unlike the history books that focus on the lib-
eration of Chile via the figures of Jos de San Martn and Bernardo
OHiggins, this silent film tells the story via the perspective of the guerrilla
leader, Manuel Rodrguez. Though Jos de San Martn does appear in
the film Bernardo OHiggins is airbrushed out of the frame, perhaps not
surprisingly since the two men did not always see eye to eye. (After the Battle
of Chacabuco in 1817, for example, won by Jos de San Martn, OHiggins
ordered Rodrguezs arrest, and Rodrguez only managed to escape his
prison sentence as a result of San Martns intervention.)
The film opens with the rout of the Chilean troops by the Spanish army
at the Disaster of Rancagua in 1814. While the royalists are celebrating,
Rodrguez sends them a message: No alegrarse demasiado. Se acerca la
hora de la libertad. Mueran los tiranos Viva la patria! (Dont get too happy.
The hour of freedom is approching. Down with tyrants. Long live our
motherland!) Rodrguez rallies the Chilean troops, encouraging them
to fight a rear-guard action against the Spanish, and he begins to take
on various disguises, allowing him to travel around Santiago undisturbed.
The royalist captain, Vicente San Bruno, is portrayed as disturbed by
this via montage; the captain hangs his head in his hands when he
imagines Rodrguez in his various disguises, as presented by some (rudi-
mentary) cross-cutting between the captains face and Rodrguezs
different disguises. The film also adds a star-crossed love motif to the
plot, having Rodrguez fall in love with the daughter of the Marquis of
Aguirre, their union forbidden since it cuts across political lines (the
The hoodlums
swear allegiance in
El automvil gris.
| inauspicious beginnings
Marquis of Aguirre, as his title suggests, is a royalist). Rodrguezs popu-
larity among the lower classes is suggested by the introduction of a boy
guerrillero called El Huacho Pelao (The Ragamuffin Soldier) who is so
fed up with being bullied by the Spanish troops that he decides to fight
for Rodrguez. The film has all the types of errors associated with early
twentieth-century filmmaking (dialogue intertitles not synchronized
with actors dialogue, non-adherence to the 180-degree rule, abrupt
transitions between events and over-reliance on subtitles to relate sig-
nificant events, such as Rodriguezs death) but it has raw energy,
especially evident in scenes such as the discovery by Captain San Bruno
that Rodrguez is hiding in the Aguirre residence, protected by Carmen,
and the simple circumstances of Rodrguezs burial by some humble
peasants. The final scene suggests most clearly that this film offers a man-
in-the-street version of Chiles independence. It also shows the osmotic
nature of the various roles associated with filmmaking in Latin America
in the 1920s since Pedro Sienna was director, screenwriter and star actor
of the film.
Another silent film of this period which focuses, like El hsar de la
muerte, on a popular folkloric figure, was Luis Pardo (1927, directed by
Enrique Cornejo Villanueva), which told of the life and adventures of
Luis Pardo Novoa (El Bandolero [The Bandit], 18741909), a Robin
Hood-type from Ancash in Peru who fought against the oppression of
the common people in the large estates which spread across the Andres.
Most of the surviving footage shows Luis Pardos skirmishes before his
eventual death at the hands of Leguas troops. Brasa dormida (1928),
directed by Humberto Mauro and arguably Brazils most famous silent
film, tells the tale of Luis Soares (played by Luis Soroa), a dissipated
youth living in Rio de Janeiro who is rejuvenated though his work at a
sugar factory in the interior and his love of the owners daughter, Anita
Silva (played by Nita Ney). It is beautifully shot.
What first led us to distrust him [Eisenstein] was that when the
money was spent he wrote us that wed have to send more or
wed have no picture . . . He kept that up, over and over, and
we realized that he was simply staying in Mexico at our expense
in order to avoid having to go back to Russia.
As a result Eisenstein and Sinclair fell out, and Sinclair kept the raw
footage Eisenstein had been sending him, and subsequently refused to
allow Eisenstein to edit the film. Some of the negatives were sold by
Sinclair, who was trying to recoup some of the capital he had raised for
the venture, and released piecemeal as Thunder over Mexico (1933; based
on the Maguey sequence), Eisenstein in Mexico (1934), Death Day
(1934; based on the Epilogue) and Time in the Sun (1939). Eisenstein
was upset by this betrayal. When asked years later by Jan Leyda why he
had not directed any major film since Que viva Mxico!:
Soldier in a doorway
in Eisensteins Que
viva Mxico! (1931).
means that Mara must visit the local landowner. She is raped, Sebastin
tries to avenge her lost honour, and he and two accomplices are buried
with their torsos revealed before being trampled to death by horses.
During the gunfight between Sebastin, his accomplices and the
landowner, a highly choreographed sequence of shots underlines the
metaphorical connections between the maguey cactus and the workers
blood. Exchange of fire is cross-cut with images of the cactus being
destroyed and its sap dripping out. This connection between blood and
sap is used to enhance the notion of exploitation. The sap, which the
peasants have to suck laboriously from the cactus plants in order for it to
be fermented and then drunk by the rich, provides an example of how
the workers are used as an agent of their own oppression. Later on, the same
image of the sap is used to underline the notion of Mexico fermenting
during its Revolution.
The fifth section, the Soldadera sequence, only existed in draft
form, as did the sixth section, the epilogue, which, though truncated, is
suggestive in that it overlays a religious, cultural ceremony, the Day of
the Dead, with political significance. Rather than simply rehearsing the
Aztec notion of the continuity of life and death, Eisenstein uses the
masks which characterize the celebrations of the Day of the Dead to
| inauspicious beginnings
make a political point. When the masks are cast off, some reveal the
face of smiling young boys, while others show the skull of a socially
doomed class, the military and the gendarmes. It is not insignificant
that one of the people chosen to represent this class is wearing spurs,
namely, the social class which in the pre-Revolutionary era had raped
humble women such as Mara and murdered men such as Sebastin if
they dared to rebel. The epilogue concludes with the shot of a face of
a smiling young boy, a symbol of the future of Mexico in the post-
Revolutionary era.
Eisenstein saw Que viva Mxico! in terms of a woven garment, the
Mexican sarape:
Though the six sections are distinct in many ways focusing in turn on
a pre-historical matriarchal society, the Spanish influence in Mexican
culture (specifically Catholicism and bullfighting), the oppression of the
Mexican working classes by the landowners in the pre-Revolutionary
era, female agency within the Mexican Revolution there are a number
of common strands which suggest that Eisenstein was attempting to
produce a unified artistic vision of Mexico. The Christological resonance
of the final scene of the Maguey sequence in which the three men are
trampled to death, for example, was meant to be counterbalanced with
the depiction of the re-enactment of Christs passion in the third section
(as in the later scene, there are three Christ figures, and the ropes used in
each sequence mutually reinforce their interconnectedness). Eisensteins
notes suggest that he intended to splice the depiction of Sebastins death
with images of the Corpus Christi but because he was unable to edit the
film, this remained an intention rather than an accomplishment.6 The
importance of Que viva Mxico! is that it allows us to enter into the
laboratory of a genius before he worked his magic. For this reason alone
the footage is intrinsically valuable.
| latin american cinema
Death in a cactus
in Que viva Mxico!
El Jaibo attacks
Julin in Buuels
Los olvidados (1950).
Yet Marta disrupts the codes of melodrama; she is beautiful, sensual and
prepared to have a sexual relationship with El Jaibo just, it appears, for the
hell of it. In one of the most disturbing scenes of the film, the dream
sequence, she offers her son some meat, and if we accept Peter Evanss con-
vincing interpretation that she is offering him her torn vagina, then she
is offering sex to her son.7 The moral of the film, furthermore, rather
than enacting catharsis or promoting social justice, appears to be simply
the working out of the inevitable consequences of evil.
One reading of the film would suggest that it is akin to a sociological
study, showing the grittier side of life in the slums of Mexico City. In
fact, Buuel spent a number of months travelling around the shanty
towns of Mexico City, watching, listening and thinking about the subject
of his film:
For the next several months, I toured the slums on the outskirts
of Mexico City sometimes with Fitzgerald, my Canadian set
designer, sometimes with Luis Alcoriza, but most of the time
alone. I wore my most threadbare clothes; I watched, I listened,
I asked questions. Eventually, I came to know these people,
and much of what I saw went unchanged into the film.8
On the face of it, therefore, we might see Los olvidados as offering a closely
observed picture of the world. But, alongside this notion of sociological
| inauspicious beginnings
Pedros mother offers
him meat in a dream
in Los olvidados.
| inauspicious beginnings
2
Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano
and the Time-image (19511975)
he refused to accept the excuse that the lm had been left at the acrtc,
and demanded it be handed over to the military authorities. Garca
Espinosa had no choice and he deposited the lm within 24 hours. 6
With the benet of hindsight it is now clear that El Mgano was the
blueprint for the politicized formula of lmmaking which would come
to fruition in the post-1959 lm produced in Cuba with a transparent
political ideology.
Cuba was not the only place where these new ideas, inspired by
Italian neo-Realism, were taking root. An important new voice in docu-
mentary lm emerged in Argentina in 1958 with the release of Fernando
Birris Tire di, which is now recognized as one of the classics of Latin
American documentary. Along with Garca Espinosas El Mgano (1955),
this work set a mould for Latin American cinema which departed
sharply from the Hollywood-inspired films dominating the viewers
imagination in the 1950s, both in the United States and elsewhere.
The most important difference is that we are exposed in this lm to the
have-nots of society, the people normally forgotten by the silver screen,
or sometimes domesticated in order to make them palatable for discreet
consumption. This is a gritty documentary with a social message, shot
| nuevo cine latinoamericano and the time-image
The destitute
children in
Fernando Birris
Tire di (1958).
Manuel in Glauber
Rochas Deus e o
diabo na terra do
sol (1964).
This also had implications for the relationship between the charac-
ter in the neo-Realist lm and his surroundings, for it is no longer a motor
extension which is established, but rather a dreamlike connection through
the intermediary of the liberated sense organs. It is as if the action oats
in the situation, rather than bringing it to a conclusion or strengthening
it.0 Finally, the neo-Realist lm is one where, as Deleuze suggests, the
character does not act without seeing himself acting, complicit viewer
of the role he himself is playing.
It is not too far-fetched to argue that Deleuzes description of the
typical protagonist of the neo-Realist lm, in many respects, is a descrip-
tion of Sergios dilemma as we witness the unfolding of his vision of
the world in Memorias del subdesarrollo. Especially in the opening
sequences of the lm, Sergios gaze appears to suggest that he is looking
at Havana for the rst time. He appears to be distanced, for example, from
the experience of bidding his wife farewell, as if he were watching the event
through the eyes of somebody else rather than himself. Sergio is a voy-
ant rather than an actor and, as we discover later on, he appears even to
be to quote Deleuzes words a complicit viewer of the role he himself
is playing.
Indeed Sergio is not only disconnected from space; he also appears to be
disconnected from time. The title of the lm, Memorias del subdesarrollo,
alerts the viewer immediately to the fact that time is an intrinsic com-
ponent of the experience recounted in the lm. The rst sequence after
the enigmatic establishing sequence in the nightclub when somebody
gets shot, which actually does not establish anything shows us Sergio
at the airport bidding farewell to his wife and then on the bus going
home. The idea of memory is instantiated when we suddenly see scenes
from that recent past: we assume that Sergio is daydreaming on the bus
and recreating in his mind what he has just experienced at Havana airport.
This remembering of the past does not occur in a conventional sense
| latin american cinema
for example, we perceive the characters eyes looking out of the window,
then the frame dissolves, then we see the airport, which would be a par-
adigmatic way of introducing a memory of this kind. Rather, we are
suddenly plunged into a remembered reality, and thus the present of the
lm (the reality we perceive when Sergio says goodbye at the airport) is sud-
denly revealed to be the past (Sergio is sitting on the bus remembering
what his wife looked like when he said goodbye to her).
Or, is it? Is it the past as recollected via the present, or does the rst
sequence really happen prior to getting on the bus (in other words,
Sergio just remembers a part of that recent experience)? The answer to
this question is neither yes nor no; rather it is that the lm thrives on this
temporal ambiguity and, indeed, attempts to trick the reader into exper-
iencing the present as the past and, by contrast, the past as the present.
Indeed, this introduces a level of meta-cinema into the scene, since it fore-
grounds the present reality along with the act of remembering itself. It
is possible to interpret the opening sequence as a set of disjointed ash-
backs but, as the lm subsequently demonstrates, Gutirrez Aleas work
deconstructs the performativity of the ashback and creates what Deleuze
would call a time-image; in other words, an image that simultaneously
encapsulates time and reects upon it. This is most obvious in the third
section of the lm. Sergio is walking around his Havana apartment
overlooking the Malecn, recalling aspects of his relationship with his
wife who has now departed for Miami. He goes through her drawers,
reviewing her underwear, lipstick and clothes, while listening to her
words as he recorded them at an unspecied time in the past. At one point
he puts on her eyeglass and we see a frame of him wearing it.
Though the viewer has become accustomed during this third
sequence of the lm to the presence of Sergios wife, this has only been
through her voice; thus we experience her aurally rather than visually.
Suddenly, two seconds after putting on her eyeglass, we see her. As a
result of this visual irruption of the past, the chronology of the scene is
disturbed. Until this point the dividing line between the present and
the past had been enunciated transparently. Sergio is in the present lis-
tening to the past as a result of operating a machine that had recorded
his wifes voice. But this distinction is perturbed when we suddenly see
a frame of the past his wife adjusts her glasses to look back at him
and it is not clear how this memory of the past has emerged. Clearly, this
| nuevo cine latinoamericano and the time-image
is not a ashback in the sense of being a conventional extrinsic device,
to use Deleuzes words. Were it a ashback the viewer would expect, if
presented in conventional terms, an image of the past preceded by a
dissolve frame indicating that the past will now emerge into the current
narrative of the lm. None of this happens. The lm does not explain
whether this frame is from Sergios point of view, or pov shot (that is, a
remembered pov) or a directors shot. While the viewers rst reaction
is likely to be one of confusion, it is clear subsequently that Titn is
attempting to allow the past to be experienced within the present of
lm, that is, inverting the normal protocol of lm in which present is
turned into past. Indeed, it is just as likely that this frame is an instan-
tiation of the camera remembering its own past, as if the camera had
become the protagonist of the lm and could remember as if it possessed
human agency.
The plot thickens two seconds later. Here the viewer sees a new
frame in which we are back with Sergio who looks as if he is reacting to
a eeting glimpse of his wife. It is likely that a viewer without contextual
knowledge would see this sequence as an example of the shot-reverse
shot technique. The shot-reverse shot is a classic technique used in real-
ist cinema, and characteristic of the action-image style. Typically it will
occur in the present of the lm when two people react to the signals of
each others face, which include speech as well as facial gesture, normally
as part of a dialogue. And here we see Sergio, then his wife, then Sergio.
Time-image in
Memorias del
subdesarrollo (1968).
But the context already provided indicates to the viewer that this is an
impossible shot-reverse shot sequence since we saw Sergios wife leaving
for Miami in the rst section of the lm. This sequence, therefore, can
only be a shot-reverse shot sequence in which the reverse shot is a mem-
ory of the past. It could not have occurred in one chronological sequence,
and instead occurred in the space between present and past, as it were.
Furthermore, to complicate things, it is not a recollection image or
ashback such as we nd, for example, in Hitchcocks Vertigo. It is a
more dynamic, dialectical shuttling between past and present. Time has
| nuevo cine latinoamericano and the time-image
therefore entered the frame as a mediator of the shot-reverse shot
sequence, and is in effect caught in dialectical suspension. The action image
has been re-articulated to create a time-image, one in which time itself
has been enunciated before the viewers startled eyes. Titn has in effect
used the time-image to create his own version of an algebra of memory,
thereby adding a meta-cinematic patina to the image.
This meta-cinematic patina is evident in Memorias del subdesarrollo,
not only on the level of the image but also on the level of plot and
sequencing. Titns lm is, indeed, self-reexive on a number of levels.
In the round-table discussion about underdevelopment, for example,
which Sergio attends with Elena, one of the round-table participants is
Edmundo Desnoes, the author of the novel (Inconsolable Memories) on
which the lm is based. In effect, the lm is playing with the difference
between the real and the ctional, allowing one to feed into another in
a way which is redolent of Pirandellos Six Characters in Search of an
Author. Sergio is totally unconvinced by Desnoess interventions, which
shows a character standing up to the individual who created him. The
North American conferencee who stands up during the round-table
debate and questions its effectiveness is none other than Jack Gelber, the
author of the foreword to the English edition of the novel. Gelber is
thus criticizing the book he helped to bring into being in English. This
Unamunesque play of creator against the created is further complicated
by the scene in which Sergio and Elena watch a series of risqu lm
clips with a lm director at the Cuban Film Institute. The director
concerned is none other than Titn himself. His subsequent comment
to Sergio that he may well use the scenes in some concocted lm later
on is supremely ironic, since this is, after all, the lm we as viewers
are actually watching. These different scenes could all be interpreted as
insider jokes in which Titn is cocking a private snook at the audi-
ence, but they can also be seen as scenes in which Titn is drawing
attention to the way in which art can reect upon its origins, and recall
its own genesis.
The documentary El chacal de Nahueltoro (1969), directed by Chilean
lmmaker Miguel Littn, told the story of Chiles rst ever serial killer,
Jos (or Jorge) del Carmen Valenzuela Torres, and it was an enormous
success at the Second Festival of Latin American Film held in Via del
Mar in November 1969. A drifter, Valenzuela Torres, or the Jackal of
| latin american cinema
Nahueletoro, as he came to be known, had brutally clubbed to death a
defenceless mother and her ve children in Chilln in northern Chile in
what was apparently a motiveless crime. News coverage of the event
and the massive police search for him traumatized Chile at the time.
Miguel Littn decided to reconstruct the tragedy using the documentary
genre but he introduced some innovative twists. First, he allowed
Valenzuela Torres to speak directly to the camera and, second, he used
chronology creatively. There are basically four self-contained time worlds
in Littns documentary: (i) his early life as recounted in voice-over in
confession mode; (ii) the reconstruction of the events leading up to the
murder, along with the murder itself; (iii) his arrest, and abuse by the
crowd; (iv) his life in prison after the trial in which he is sentenced to death,
culminating in his execution. The lm opens with a sequence depicting
his arrest, and then tracks back into the events of his early childhood
recounted in voice-over which are reconstructed up until the point of
the murder. It takes up the narrative of the Jackals life in prison during
the period of rehabilitation, and concludes with his execution. During
the narrative of his life, the lm returns almost obsessively to the scene
in which the Jackal is led away by police, signalled each time by the
whine of the police siren. It is only at the end of the lm when we see
the Jackal being interviewed, making a nal confession to a news reporter
just before his execution, that we realize that the earlier reconstruction
of his childhood was elicited at this point. The documentary, rather
dramatically, takes its point of departure from the Jackals last confession,
a criminals version of the last will and testament.
Inconsistencies are left in the narrative: at one point the Jackal says
that he only used a stick on one of the daughters, but this account is con-
tradicted by someone present who states that he is lying, and that she was
strangled. Likewise, when describing the murder of Rosa, the mother,
he again claims to have used a stick, but he also states that he was hold-
ing a knife at the time. The reporting style simply leaves these details as
they are. One of the mysteries of the murder concerns the fact, classic
in this kind of sensationalist tragedy, that there was no discernible
motive. He mentions that he was drunk on the wine that Rosa had
given him, and that she insulted him. No more details are given. And when
this scene is reconstructed, we witness Rosa shouting, but the sound is
cut, thereby enhancing the horror of the event. The murders are all the
more powerful since the Jackal is unable to give any reason for them. The
camerawork used to portray the murders in El chacal de Nahueltoro is ver-
satile. At times the camera moves around wildly, and we lose focus,
thereby echoing the savagery of the events themselves. At other times,
we are invited as viewers to step into the mind of the murderer, since the
murder scenes are reconstructed via the Jackals point of view; occasionally
the camera looks calmly at the children before they are killed, recalling
the lmic perspective of early horror lms such as Dracula (1931) and The
| latin american cinema
Wolf Man (1941). A chilling moment in the lm is when Rosa, just
before she is beaten to death, looks directly at the viewer.
Yawar Mallku (The Blood of the Condor, 1969) is a classic Latin
American lm by the Bolivian lm director Jorge Sanjins. On the day
of its premiere in La Paz (17 July 1969), the theatre where it was about
to be shown, the 18 de Julio, was suddenly closed down as a result of the
lms inammatory subject-matter; a public riot ensued and, eventually,
the authorities relented and allowed the lm to be screened. The lm
showed the trademark of Sanjinss interest in politicized cinema. Though
Sanjins began his career with the desire to make lm for lms sake,
he gradually became more interested in creating a cinema for society,
because art is an excellent instrument with which to create a social
consciousness; art plays a fundamental role in the process whereby soci-
ety achieves a toma de conciencia (reality check) of itself, drawing
inspiration from Italian neo-Realism. In contradistinction to Hollywood
work practices (professional actors in carefully constructed sets), Sanjins
based his lm on a real-life event, the covert sterilization of women in
the Bolivian village of Kaata. Sanjins went to the village with his cam-
era crew consisting of himself, Ricardo Rada, Oscar Soria and Antonio
Eguino, but he found that it was practically impossible to persuade any
of the villagers to act in his lm. They were far more concerned with
reaping the harvest. Finally a coca leaves ceremony was held by the local
yatiri (soothsayer) who sanctioned the project, and everything then went
to schedule.
The three main protagonists of the lm Ignacio, Paulina and
Sixto were not professional actors. In fact Yawar Mallku has Ignacio,
as communal leader of Kaata, in effect (like Viscontis postman) playing
himself. The overall message of the lm is that the Peace Corps is a
malevolent Western inuence in Latin America seeking to colonize
under the guise of providing medical and economic assistance. As Jos
Snchez-H. points out: As a result of the denunciation made by Yawar
Mallku, the Peace Corps was expelled from the country by President
General Juan Jos Torres in 1971 and did not return to Bolivia until
1990.4 The nal freeze-frame of the lm, showing a group of the villagers
holding their ries aloft in a sign of obvious deance, suggests that
armed struggle is the only logical way forward for Bolivia and indeed
for Latin America. The allusion to Che Guevara, who died in Bolivia two
years before the lm was screened, could not be more transparent.
While the lm relies on traditional storytelling techniques it tells the
story of the tragedy experienced by a particular community via the
| latin american cinema
representational narrative of one signicant individual, Ignacio it dis-
rupts narratological linearity by combining cross-cutting with ashback,
thereby drawing time into the dna of the image and creating what
Deleuze denes as a time-image.
One signicant ashback occurs, for example, when Sixto, faced
with his brother, Ignacio, who has been shot and is bleeding to death,
asks Paulina what happened. But Yawar Mallku does not use the ash-
back in a conventional fashion that is, where the ashback is initiated,
the lm scrolls back to some signicant moment in the past and then grad-
ually moves in linear fashion back to the present of the lm when it was
initiated. Rather, the ashback initiates a tightly choreographed see-saw
effect between the present (Sixto wandering around La Paz looking for
blood for his dying brother) and the past (a discrete set of events during
which Ignacio discovers what is happening in the maternity clinic and
rebels against the Western invaders). The lms cross-cuts become more
intense as the plot proceeds, echoing the anxiety and suspense underlying
Sixtos doomed search for blood, adding a sinister, proleptic mood to the
lm. Cross-cutting between present and past also allowed Sanjins to build
up connections between apparently unconnected events. When Sixto goes
to the centre of La Paz, for example, he witnesses a military procession
Jorge Sanjins on
set in Bolivia 1969.
going past, and the camera focuses in close-up on a young girl who is also
witnessing the procession; as if to underscore the sinister nature of the
ceremony, we see she is crying. The camera then slips into the past time
of the lm, and the viewer now witnesses the commandant who is
attempting to persuade the villagers that they should accept the gringos
who have just arrived in town. The gringos hand out clothes for the
children to wear. This scene which might be interpreted at face value
as an example of kindness towards others is already overlaid by the scene
of the young girl crying which immediately preceded it, and the gift
acquires sinister overtones.
It is important to point out, however, that the use of the cross-cut
in the context of the ashback was not seen at the time of the lms
release as an unmitigated success. Sanjins has stated in interviews that
his aim in Yawar Mallku was to address the Aymara population of Bolivia
rather than a Western audience. He discovered, soon after the lm was
released, that many Indians in the audience found the time shifts rather
confusing. Here is Sanjinss own verdict:
Political documentary,
The landmark documentary La batalla de Chile (The Battle of Chile,
1973) directed by Patricio Guzmn focused on the overthrow and assas-
sination of Salvador Allende in Chile on 11 September 1973 by General
Augusto Pinochet. Of the footage, 95 per cent was lmed directly by
Guzmn and his camera team, the Equipo Tercer Ao. The external
footage which was incorporated into the documentary consisted of (i)
the lming of his own death by Leonardo Henricksen; (ii) the lming
of the jets ying over the presidential palace (which came from Pedro
Chaskel who lmed them from his Cine Experimental ofces); (iii) the
bombing of La Moneda palace (which belonged to a German lm col-
lective, Hayowsky and Sceunmann Studios); and (iv) some stills derived
from Noticiarios de Chile Films.7 Everything else was lmed by Guzmn
himself this is made clear in the various images where we catch the sound
engineer or Guzmn himself on camera. These scenes lend authenticity,
providing an excellent example of the strengths of what Bill Nichols
| nuevo cine latinoamericano and the time-image
has called the interactive documentary.8 Guzmn has described how
the lm developed:
the editing of the lm. One of the strengths of La batalla de Chile was,
indeed, that it was able to combine the two levels the raw and the
poetic thereby providing a blueprint for the future of the potential
expressiveness of the documentary genre.4
Workers making
sugar inLa ltima
cena (1976).
The African parable he tells his audience, which is about the struggle
between Truth and Lie, is a postcolonial version of the struggle between
colonized and colonizing peoples which acts as a counter-response to the
counts parable of human suffering:
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When Olo made the world he made it complete with day and
night, good and bad. Truth and Lie. Olo was sorry for Lie, who
was ugly, and gave him a machete to defend himself. One day
Truth and Lie met and had a ght. Lie cut off Truths head.
Headless, Truth took Lies head. Now Truth goes around with
the body of Truth and the head of Lie.
Sueli breastfeeds
the protagonist in
Babencos Pixote
(1981).
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to kill her unborn child. The torture of Fumaa thereby becomes, in
retrospect, a grim omen of what is to follow. This parallelism has a num-
ber of implications for our interpretation of the lm. Given that Garato
is a rapist, and given the phallic resonance of the needle, it is clear that
a web of association is being built up that aligns male sexuality with
torture, rape and death. This pessimistic assessment of human sexuality
is balanced by the repetition of the motif of the absent mother. The ter-
ror of this lm does not lie in what we have witnessed so much as in what
we imagine will happen next. In the nal haunting image we see Pixote
walking along a railway track back to Rio de Janeiro, with a gun in his
belt. Having murdered three people already, he is a hardened criminal,
though still a minor, experienced in violence, extortion, the use of rearms
and with a worryingly precocious interest in sex. The fate of the lead actor
in the lm after its release in 1980 is testimony to its verisimilitude.
Fernando Ramos da Silva, who played Pixote, was persistently harassed
by the police, arrested on two occasions, tortured and, on 25 August
1987, gunned down by police.7 The lm Quem matou Pixote? (Who
Killed Pixote?, 1996), directed by Jos Jofly, was made about the life of
the actor who was gunned down, revealing this to be a story that runs and
runs. There is, indeed, no greater testimony to the true-to-life grittiness
of Babencos lm.8
Camila (1984), directed by the Argentine Mara Luisa Bemberg,
was one of the highlights of the 1980s. The story of the love affair at the
core of the lm was a contentious one which reected badly on an
important gure of Argentinas republican history (Juan Manuel de
Rosas) as well as the Church. For that reason every director since then
had been forbidden to tell the story of the love affair between Camila
OGorman, the daughter of one of Argentinas richest landowners, and
a local priest, Uladislao Gutirrez, which occurred from 1847 to 48.9
But Bemberg prevailed, and her re-enactment followed the historical
account closely. The lm shows Camila (Sus Pecoraro) seducing and
eloping with the local priest, Ladislao (Imanol Arias), to Goya City
where they live happily until discovered by Padre Gannon; they are
subsequently captured and shot to death on General Rosass orders, with
the complicity of Camilas father, Adolfo (Hctor Alterio). Though
Camila cost a mere $370,000 to make,0 it became one of the biggest
box ofce hits of all time in Argentina, surpassing takings of the recent
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The execution of the
lovers in Camila
(1984).
[it] was shot in a highly romantic style because I felt that in that
way I could really hit the audience, in the heart and in the pit of
their stomach. Melodrama is a very tricky genre, because at any
minute it can turn into something sentimental, which I detest.
So it had all those little tricks, such as the handkerchief, the gold
coin, the priest whos sick with love, and the thunder when God
gets angry. Theyre all like winks at the audience.
Camila, indeed, has all the hallmarks of what Warren Buckland has
identied as the fallen woman melodrama, namely the melodramatic
lm which focuses on a woman who commits a sexual transgression, is
expelled from the domestic space and is eventually punished with death.
There is a struggle in the lm between Ladislaos more traditional notion
of love (evident when he turns back to God) and Camilas more subver-
sive view of love which, for her, is tied to the personal, the erotic. As Ruby
Rich has suggested, Bemberg used seamless art cinema (lush, transparent,
and perfect periodicity) in the service of a new idea.
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Beneath its more obvious melodramatic level as a tragic love story
set in mid-nineteenth-century Argentina, Camila allegorizes the events
of the Guerra Sucia (Dirty War) of the mid-1970s to early 1980s, in which
thousands of political subversives were captured by the authorities and
disappeared. Bemberg has pointed to the dual level of the lm in inter-
views: Its a very Romantic story in which fear and menaces are also
present, something which weve very much lived with in Argentina and
its there, just beneath the surface.4 The lm led to what has been
called a collective catharsis. As John King has pointed out, Over two
million people wept at the story of Camila OGorman, which was their
story.5 There is a sense, though, in which this lm is also Bembergs own
story. Bemberg once declared that she became a lm director because she
wanted to give women the chance to speak rather than be spoken for:
My lms are an attempt to make women recognise themselves and
learn more about themselves through the protagonists predicament.
This is my ethical commitment, helping them to be free.6 So the lm
is itself a blueprint for Bembergs own rebellion against her family, her
society and sexual oppression. In her lms, Bemberg had said that she
wanted to propose images of women that are vertical, autonomous,
independent, thoughtful, courageous, spunky, and this is certainly the
case with Camila.7 After all, it is she who is portrayed as initiating the
love affair. Traditional versions of the story had an innocent woman
seduced by a lecherous priest. I think it was a good idea to have the
priest seduced by the woman, remarked Bemberg wryly. It helped me
with the Church.8
Quite consistently throughout the lm, Camila takes centre stage
and thereby marginalizes Ladislao. When she discovers from the doctor,
for example, that she is pregnant, we cut to a shot in which Camila is
screaming through her prison bars to Ladislao that they have a child. The
camera shows Ladislaos cell; we see him in long shot, hunched over,
clearly oblivious to her words. Our sympathy is engineered for Camila
during the prison sequences with a standard directors trick the micro-
phone is placed close to Sus Pecoraros throat and we hear her nervous
breathing and swallowing; the viewer is thereby transported inside the
characters bodily space. The denouement of the lm implies that the
unborn child that Camila is carrying when she is executed allegorizes the
edgling nation of the unitarios mercilessly crushed by Rosass iron
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st. The very presence of the voice-over A tu lado, Camila (At your
side, Camila) which, as suggested above, is an overt allusion to a
Romantic notion of post-corporeal love, itself suggests a transcendence
of those powers which have crushed Camilas and Ladislaos vulnerable
bodies. The lm, therefore, has a positive political message. The way in
which it actually came into being points not only to its political resonance
but also to the sense in which its gestation period accompanied the birth
of a new political era. As Lila Stantic recalls:
for Best Foreign Film, and as such put down a marker for Latin American
lm which proved auspicious.
The following year, 1985, La historia ocial, directed by Luis Puenzo,
became the rst Latin American lm to win an Academy Award for
Best Foreign Film. It was as if the emperors clothes that had adorned
Camila in the previous year had now been stripped from Argentinas
body politic the truth of Argentinas Dirty War could now be told. As
a result the Argentine lm industry became famous overnight. La histo-
ria ocial specically portrays and analyses the social conict which
produced the Guerra Sucia in Argentina from 1975 until 1982; it was a
dirty war in which as many as 30,000 people were kidnapped and dis-
appeared (the so-called desaparecidos) by the military leaders. But rather
than focus on the specics of warfare between the military and the ter-
rorists, Puenzos lm instead narrates the story of the abduction of the
children of subversives who were adopted, once their parents had been
disappeared, by higher echelons of the military establishment, and it
does so by focusing on the drama of one particular child, Gaby. The action
of the lm centres on the gradual discovery by Alicia (Norma Aleandro),
a history teacher in a secondary school, that the child her husband,
Roberto (Hctor Alterio) a high-ranking businessman with links to
counter-espionage, the usa, and the military gave to her some four or
ve years before the lm narrative proper begins, was in fact illegally
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abducted from her subversive parents just before they were murdered.
The genre invented by Puenzo to tell his story in La historia ocial was
thriller with a political twist. It was a genre in which Latin American
lm directors would before long demonstrate great dexterity.
The enunciation of the narrative was engineered through three
superb acting performances by Norma Aleandro (who won the Best
Actress award at Cannes), Hctor Alterio and Chunchuna Villafane
(who won Best Supporting Actress at the Chicago Film Festival). The last
of these plays Ana, who has returned to Buenos Aires after a number of
years in exile. The lm contains a superb scene in which Ana, through
her laughter then her tears, tells Alicia how she was tortured, while
Alicia listens to her account in stunned disbelief. The curious thing
about the scene is that though the actress Norma Aleandro is stunned
by Anas account of her exile it is, in some ways, the account of Normas
own life: she was forced into exile on 21 June 1976 by a bomb which
exploded at 3 oclock in the morning beneath her apartment, followed
by a threat telling her to leave the country within 24 hours and that if
she did not do so she and her family were running a grave risk. The
superb acting in La historia ocial was supported by the use of three
cinematic devices which enhance the expression of suspense in the lm:
blocking, the long shot, and montage-in-depth. The establishing shot of
the lm, for example, gives a hint of what is to come. We witness the play-
ing of the national anthem in the school playground at which Alicia
and Bentez teach, but for those viewers who expect a Hollywood-style
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Roberto reveals he is
a torturer in the final
scene of La historia
ocial.
master shot the results are rather surprising. The lm begins with the title
(La historia ocial) being ripped up, at which point the camera focuses
on a loudspeaker, and then in an obsessively deliberate way on the
individuals in the school playground, but our view is consistently blocked
by the concrete structure of the roof behind which the camera is placed.
This blocking shot that is, there is something interrupting the vision
of the spectator from the main action is an early indication that we will
be seeing a behind-the-scenes version of Argentine reality. This establish-
ing shot, indeed, draws attention to one of the key techniques used in
the lm, namely, the snares which offer a tantalizing view of an event but
do not tell us the whole truth,4 in order to support the basic message of
the lm that the state conceals its actions from its citizens gaze. It is not
coincidental, indeed, that the rst time we see Roberto (soon after the estab-
lishing scene described above) he is not viewed openly but glimpsed
obliquely. Our view of him is blocked by the wall behind which he scur-
ries after entering the house. In pragmatic terms his actions are
understandable since he is attempting to hide the doll he has bought for
Gaby but, as the lm progresses, the prevalence of blocking takes on a more
sinister resonance. He is the character, after all, whom we know the least
about. As we realize at the conclusion of the lm when, quite out of the
blue, he attacks his wife, his past may have been very murky indeed.
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That Puenzo has deliberately chosen to block the viewers percep-
tion at certain crucial junctures is suggested by what might at rst seem
innocuous decisions about mise-en-scne. Thus, when we see Roberto
and Alicia in long shot leave the restaurant and walk along the pavement
to their car (we hear their conversation, and can see that Alicia is visibly
agitated about being insulted as a result of her infertility), it is striking
that the camera tracks them from behind a hedge on the other side of
the road; the long shot combined with the fact that we can hear their voices
perfectly as if they were close by inevitably evokes the atmosphere
of secrecy and covert spying, techniques that were part and parcel of
the culture animating the Guerra Sucia.
Pointing in a similar direction to the use of blocking and the long
shot is the use of montage-in-depth, which underlines the mystery of the
states machinations. The best example occurs when Alicia turns up
unexpectedly at Robertos ofce and witnesses a showdown between her
husband and a business associate called Macchi. Macchi loses his temper
and shouts at Roberto that he is not prepared to take the blame for the
latters misdemeanours. Roberto tries unsuccessfully to placate him, and
we see Macchi being bundled into a nearby ofce. The following sequence
of shots is seen via Alicias point of view; the door is opened and then
closed, and a nal glimpse of what is going on in the room terminates
when the lift door shuts. One of the men seems to have his hand around
Macchis neck: is he loosening his collar or strangling him? Because the
scene in the ofce is portrayed as occurring in the most distant segment
of cinematic space from the camera-eye namely further away than the
lift door, than the intervening space in the ofce and than the ofce
door it is difcult to pick out what precisely is happening. We nd a
similar exploration of cinematic space in the scene towards the end of
the lm set in Robertos home when he is entertaining his American
guests and Argentine business associates. The older American is compli-
menting Gaby; the younger American is on the phone trying to locate
his wife who seems to have disappeared; Roberto is boasting about his
prowess in the business world; and his two associates are playing pool.
This sequence is characterized by deep focus cinematography in which
a great deal of space is not only visible within a shot but also clearly in
focus;5 in particular three cinematic spaces foreground, middle
ground and background are combined in such a way that the viewer
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used to the Hollywood formula of explicit foregrounding may be con-
fused. Should we be listening to the Argentine men arguing about their
pool game or listening to the younger American who is becoming increas-
ingly agitated as his attempts to locate his wife prove unsuccessful?
Where is Alicia? To further compound the viewers disorientation, at
one point in the sequence the 180-degree rule is broken, and we see the
American behind rather than in front of Roberto. Though not as dra-
matic as the scene is which Macchi is bundled into a nearby ofce, this
sequence demonstrates Puenzos deliberate use of montage-in-depth in
order to underline the theme of the deliberate blocking of the truth.
Like the next-of-kin of the desaparecidos, we dont know what to look for
or where to look.
Macu, la mujer del polica (Macu, the Policemans Wife, 1987),
directed by the Swedish-Venezuelan Solveig Hoogesteijn, tells the story
of Macu (Mara Luisa Mosquera), a pretty woman whose husband Ismael
(Daniel Alvarado) is accused of murdering her lover Simn (Frank
Hernndez), along with his two friends. The lm opens with the news
that the three young men have disappeared; a police investigation begins
which is intercut with a reconstruction of Ismael and Macus courtship.
Not only is Ismael an older man, but he rst met Macu when she was
a young child, the daughter of a woman he had an affair with. He was
thus, in effect, grooming Macu for later on. Based on the true story of
a policeman, Argenis Rafael Ledezma, the so-called Monster of Mamera,
who was jailed for murder in 1980 for 30 years, Macu, la mujer del polica
is a brooding, atmospheric drama about sex, revenge, police corruption
and paedophilia which reaches its inevitable climax when Macu testies
against Ismael.6
La boca del lobo (The Lions Den, 1988), directed by the Peruvian
Francisco Lombardi, tells the story of the brutal struggle between the
Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) and the army in Peru which lasted
throughout the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, and claimed more
than 10,000 lives. Lombardis lm is set in a ctional, prototypical town
in the Andes, Chuspi, and shows the struggle descending into the sev-
enth circle of hell. A lieutenant, Basulto (Antero Snchez) captures a
Sendero Luminoso suspect, has him questioned and then decides to
hand him over; their truck is attacked and Basulto and two of his men
are cruelly murdered. A new tougher lieutenant, Ivn Roca (Gustavo
| latin american cinema
Bueno) is sent in, and he begins terrorizing the local population, demand-
ing information from the mayor, killing the cow of a villager he suspects
of collusion, Faustino Sulca, and the lm describes the descent into vio-
lence which leads to the rape of a young girl (Julia) by one of the recruits,
followed by the machine-gunning of a number of the villagers next to a
remote gulley. The strength of the lm lies in its depiction of an absent
enemy the Sendero Luminoso are never seen which makes of it some-
thing of a psychological thriller. The denouement shows the army turning
in on itself; it concludes with a duel of Russian roulette between Ivn Roca
and Vitn Luna (Too Vega), who beats the lieutenant but then decides
to turn his back on the mindless violence perpetrated by the army.7
to the press at the conclusion the very words that got him into trouble in
the rst place.
El viaje (The Voyage, 1992), by the Argentine director Fernando
Solanas, is similar to La frontera in that it is a political-absurdist lm
about the desire to discover national identity. We follow Martn (Walter
Quiroz), a hybridly ironic mix of Argentinas liberator Jos de San Martn,
and prototypical revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara, as he journeys
on his bicycle (rather than motorbike) through Argentina (the Straits of
Magellan, Patagonia, Buenos Aires), the Andes, Machu Picchu, Cuzco and
its Holy Temple, the Amazon, a goldmine in Brazil and nally Mexico.
While searching for his father, Martn discovers that Latin America is
drowning in debt which is demonstrated naturalistically (matches are
sold to him one at a time in the Peruvian Andes), graphically (Brazils
president as well as his advisors are trussed up) and metaphorically
(Argentina is under water, clearly echoing Larrans La frontera). The lm
begins as a self-discovery fable and gradually turns into a tale of the
absurd: the weather forecast predicts the world will tilt, and then it
appears to do so; because Argentina is under water, people have started
selling plots of water; the Argentine president is called Dr Rana (Dr
Frog), suggesting that he will swim when others drown an obvious dig
at Carlos Menem; while in Brazil there is an External Debt truck which
| latin american cinema
arrives in the Andes in order to demand contributions from the peas-
ants through its loudspeakers. Though humorously melodramatic, El
viaje was not to everyones taste. There were those who pointed to its
overt allegorical strategies.54 Others did not agree with Solanass left-
wing politics: Fernando Solanass outspoken contempt for Carlos Menems
administration in Argentina nearly cost him his life an assassination
attempt conned him to a wheelchair for most of the post-production on
The Voyage.55 The conclusion of El viaje Martn appears to discover his
father in Mexico, driving a truck carrying an enormous image of the
Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, the Plumed Serpent appears tacked on, and
indeed it was since Solanas ran out of funding towards the end of the
project and was only able to secure help from the Instituto Mexicano de
Cinematografa on the condition that one of the lmed sequences would
take place in Mexico.56 The main moral of the El viaje as suggested by
its conclusion is that Latin America should seek its cultural destiny not
by espousing Western values but rather by delving into its Amerindian past.57
Cronos (1993), directed by Guillermo del Toro, is a vampire movie
with a difference. The cronos, a gold contraption developed by an
alchemist in Veracruz, Mexico, in 1536, containing a scarab whose sting
brings eternal life, ends up in an antique shop in 1937. The antique
owner is Jess Gris (Federico Luppi) a grey and therefore imperfect
Christ,58 who suddenly nds that he regains his youthful looks after
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being stung by the contraption. There is, however, a nasty side effect in
that he is also overcome by an uncontrollable desire to drink human
blood. A local businessman, Dieter de la Guardia (Claudio Brook), sus-
pecting that Jess Gris now possesses the cronos, sends his psychotic
nephew, Angel de la Guardia (Ron Perlman), to retrieve it. Casting an
American actor as the villain of the lm was a little wink from del Toro
to the audience since it was a reversal of the stereotypical evil Mexican in
many u.s. movies.59 Though pushed off a cliff in a car by the evil nephew
and declared dead, Jess Gris is resurrected, escaping in hilarious fashion
from the morgue just before he is about to be cremated, and eventually
kills the evil nephew as well as Dieter de la Guardia. He is cared for by
his granddaughter, Aurora Gris (Tamara Shanath), but when Aurora is
injured and he sees her blood, the scene is set for the nal triumph of evil
when he approaches her, echoing the iconic scene from James Whales
Frankenstein (1931) when Frankensteins monster kills the young girl by
the lake. (Guillermo del Toro mentions this scene in an interview as the
prototypical scene of the horror lm, the thrill of which he had always
wanted to re-create in his own lms.60) However, in a twist of the monster
movie prototype, Jess Gris refuses to kill her, and instead destroys the
cronos by smashing it with a rock. Cronos thus concludes on a note of
redemption, and thereby in effect re-Catholicizes vampirism.6
Guillermo del Toro found it very hard to make Cronos because of
spiralling production costs. When it rst went into production it was
ofcially Mexicos most expensive lm with a budget of $1,500,000
(although it was soon overtaken by Araus Como agua para chocolate) and
it cost an extra $500,000 as a result of the interest payable on the origi-
nal loan.6 But the biggest obstacle was the reluctance of the Mexican Film
Institute to fund the lm. In the 1990s, as del Toro has pointed out, the
lm industry in Mexico was sadly very corrupt in that there was an
older generation of Mexican lm directors who, because of government
funding, were on their tenth or eleventh lm (del Toro does not mention
names but he is thinking of directors such as Arturo Ripstein whose
eleventh lm, La mujer del puerto, came out in 1991) while a younger
generation (del Toro mentions his contemporaries Alfonso Cuarn and
Gonzlez Irritu) had to go through many years of internship working
for nothing on a number of lms, including those of their friends. He and
Gonzlez Irritu often discussed their fear that theirs would be the
| latin american cinema
skipped generation.6 But Del Toro was so persistent that after four
years the Mexican Institute of Film eventually relented and allowed
Cronos to go into production.
It was a labour of love. The cinematography, the camera angles and
the editing all showed an attention to detail that was more in keeping
with an art house lm than a popular culture movie about a Mexican
vampire. The colour coding, for example, is used purposefully in Cronos
to indicate the identity of different characters as well as the stages of the
alchemical process. As del Toro has pointed out, there is an abundance
of black in the lm, reecting the importance of black as the symbol of
base matter in alchemy, and grey as well as black and white is often
used to echo the protagonists name (Jess Gris) and suggest the drabness
of his existence. Jess Griss house and his wife are colour-coded in
warm earth tones while the villains are colour-coded in blues, cold greys,
blacks and whites. Red, given its importance in the alchemical cosmol-
ogy, is only used in connection with Aurora, who often wears very striking
red dresses, although it also appears in association with Jess and his
shop at certain crucial junctures.64 But when the nal cut of Cronos was
pre-screened, one of the heads of the Mexican Film Institute told the
team that because the lm was a vampire movie it would simply fade
into obscurity in Mexico.65 But Cronos went on to win nine out of the
eleven Mexican academy awards, as well as the Critics Week Prize at the
Cannes Film Festival.66
The individual who dismissed Cronos as a vampire movie was wrong
in that Guillermo del Toros clever lm could not be simply typecast in
this way. Cronos mixes genres innovatively, combining the vampire movie
formula with black comedy, leading to a blend of genres that del Toro,
as he points out in an interview, has always aimed for in his Spanish-
language lms. This contrasts with his English-language lms which, as
he discovered to his personal cost when he later made Mimic, have to be
less experimental because of the pressures of the Hollywood system.67 The
black humour in Cronos is death-xated and intrinsically Mexican. As
Guillermo del Toro has pointed out:
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who consume it, an idea that is repeated in the last chapter of the novel
when Tita makes chile en nogada and unleashes an orgy of the senses. While
the link between food and sex is a traditional one, Como agua manages
to extend this association in unexpected ways. Perhaps the best illustration
of this occurs when Tita has to sing to the beans to make them cook. In
a house, so popular knowledge suggests, where there have been arguments,
the food is annoyed and therefore will not allow itself to be cooked.
Most intriguing of all is the way in which the emotions are depicted as
emanating from the body like a cloud, inuencing everything in their
path. Such is the cloud of rose perfume which emanates from Gertrudiss
body and attracts Juan, the villista, to her, at which point, following a
romantic stereotype, they sail off into the sunset on a horse.
Como agua was an undeniably popular lm and, as Toms Prez
Turrent put it, The response to the lm by the world public was
chocolate while the response of the critics was water.76 John
Kraniauskas argues that the lm retreats from the masculinized ter-
rain of high politics and the battleeld and concentrates our attention
on the so-called private sphere of a household run by woman.77 In
terms of its success at creating visual solutions to the plot, Como agua
has a mixed scorecard. The parallelism between sadness and salt, as
expressed through the central image of the tear, for example, appears in
a set of successful visual solutions. Thus the lm opens with a close-up
of an onion, and this motif is explored through the tears that the foetal
Tita is heard to shed in the womb, the salt in the amniotic uids that
gush over the kitchen table when she is born and the salt used in the meals
a set of associations paralleled in the subsequent scene when Titas tears
drop into the batter from which the wedding cake will be made. To
counterbalance this, the visual expression of the parallelism between re
and love, such as when Gertrudiss shower bursts into ames, or when
Tita and Pedro nally make love at the conclusion of the lm, is less con-
vincing. But the overall signicance of Como agua para chocolate is
clear; it was a stepping stone for Latin American cinema which showed
that a Latin American lm director could create a commercially success-
ful lm which spoke directly to audiences across the subcontinent
mainly in the language of magical realism, and thereby plotted a new
course between the Charybdis of Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano and
the Scylla of state funding.78
| latin american cinema
The following year a lm was released which, like Como agua para
chocolate, used food as a metaphorical avenue with which to delve into
deeper issues. Cuban director Toms Gutirrez Aleas Fresa y chocolate
(Strawberry and Chocolate, 1994) caused quite a stir when it rst came
out since it treated a subject hitherto taboo in Cuba: homosexuality. In
Cuba the lm was so popular that impatient crowds broke down a cin-
emas doors to see it.79 It showed continuously in Havana for eight
months and became the rst Cuban lm to be nominated for an
Academy Award as Best Foreign Film; the year before it won rst prize
at the Berlin Film Festival.80 The lm is based on Senel Pazs novel El
lobo, el bosque y el hombre nuevo (The Wolf, the Woods, and the New
Man, 1991). Gutirrez Alea read the novel, saw its lmic potential and
asked Paz to write him a script.8 Like La frontera and El viaje, Fresa y
chocolate sought to investigate the notion of nationhood through allegory
spiced with humour. Fresa y chocolate portrays Cuba at a crossroads; it was
released at a time when Cuba was beginning to experience the beginning
of a deep and lasting crisis, the so-called Periodo Especial. The lm
portrays the conict between two opposing lifestyles. On the one hand
we have David (Vladimir Cruz), a young idealistic member of the
Communist Party, who is a little naive as his lack of knowledge about
products such as whisky, and his ignorance of literary gures such as
Mario Vargas Llosa and John Donne, suggest. On the other we have
Diego (Jorge Perugorra), a tortured artist who is disillusioned with the
Communist regime, fascinated with the foreign and the exotic, and to
boot gay. The plot focuses on how these two contradictory notions of
Cubanness are eventually brought together epitomized by the hug
between Diego and David at the end of the lm.
Both Diego and David in a sense come nearer to each other politically,
though this political rapprochement is represented in terms of physical
attraction. Everyone, it seems, is in love with David. Diego, as the older,
gay man, has completely fallen for Davids innocent ways and his good
looks. Nancy (Mirtha Ibarra) is also in love with him, and even prays to
the African deities to allow her to keep him for just one year. Vivian
(Marilyn Solaya) offers him love, and sex, even though she has recently
married. Even his hardline Communist friend Miguel wants to keep him
for himself and the Communist Party, and accuses him of being gay
when he senses that he has begun to lose him towards the end of the
| nation-image
The famous hug in
Toms Gutirrez
Aleas Fresa y chocolate
(1993).
lm. David in a sense represents Cuba, and all of these different aspects
of Cuba the gay artist, the conventional young woman who plays safe,
the ageing prostitute, the Communist youth are in love with David,
and desire him. He seemingly holds the key to Cubas future.
While it is possible to read Fresa y chocolate as a pro-gay lm (in the
sense that David, by hugging Diego at the conclusion of the lm, appears
to accept his gayness), a number of pointers in the lm belie this reading.
Gay sexuality, at a number of key junctures, is replaced by feminine
sexuality in the lm, thereby ostracizing homosexuality as a phantom
presence which is always offstage. As Paul Smith suggests:
| nation-image
He also referred to the problems that had plagued him over the years:
The lm draws strength from its documentary roots (as Salles has
pointed out, he made documentaries for about ten years before he took
up making ction lms), 97 as suggested by the two letter-writing
sequences in which we see a succession of faces narrating the details of
their lives in the manner of a vox pop, and the spontaneous lming of
a religious festival:
Last but not least, this lm has a number of strong acting perform-
ances, particularly by Marlia Pra and Fernanda Montenegro, who
was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.
Central do Brasil was the most successful of the nation-image dramas of
the 1990s in Latin America even if, in cinematic terms, it was in effect
the end of the line for this particular genre.00
This book has argued that Latin American lm has experienced a number
of paradigm shifts in which, following Gilles Deleuzes theorization, the
movement-image that characterized early action-drama lm was super-
seded by the time-image which emerged with the advent of neo-Realism.
In Cinema , for example, Deleuze referred to the way in which neo-Realist
cinema had led to a re-drawing of the boundaries between the real and
the imaginary:
The digital-image
Although the rst recorded attempt at building a digital camera took place
as long ago as 1975, it was only in 1998 that the rst digital lm was
released. The advantages of digital lm the drastically reduced costs
of equipment as well as lm, the portability of the cameras, the conveni-
ence of having the response to light determined automatically by the
camera sensor, the ability to see the actual images that are captured
immediately on the set, as well as the greater exibility provided by digi-
tal post-production led to more and more lm directors turning away
from 35mm to digital, including Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire),
Francis Ford Coppola (Youth without Youth), George Lucas (Star Wars
Episode II: Attack of the Clones), Guy Ritchie (Sherlock Holmes), Michael
Moore (Bowling for Columbine), Martin Scorsese (George Harrison:
Living in the Material World ), Lars von Trier (Antichrist), Robert Rodriguez
(Once Upon a Time in Mexico) and Steven Soderbergh (Che). Indeed
digital cinematographys acceptance was canonized in 2009 when Slumdog
Millionaire became the rst movie shot mainly in digital to be awarded
the Academy Award for Best Cinematography. The highest-grossing
movie in the history of cinema, Avatar (2009),4 was not only shot on
digital cameras but most of its box ofce earnings came no longer by lm
but by digital projection. Latin America has also been part of this shift
towards the digital. In 2010 the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language
Film was won by El secreto de sus ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes), which
had been shot digitally.
What are the implications, we may well ask, of this shift towards the
digital in the twenty-rst century? Patricia Pisters in The Neuro-Image:
| latin american cinema
A Deleuzian Film-Philosophy of Digital Screen Culture (2012) has argued
that the digital turn in culture at large is characterized by three trends:
networked software cultures, deep remixability and database logic.5 For
his part, William Brown has argued in his important book Film-Philosophy
for the Digital Age: Supercinema (2013) that the digital turn has had pro-
found implications for the evolution of lm in the twenty-rst century.
First, it has led to a new conception of space:
This has profound implications for the ways in which human beings
interact with that space of their environment in the world of digital
cinema, as Brown has argued:
If space becomes indistinguishable from all that lls it, then this
brings about a fundamental decentring of the gures that ll that
space. That is, characters in digital cinema no longer stand out as
unique agents against the space that surrounds them, but instead
become inseparable from that space. The result of this decentring
is a minimizing of anthropocentrism in digital cinema. This
logic is not only expressed by the way in which digital cinema
increasingly features prominent characters of a nonhuman
nature, but also by the way in which environments take on
prominent roles in lms, including mainstream lms.7
This in turn has meant that the way time is projected in digital cinema
has also been transformed:
between Octavio (Gael Garca Bernal) and his brother, Ramiro (Marco
Prez), as by the gruesome and close-up dogghting. Another feature of
the culture depicted, which had direct implications for its future sales and
was initially seen by the distributors as a risk, was its lack of inhibitions
about using profanities. The dialogue between Octavio, Jorge (Humberto
Busto), Ramiro and Jarocho (Gustavo Snchez) is gritty and colourful.
As soon became clear, the lms X-rating, far from denting circulation
gures, led to exponential sales as a result of the creation of a new niche
within the market (youth culture + action + experimental + X-rating),
which was launched as a result of its success at Cannes.
The most striking narratological innovation inaugurated by Amores
perros in Latin American lm was the use of three, interconnected plots,
which was a radical departure from a conventional, linear plot (even
with ashbacks). In order to solve the problem of having three plots,
Gonzlez Irritu and the screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga came up with
an ingenious lmic solution by creating an intersection the car accident
at which the three life stories meet (or, indeed, collide), producing
greater coherence by having the intersection viewed synoptically from
different vantage points. Thus the car accident is rst experienced by the
viewer from within the truck which Octavio is driving (it concludes the
establishing sequence of the lm), it is then rerun at the conclusion of
the rst Octavio y Susana segment, viewed from behind Valerias car in
| latin american cinema
the Daniel y Valeria second segment and perceived over El Chivos
shoulder in the third El Chivo y Maru segment of the lm. One of
the golden rules of conventional lmmaking that a scene should not
be portrayed twice because it may confuse the viewer is broken in
order to provide a solution which leads to greater coherence in the plot.
This solution also opened up in one fell swoop new pathways within
cinematic space.
Extras such as the old man who is seen in segment one threatening
a rival with a machete if he comes near his dogs, or the middle-aged
man whose wallet Ramiro grabs in the bank robbery scene in segment
three double as protagonists; the old man is revealed to be El Chivo
(Emilio Echeverra), the hitman, in segment three, and the middle-aged
man in the bank is Leonardo, the xer who organizes the hit for Gustavo
Garas (Rodrigo Murray), the corrupt businessman.5
This decision to provide new dimensions to extras who conven-
tionally simply function as stage-props allowing the action to follow
the protagonists related back to the hypothesis being tested in Gonzlez
Irritus lm, namely that reality is simply the end product of a com-
plex combination of events in which individuals meet other individuals
by chance. This uncertainty in the plot is suggested by the conclusion
of the lm. El Chivo places the gun midway between the two half-
brothers, Gustavo Garas and Luis Miranda Solares (Jorge Salinas), and
The chance
encounter between
Jarocho and El Chivo
in Amores perros.
By making the whites in the frame that much whiter, Prieto was, in
effect, producing a quasi-hallucinogenic effect, dazzling the viewer,
thereby inducing a more vivid visual sensation in the viewers mind.
Though Prieto used a pre-digital technique in that the photographer
smeared bleach on the lm reel, this was a compositional strategy more
akin to the digital paradigm in which colour transpositions can be engin-
eered with a mouse. Amores perros was in effect pushing the boundaries
| latin american cinema
between 35mm and digital lm bringing into being a new hybrid
reality in which the slickness of digital editing was integrated into
the universe of 35mm lm. This slick grit, combined with the use of
non-professional actors, was a winning formula which would prove to
be distinctive for Latin American cinema, and it was not surprising that
Amores perros (2000) went on to win the best lm prize at a number of
international lm festivals (bafta, Cannes, Flanders, Chicago, Bogot,
Valdivia, So Paulo, Tokyo).
Nueve reinas (Nine Queens, 2000), by the Argentine lm director
Fabin Bielinsky, is a heist thriller which manages to keep you on the edge
of your seat. It won a string of awards, although these were, predictably,
conned mainly to Latin American lm festivals. It won the Silver
Condor from the Argentine Film Critics Association (2001), the Audience
award at the Bogot Film Festival (2001) and the Elcine First Prize at the
Lima Latin American Film Festival (2001), although it did win the prize
of best actor for Ricardo Darn and Gaston Pauls at the Biarritz
International Festival of Latin American Cinema (2001). Just as the
two main characters, the old trickster, Marcos (Ricardo Darn) and the
young trickster, Juan (Gaston Pauls), are trying to work out the others
next move, so the viewer also becomes involved in trying to work out who
is double-crossing whom. In many ways, it is the viewer who is nally
double-crossed when, as we discover in the nal sequence, the younger
trickster is the one who held the nal trump card. While we are being
gradually persuaded that the young man is mad to invest his money in
the sale of the set of antique stamps the Nine Queens of the title
and to see his fathers words You wont survive as the prediction of
what will happen to him, in the nal scene he goes back to the warehouse
and we see all his accomplices, from the Spanish businessman, Vidal
Gandolfo (Ignasi Abadal) to the old man, Sandler (Oscar Nez), to the
aunt who sells the stamps (played by Pochi Ducasse), to the stamp expert
(Leo Dyzen), sitting round playing cards, looking like actors relaxing after
the show. Then we see the lms nal twist that he is in fact the lover
of Marcoss sister, Valeria (Leticia Brdice). For in a sense it has been a
show, mainly for the old trickster, but also for us, the viewers, who
have also been taken in by the young tricksters team. So we have been
deceived twice, once as lm viewers who suspend our disbelief in order
to enjoy the lmic spectacle unfolding before our eyes, but also as
| the slick grit of contemporary latin american cinema
naive detectives who miss the true, implicit trickster by focusing on
the obvious, explicit trickster. And all is revealed in the last minute of
the lm.
Nueve reinas is part of a new dynamic in Latin American lm in that
the social metaphor is there we can read this lm as a story about
national malaise, the bankruptcy of the Argentine economy after the
decade of pegging the peso to the u.s. dollar, along with the moral
bankruptcy of the Argentine president who presided over this demise.
There are two scenes in particular where this social metaphor appears:
in the rst we hear Marcos almost like the voice-over in a documentary
lm telling us about the innumerable ways in which everyone is getting
ripped off in the streets of Buenos Aires; in the second we see the crowds
struggling to get into the national bank, and we realize that the cheque
is useless. The social metaphor, therefore, is evident the lm appears
to suggest that the politicians who sold the country down the river are
as much the criminals of the piece as the petty thieves and heist crim-
inals (including the two protagonists of the lm, Marcos and Juan) who
populate the streets of Buenos Aires. But notice that these two scenes are
not the gravitational centre of the lm, as perhaps they would have been
had this been a lm of the 1990s like El viaje which in an explicit
way draws attention to the problems associated with debt. Here the lm
is on the petite histoire of two tricksters rather than the grande histoire of
Argentinas bankruptcy. And this is where the paradigm shift enunciated
by this lm resides. Nueve reinas is a clever, fast-moving lm and the viewer
The best ghost stories are set against wars, because they leave
plenty of ghosts behind. Coming from the outside to the Spanish
civil war, it felt very black and white to me. It took place within
the family you could have a fascist father, a fascist son and a
republican son and they would argue passionately, and even be
capable of taking each other to the ring squad. I tried to make
the orphanage in the lm a microcosm of the war. I wanted to
create a situation where the republican gures in the movie
allowed for this fascist creature to grow and nurture, and ultim-
ately take over. The republican government represents the best
possible leftist government that has ever taken place on earth
women were emancipated, education was very experimental,
culture was booming and yet it all went to hell.0
I wanted the audience to look at Lil Ze and actually see the real
Lil Ze, and not an actor playing a role. The idea was to have
these unknown actors in order to eliminate the lter, to let the
spectator have a direct relationship with the character. All this,
I thought, would bring out the truth I wanted to have in the
lm. Middle-class actors would not know how to interpret
those characters.9
Once the casting was done, the actors, many of whom were gangsters
from Cidade de Deus, were trained by Ftima Toledo and Ktia Lund
for a year.0 Though this had the effect of launching the acting careers
of a number of those who starred in the lm, it allowed Cidade de Deus
to retain a gritty, documentary feel. A documentary realism is also
enhanced by the inclusion of a news clip of an interview with the actual
man on whom Man Galinha is based during the concluding credits.
The lm also mimicked the cinma vrit mood by using a hand-held
digital camera which, with its mobility and jerkiness, had the effect of being
a consciousness accompanying the development of the action rather than
simply recording the events. The hand-held is, indeed, used for virtuoso
effects, such as when in the opening scene it appears to be on the chickens
shoulder as it is making a run for it. Often when the characters are
talking to each other the camera pans rapidly between them, and the
speed of the pan causes a loss of focus, which adds a documentary-type
spontaneity. The cinematography has a mobile feel about it, using a
number of camera angles such as a tilt frame when the gangsters jump down
in their pursuit of the chicken in the opening sequence, an aerial shot when
two of the Tendership Trio are up the tree listening to the policemen
discussing what to do next, directly below them, and most spectacular
of all the swivel, 360-degree shot at the beginning and conclusion of
| latin american cinema
Buscap trying to
catch the runaway
chickenin Fernando
Meirelless City of
God (2002).
the lm which follows Buscaps head as he surveys the police on one side
and Pequeno Zs gang on the other. This last take is digitally created in
that the colours change while the camera swivels, from the blues and greys
of the present to the brown and golden tones of the childhood sequence
in the City of God.
The lm can be seen as a symphony of colours, with the blue-greys
of the 1980s contrasting with the earth tones of the 1960s and the pinks
and blues of the disco era of the 1970s. The editing in the lm explores
a variety of effects, including fade and double-exposure in the sequence
recounting the history of the Zadia apartment, the use of a passing blue
car to create the bridge between the 1960s and 70s as Buscap walks down
the street to school after seeing the body of Cabeleira who has been
gunned down by the police, as well as slow motion, fast motion, split
screen and shallow focus. In an interview Csar Charlone explained
how he experimented with lming in 35mm and 16mm combined with
digital post-production:
The lming took place on 35mm or 16mm during the day and
was then digitized in the evening after the shoot, and Charlone would
work on it during the night, and convert it back into 35mm or 16mm
lm before presenting it to Fernando the following day.5 This shuttling
between lm and digital video was innovative at the time, and expanded
the visual potential of the frame in an unprecedented way.
The plot in Cidade de Deus is kept rmly under control by the voice-
over which explains what is going on and which often uses a camera-click
effect to signal the beginning of a new narrative, for instance the life of
a new protagonist, such as Man Galinha. The overall structure of the lm
though a linear plot can be created is like a spiralling vortex in that
it loops back into the past at certain key junctures. Thus the opening
sequence of the lm is revealed to be the beginning of the end of the
lm once we approach the conclusion, and this technique also allows for
some events to be perceived from a different point of view later on.
When we learn about how Z Pequeno took over his rst drug den our
rst perspective is that of Blacky and Buscap as they hear the hammer-
ing on the door and our second perspective is an off-the-shoulder point
of view of Z Pequenos gang as they enter the apartment. This ltering
of the plot means that certain events are only revealed to the viewer later
on it is only when we follow Z Pequenos narrative that we realize
that he not only killed all the people in the motel but also Buscaps
brother, Marreco.
Cidade de Deus attacks not only the drug culture which ruins peoples
lives in Brazil, but also the way in which the authorities react. The police
allow the killing in the City of God to carry on as long as it does not
escalate out of control and affect their clients, the middle classes. It is,
| latin american cinema
ironically enough, only as a result of Z Pequenos refusal to pay for his
guns that the police decide to act because they have been providing him
with the guns in the rst place. The media are also shown to be import-
ant players within the dynamics of drug culture; as a result of his ability
to take photographs that is, produce images which are appetising to
the middle-class press Rocket escapes his roots in the City of God. It
is a world which, as he says at the beginning of the lm, if you ght it,
you will never survive, and which, if you run from it, youll never
escape; but Buscap has, in effect, proved that you can escape, since he
becomes as the closing sequence of the lm makes clear a professional
photographer. No longer Rocket, he is Nelson Rodrigues, fotgrafo.
Cidade de Deus is a masterpiece of a lm which managed to combine the
grittiness of a documentary-type slice of life created with non-professional
actors and slick virtuoso digital editing. It was a dynamic mixture which
was destined to have a signicant impact on the future evolution of
Latin American lm. It won 55 awards and had 29 nominations, including
an Academy Award nomination for best director (Meirelles), best adapted
screenplay (Brulio Mantovani), best cinematography (Csar Charlone)
and best lm editing (Daniel Rezende).
Because of the lms enormous success, a tv spin-off of Cidade de
Deus was created: Cidade dos homens (City of Men), with some episodes
City of God:
Buscap is now
a photographer.
The protagonist
gives the finger to the
audience at the end
of Enrique Colinas
Entre ciclones (2003).
Santiago waiting in
black and white for
his girlfriend inDas
de Santiago (2004).
eyes, and during tiempo santo she offers herself to him. Her father later
has sex with her but becomes furious that he has been beaten to it by
Salvador, and he destroys her earrings, of which she is very fond.
Madeinusa persuades Salvador to take her off to Lima with him; when
she goes to retrieve her earrings from her father she discovers that he has
ripped them to pieces and so she decides to take a terrible vengeance by
putting rat poison in his chicken broth. Don Cayo begins to vomit after
drinking the broth and soon dies. When Chale returns home she realizes
her sister has poisoned her father but chooses instead to blame the
gringo, screaming out her accusation for all to hear. In a bizarre twist,
Madeinusa also decides to blame the gringo, running out into the street
and chanting El gringo ha envenenado a mi padre!(The gringo has poi-
soned my father!). In the nal scene we see Madeinusa in the truck with
El Murdo, and it is clear that she has taken Salvadors place, who we
presume is now rotting in the town prison. The lm is striking in that
it follows a well-worn formula, that of using non-professional actors,
and it works with the notion of magical realism, such that the dividing
line between the real and the magical becomes blurred. There are some
experimental shots two featuring close-ups of some poisoned rats at
the beginning of the lm, and one a reection shot of the time-machine
used to count down tiempo santo but the cinematography is otherwise
conventional and focuses on providing visual solutions to the plot.
Carlos Reygadass Batalla en el cielo (Battle in Heaven, 2005) was
the most innovative lm of the year, an experimental piece that pushes
| latin american cinema
The time machine in
Madeinusa (2005).
What I dont like about the theatre is the fact that the actors are
representing roles. I dont understand; I get very bored and I
nd it a little ridiculous. I even feel sorry for the people acting.
Theatre is interesting as a catharsis for actors because its the only
way you can be idiotic and get away with it. I really, really dont
like theatre and I feel so far from it.49
The title of the lm, Batalla en el cielo, echoes the notion of the war
in heaven according to the Book of Revelation:
Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels ghting against
the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he
was defeated and there was no longer any place for them in
heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient
serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the
whole world he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels
were thrown down with him. (Revelation 12:79)
Susan (Cate
Blanchett) with her
husband (Brad Pitt)
just after she has been
shot in the neck in
Babel (2006).
desert. Amelia goes off to nd help when it gets light; as a result of her
actions she is accused of kidnapping the children Amelia is deported
with immediate effect to Mexico. The rst and the second narratives
are connected by a phone call which is heard from Amelias perspective
near the beginning of the lm and from Richards close to the conclusion.
The third narrative has a tenuous connection to the rst two, even
if it is ultimately more intriguing and thought-provoking. It tells the
story of a beautiful, deaf young Japanese girl, Chieko Wataya (Rinko
Kikuchi, who also won an Academy Award nomination in the category
of Actress in a Supporting Role), who attempts to seduce a teenage boy
(by taking off her knickers and ashing him in a caf), her dentist (by
forcing him to put his hand up her skirt) and a detective, Kenji Mamiya
(Satoshi Nikaido) (by taking all her clothes off ). The connection with
the other two stories is that her father, Yasujiro Wataya (Koji Yakusho)
had years earlier in Morocco given his gun to his hunting guide, Hassan
Ibrahim, as he later explains to a detective. Hassan had subsequently
sold the gun to Abdullah, as seen in the opening sequence of the lm.
In this way Babel echoes a theme explored in Amores perros, namely, the
irony of how chance occurrences lead to events with life-changing con-
sequences for certain individuals. Babel explores the so-called buttery
effect, in that it depicts the links between people on far-ung continents
rather than in one city (as in Amores perros). An example of this type of
tenuous connection between different parts of the world is suggested
when the story of the shooting of Susan appears on the news in Japan;
| latin american cinema
Chieko sees it but does not realize its implicit signicance for her life. Some
reviewers were not impressed by the tenuousness of these connections. Ed
Gonzalez, for example, argued:
While Amelias life is in effect over at the end of the lm she has
been deported summarily back to Mexico and will have to build her
life again from scratch and Ahmeds life is literally over, it is striking
that the American family emerges relatively unscathed from its disaster.
Susan will recover from her operation and her two children have, some-
what miraculously, survived their experience in the desert. This idea is
reinforced by the newsreaders comment towards the end of the lm: The
American people nally have a happy ending, after ve days of frantic
phone calls and hand wringing. It is as if the lm is hinting that
Moroccans and Mexicans pay the price whereas Americans survive to live
another day, and the Japanese nd themselves in a curious limbo region
somewhere in between (in the sense that Chieko Wataya is severely
depressed and frustrated while her father, Yasujiro Wataya, will not be
charged for any role in Susans shooting).
There are some cinematic signals in Babel that indicate Gonzlez
Irritus signature. When we see the tourist bus winding its way along
the road, we know it will be shot at, and thus we experience the same
| latin american cinema
dread we felt when watching the repeated car crash in Amores perros.
The soundtrack (plaintive guitar interspersed with brooding organ
music) and the use of silence for instance, obliteration of the tourists
speech gives a sense of distance, as if we as the viewers are helplessly
watching people who are about to be struck down by tragedy.
The novelty of the lm, though, lies in its exploration of the
Babelian motif. The problem with communication underlies a number
of episodes, including the slightly odd bilingual conversation Amelia the
nanny has with the children (she speaks in Spanish and they reply in
English), the argument between Richard and Susan based on their
inability or unwillingness to reach out to each other, the awkward
attempts by the Japanese youth to communicate with Chieko and her
friend, both of whom are deaf; and the diplomatic stand-off between
Morocco and the United States which leads to a delay in the arrival of the
helicopter. Finally the lm focuses on the deliberate non-communication
between director and viewer Babel, after all, ends with an enigma
buried within the third narrative. Chieko writes a note for the detective
and the contents of the letter are deliberately left to remain a mystery
to the viewer.
It is ironic, of course, given that Babel is about communication
problems, that while making the lm Gonzlez Irritu and Arriaga fell
out. As Jo Tuckman points out:
But whatever the truth about the end of one of the most success-
ful writer-director teams of recent times, Arriaga was clearly less
involved in making Babel than he had been in the previous lms.
This has some critics busy identifying hints as to Gonzlez
Irritus future direction. He has never made a full-length
feature without Arriaga, coming late to the industry after a
successful career as a radio dj and a maker of tv commercials.
Fernanda Solrzano, critic for the Mexican culture magazine
Letras Libres, sees evidence of Irritu beginning to shake off the
shackles of Arriagas obsession with interweaving, fragmented
plot structures and solemn moral messages. As a result, Babel is
lled with loose ends and a touch of moral ambiguity, she says,
but also with a freer exploration of character.57
takes her revenge by killing the King of Ward 3, stabbing him in the neck.
Mayhem follows, re breaks out, and the doctor and his wife lead their
group out to safety. Despite some of the negative reviews of the lm, which
have seen it as unremittingly bleak,6 Blindness ends on a positive note
in that the Japanese driver regains his sight, leading to the hope that
the others too will regain theirs.
One of the main difculties of the lm, as Meirelles suggested in an
interview, was the depiction of blindness itself:
The big difculty was the fact that the characters were blind.
First of all, to establish relationships between characters well,
relationships are really all based on eye contact. When youre
irting or angry with someone, its all done through eye contact.
And in this lm, the characters couldnt have any eye contact.
Also, because they dont see, it was difcult to work out where to
put the camera, because when youre cutting a lm, you go to a
camera and show what a characters seeing. In this lm nobody
sees except Julianne Moore, so I couldnt cut the lm in the
normal way. So we tried to make the image less trustworthy.
Sometimes the image is very washed-out and you dont see
much, or its out of focus, or you look at something and think
its the image, but you realise its just the reection. I didnt
want you to trust your eyes.64
Elite Squad 2 was even more successful at the box ofce than the original,
making u.s.$63,024,876.
Preludio (2010), directed by the Mexican Eduardo Lucatero, shot on
a roof garden in Mexico City, depicts in an engaging way the gradual
growth of a love affair between an (unnamed) aspiring rock star and a
chef who has returned from Acapulco to Mexico City. The two individ-
uals start up a conversation before the party which they are both
attending; the small talk gradually turns into big talk in that we see a
relationship growing between them. The lm, as the director explained
in a discussion at the Odeon Panton Street in London on 19 November
2010, was prepared over the course of a year and was lmed in one day
(the previous day was the rehearsal). There were two takes and the
director chose the second (in the rst take, a beer bottle had been
knocked over, which he thought was a distraction). He was also impressed
by the energy and the momentum of the closing stages of the lm
something magical occurred that had not happened in previous per-
formances. Preludio is an example of one-take, long-take cinema. It is the
prelude in the sense that the lm appears to indicate the time preceding
| the slick grit of contemporary latin american cinema
the growth of a love affair. It starts small (discussion of food, spying on
neighbours), and gradually the frame is opened up to hint that for these
two people this may be the most important meeting of their lives.80
No lms from Latin America were selected for the Palme dOr com-
petition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011 but the year certainly had
some highlights, including Nicols Goldbarts Fase , an Argentine sci-
ence ction lm, Andrs Woods Violeta se fue a los cielos (Violeta Went
to Heaven), about the charismatic left-wing folklore singer, Violeta de
la Parra, and Everardo Gouts brutal Mexican thriller, Das de gracia (Days
of Grace), about the grace period that exists in Mexico when the gang-
sters and the cops take time off to watch the World Cup.8
Pablo Larrans No (2012), chosen for the Directors Fortnight at
Cannes, tells the story of the No campaign in Chile in 1988 in the lead-
up to the referendum on whether Augusto Pinochet should remain in
power for a further eight years. Each side was given a fteen-minute
evening slot on television in the run-up to the election in order to put their
case across, and the Resistance Movement, rather than resorting to polit-
ical ideology, decided to use the language of advertising. The strategy paid
off and, against all the odds, the No vote won and Pinochet was obliged
to accept a humiliating stand-down; he conceded the referendum and
resigned his position as President of Chile (even though he remained as Head
of the Armed Forces for another ten years). Larrans lm focuses on the
trials and tribulations behind the scenes of the No campaign. Its central
character is a skateboarding adman, Ren Saavedra (Gael Garca Bernal),
who masterminds the campaign. No was shot with rebuilt U-matic video
cameras, giving the lm a smeary 1980s look, making it easier to switch
between the ction of No and the documentary sections when excerpts of
the real ads from the 1988 campaign are spliced in. As Larran suggested
in an interview, You could make really, really a thousand movies, there are
so many stories, its absolutely endless . . . Theres a huge mystery about
those days.8 By avoiding the Left versus Right parameters of the Pinochet
story and allowing the narrative to grow obliquely, Larran manages to
explore the mystery of that period in a powerful way.
Post tenebras lux (2012; Latin for light after darkness), directed by
Carlos Reygadas, is a highly experimental lm loosely based on the
directors experience of building his home in Morelos, a city to the south
of Mexico City as Reygadas points out:
| latin american cinema
For example, this last lm, Post tenebras lux, I had just nished
my previous lm; then, I had children and started building my
house in the countryside. Of course, a lot of ideas and feelings
developed. I tried to put all of those together in a form that, in
this case, certainly seems to be a strange form but actually it has
its own logic.8
The fulcrum of the drama occurs when Juan returns to the house to
pick up the buggy that Natalia has forgotten, only to nd Siete and an
accomplice robbing his home. Juan challenges them but Siete becomes
aggressive, draws a gun, follows Juan up the stairs and shoots him. Juan
is later discovered by his friend, Jarro.
Juan is subsequently seen, ill and bedridden, and he ignores Natalias
plea to go to the police. Samanta, Sietes wife, tells Siete that someone
came looking for him on Juans behalf, and Siete returns to Juans house
where he nds the children playing on their own. Eleazar tells him that
his father has died and this inauspicious event seems conrmed by the
devil who enters one of the rooms on his second visit to the house. Siete
returns home to nd that his wife and children have disappeared and,
as a result of his guilt at murdering Juan after seeing a tree fall to the
ground, symbolizing his own demise Siete commits suicide by pulling
his own head off.
This climactic suicide is followed by the nal part of a rugby sequence;
after going down by one try the losing team forms a scrum, refusing to
accept defeat with the words, theyve got individuals, weve got a team
(which is the concluding leitmotif of the lm). In an interview Reygadas
states that he ended the lm on this note because it was a message of
| latin american cinema
deance in the contemporary world, uniting against bankers. Post tenebras
lux is a highly experimental lm built around a series of autobiographical
vignettes interspersed with dream sequences which are deliberately
enigmatic but have an oblique referentiality to the rest of the lm.
The confusion which Reygadass lms often produces in the viewer
Post tenebras lux was booed by some viewers at the 2012 Cannes Film
Festival is there for a reason.84 As he explained in an interview:
look at them with your own eyes, but if youre ready to see a lm
or a painting or to paint something or lm something you
might as well reinterpret those images to make them more rela-
tive, to make them convey something different than that which
were so used to associating them with. This will always remind
us that things arent necessarily as they seem.86
Though not to everyones taste, Reygadass Post tenebras lux was the
major Latin American lm of 2012.87
The following year, 2013, produced some thoughtful takes on the
theme of dispossession in Latin American lm. Diego Quemada-Dezs La
jaula de oro (The Golden Dream, 2013) tells the story of Juan (Brandon
Lpez) and Sara (Karen Martnez) who want to escape from the poverty
of Guatemala and ride northwards on the trains. On their way they meet
up with a non-Spanish-speaking Indian boy, Chauk (Rodolfo Domnguez).
Quemada-Diez worked as a camera assistant with Ken Loach on Carlas
Song and some of the grittiness of Loachs style has found its way into La
jaula de oro which combines ction with documentary. The lm, as the
director pointed out in a q&a at the London Film Festival on 15 October
2013, was based on an amalgamation of 600 stories of refugees who sought
a better life in the United States.
| latin american cinema
The documentary feel of the lm is enhanced by the quasi-improvised
non-professional acting of the three main actors and its appeal to the
travelogue genre the structure is episodic and built around a series of train
journeys, with long, beautiful takes of the Latin American countryside.
The reality depicted is stark; despite taping her breasts to avoid detection,
Saras gender is discovered by some kidjackers and she is kidnapped, never
to be seen again. People who offer to help are simply leading the pro-
tagonists to their next dance with death.88 Chauk is suddenly shot dead
by a bullet which comes out of nowhere when he and Juan are walk-
ing through some elds, just after they have crossed the border.89 The
nal sequence of the lm shows Juan now working in a meat-packing
factory in the States, the lifeless bodies of the slaughtered animals on
the conveyor belt providing a powerful visual symbol of the refugees
who died en route, rounded off with Juan looking up at the snow which
operates throughout the lm as an image of the elusive ideal of the
golden cage. 90
Alejo Moguillanskys El loro y el cisne (The Parrot and the Swan,
2013) is a romance-cum-comedy about a hapless sound recordist, Loro
(Rodrigo Snchez Mario), who is working on a documentary about
classical ballet called the Grupo Krapp for an (amusingly gauche)
The opening scene, in which the two astronauts are repairing the tele-
scope is breathtaking, not only because of the stunning shots of the earth
but because of the combination of the hand-held oating camera, the
3-d effects and long takes.
The rst long take of the lm is more than fteen minutes long.
Disaster strikes when the astronauts are suddenly hit by the shrapnel
from a Russian satellite, at which point the special effects suck the viewer
into the lmic space. As Alex Ramon says:
Matt Kowalsky is
floating in space in
Alfonso Cuarns
Gravity (2013).
Introduction
1 Quoted in Frank Tomasulo, Theory to Practice: Integrating Cinema, Theory
and Film Production, Cinema Journal, xxxvi /3 (Spring 1997), p. 113.
2 Anonymous, Mexican Wave Rides High in the Film World, bbc News,
22 February 2007; see www.bbc.co.uk/news.
3 In an interview by the author with Fernando Birri held at the Bloomsbury
Hotel, London, 1 November 2007.
4 This is a brief selection of the major works; for more information on the
secondary literature see the Select Bibliography.
5 Laura Mulvey, Then and Now: Cinema as History in the Light of New
Media and New Technologies, in The New Brazilian Cinema, ed. Lcia
Nagib (London, 2003), p. 269.
6 Ibid.
7 Donald F. Stevens, ed., Based on a True Story: Latin American History at the
Movies (Wilmington, DE, 1997); Randal Johnson, The Film Industry in
Brazil: Culture and the State (Pittsburgh, pa, 1987); Stephanie Dennison,
ed., Contemporary Hispanic Cinema: Interrogating the Transnational in
Spanish and Latin American Film (Woodbridge, 2013); Jethro Soutar, Gael
Garca Bernal and the Latin American New Wave: The Story of a Cinematic
Movement and its Leading Man (London, 2008).
8 For a good treatment of the funding of Latin American cinema see
Stephanie Dennison, ed., Contemporary Hispanic Cinema: Interrogating the
Transnational in Spanish and Latin American Film (Woodbridge, 2013).
| references
1982), p. 19; Guy Hennebelle and Alfonso Gumucio-Dagrn, Les cinmas
de lAmrique Latine (Paris, 1981), p. 94.
3 Hennebelle and Gumucio-Dagrn, Les cinmas de lAmrique Latine, p. 84;
Carl J. Mora, Mexican Cinema: Reections of a Society, (Berkeley,
ca, 1982), p. 6.
4 Cynthia Tompkins, Experimental Latin American Cinema: History and
Aesthetics (Austin, tx, 2013), p. 3.
5 John King, Magical Reels: A History of Cinema in Latin America (London,
1990), pp. 1517.
6 Marrati, Gilles Deleuze, p. 24.
7 D. W. Grifth, whose The Birth of a Nation (1915) is one of the classics of
Hollywood lm, is seen as the father of lm technique. An obsessive experi-
mentalist, he exploited the dynamic combination of the three standard lm
shots long shot, medium shot and close-up and he devised a new concept
parallel editing as well as inventing the tracking shot.
8 Gilles Deleuze, Cinema : The Time-Image, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and
Robert Galeta (London, 1989), p. 4.
9 Ibid., p. 3.
10 Ibid., p. 5.
11 Marie Seton, Sergei M. Eisenstein (London, 1978), p. 231.
12 Jan Leyda, Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Cinema, 3rd edn
(Princeton, nj, 1983), p. 302.
13 Laura Podalsky, Patterns of the Primitive: Sergei Eisensteins Que viva
Mxico!, in Mediating Two Worlds: Cinematic Encounters in the Americas,
ed. John King, Ana M. Lopez and Manuel Alvarado (London, 1993), p. 27.
14 Jacques Aumont, et al., Aesthetics of Film (Austin, TX, 1992), pp. 34 and 131.
15 Quoted in Seton, Sergei M. Eisenstein, p. 197.
16 Quoted ibid., p. 205.
17 Mora, Mexican Cinema, pp. 2888.
18 Johnson and Stam, Brazilian Cinema, p. 27.
19 Ana Lpez, Celluloid Tears: Melodrama in the Old Mexican Cinema,
Iris, 13 (Summer 1991), pp. 2951.
20 Hennebelle and Gumucio-Dagrn, Les cinmas de lAmrique Latine,
pp. 13031.
21 Ibid., pp. 1567. See also Stephanie Dennison, Sex and the Generals:
Reading Brazilian Pornochanchada as Sexploitation, in Latsploitation,
Exploitation Cinemas, and Latin America, ed. Victoria Rutalo and Dolores
Tierney (New York, 2009), pp. 23044.
22 Octavio Paz says that the blind beggar is familiar from the Spanish
picaresque tales: Fundacin y disidencia (Mexico City, 1994), p. 224.
23 Luis Buuel, My Last Sigh: The Autobiography of Luis Buuel, trans. Abigail
Israel (New York, 1983), p. 200.
24 Restrenan en pantalla grande Los olvidados, con nal indito, La Jornada
(8 July 2005).
| references
13 Titn had, indeed, produced a documentary on agrarian reform called Esta tierra
nuestra (This Land of Ours) as part of the same cultural programme in 1959.
14 The intertitle at the beginning of Cuba baila sets the scene for its revolu-
tionary message; La trama pudo suceder en cualquier periodo de nuestra
pasada vida republicana. Hoy la clase media despierta y la politiquera
agoniza; Cuba baila, guin (Havana, 1961), p. 6A.
15 Guy Hennebelle and Alfonso Gumucio-Dagrn, Les cinmas de lAmrique
Latine (Paris, 1981), p. 145.
16 Quoted in Randal Johnson and Robert Stam, Brazilian Cinema (East
Brunswick, nj, 1982), p. 33.
17 Glauber Rocha, The Aesthetics of Hunger, in Twenty-ve Years of the New
Latin American Cinema, ed. Michael Chanan (London, 1983), pp. 1314.
18 See Lcia Nagib, Brazil on Screen: Cinema novo, New Cinema, Utopia
(London, 2007), pp. 330. For a discussion of Rochas later lms see Karlo
Posso, Brazyl Unyversal: The Aesthetics and Ethics of Glauber Rochas
Late Films, Hispanic Research Journal, xiv/1 (2013), pp. 932.
19 See Vicente Ferraz (dir.), Soy Cuba: O Mamute Siberiano (2005).
20 As pointed out to me in an interview with the scriptwriter of Soy Cuba,
Enrique Pineda Barnet, in London on 28 November 2005.
21 Authors emphasis; Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, Towards a Third
Cinema, in Twenty-ve Years of the New Latin American Cinema, p. 18.
22 Julio Garca Espinosa, For an Imperfect Cinema, in Twenty-ve Years
of the New Latin American Cinema, p. 33.
23 Jorge Sanjins, Problems of Form and Content in Revolutionary Cinema,
in Twenty-ve Years of the New Latin American Cinema, p. 34.
24 Fernando Birri, Cinema and Underdevelopment, in Twenty-ve Years
of the New Latin American Cinema, p. 12.
25 Ibid.
26 Rocha, The Aesthetics of Hunger, p. 13.
27 Gilles Deleuze, Cinema : The Movement-Image, trans. Hugh Tomlinson
and Barbara Habberjam (London, 1992), p. 210.
28 Gilles Deleuze, Cinema : The Time-Image, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and
Robert Galeta (London, 1989), pp. 23.
29 Ibid., p. 3.
30 Ibid., p. 4.
31 Ibid., p. 6.
32 Hennebelle and Gumucio-Dagrn, Les cinmas de lAmrique Latine, p. 80.
33 Stephen Hart, interview with Jorge Sanjins, La Paz, Bolivia, 21 July 2001.
34 Jos Snchez-H., The Art and Politics of Bolivian Cinema (Lanham, md,
1999), pp. 834. Given this, it is ironic that the musical score was
performed by a symphony orchestra whose director, Gerald Brown, was a
member of the Peace Corps at the time; Alberto Villalpando, as he has
explained in an interview, enlisted the latters help since he was a personal
contact; see Snchez-H., pp. 1578.
3 Nation-image (19761999)
1 Beatriz Sarlo, Cultural Studies and Literary Criticism at the Cross-Roads
of Value, in Contemporary Latin American Cultural Studies, ed. Stephen
Hart and Richard Young (London, 2003), p. 33.
2 The Ofcial Academy Awards Database [Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences, Hollywood], http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org, accessed
6 January 2014.
3 Quoted in John Mraz, Recasting Cuban Slavery: The Other Francisco and
The Last Supper, in Based on a True Story: Latin American History at the
Movies, ed. Donald F. Stevens (Wilmington, de, 1997), pp. 11213.
4 Quoted in Jos Antonio Evora, Toms Gutirrez Alea (Madrid, 1996), p. 40;
my translation.
5 Toms Gutirrez Alea, Rapture and Rupture: Eisenstein and Brecht,
in The Viewers Dialectic (Havana, 1988), pp. 5266.
6 Dennis West, Strawberry and Chocolate, Ice Cream and Tolerance:
Interviews with Toms Gutirrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabo, Cineaste,
xxi/12 (1995), p. 18.
7 Evora, Toms Gutirrez Alea, p. 42.
8 Jerome Branche, Barbarism and Civilisation: Taking on History in The Last
Supper, The Afro-Latino Forum, i/i (1997), p. 3.
9 Susan Ryan, Pixote, a lei do Mais Fraco, in South American Cinema:
A Critical Filmography, , ed. Timothy Barnard and Peter Rist
(Austin, tx, 1996), p. 195.
10 Randal Johnson, The Romance-Reportagem and the Cinema: Babencos
Lcio Flavio and Pixote, Luso-Brazilian Review, xxiv/2 (1987), p. 38.
11 Marc Lauria, Pixote, www.sensesofcinema.com, accessed 1 February 2014.
12 Johnson, The Romance-Reportagem, p. 43.
13 Robert M. Levine, Fiction and Reality in Brazilian Life, in Based on a True
Story, p. 203.
| references
14 Quoted in Deborah Shaw, Contemporary Cinema of Latin America: Ten Key
Films (London, 2003), p. 147.
15 Ibid.
16 Lauria, Pixote.
17 Robert M. Levine, Fiction and Reality in Brazilian Life, in Based on a True
Story, pp. 20811.
18 An important documentary of the early 1980s was Pedro Chaskels Una
foto recorre el mundo (1981), which focused on how the images of Che
Guevara changed the world. Other important lms which came out that
year were Adolfo Aristarain, Tiempo de revancha (1981) and Slo con tu
pareja (1981), directed by the up-and-coming Alfonso Cuarn. Romn
Chalbauds La gata borracha (1983) is a Venezuelan lm about a man who
is bored with his marriage, sleeps with a prostitute and when his wife nds
out there are reworks.
19 Donald F. Stevens, Passion and Patriarchy in Nineteenth-century
Argentina: Mara Luisa Bembergs Camila, in Based on a True Story, p. 87.
20 Caleb Bach, Mara Luisa Bemberg tells the untold, Amricas, xlv/2
(MarchApril 1994), p. 23.
21 Sheila Whitaker, Pride and Prejudice: Mara Luisa Bemberg, Monthly Film
Bulletin (October 1987), p. 293.
22 Warren Buckland, Film Studies (London, 1998), pp. 826.
23 Ruby Rich, An/Other View of New Latin American Cinema, in New Latin
American Cinema: Volume One: Theory, Practices and Transcontinental
Articulations, ed. Michael T. Martin (Detroit, mi, 1997), p. 286.
24 Miguel Torres, Camila, Cine Cubano, 113 (1985), p. 78.
25 John King, Magical Reels: A History of Cinema in Latin America (London,
1990), p. 96.
26 Andrew Graham-Yooll, Mara Luisa Bemberg, The Independent (24 May
1995), p. 16.
27 Bach, Mara Luisa Bemberg Tells the Untold, p. 22.
28 Anonymous review in the Daily Telegraph (9 June 1995).
29 Lita Stantic, Working with Mara Luisa Bemberg, in An Argentine Passion:
Mara Luisa Bemberg and her Films, ed. John King, Sheila Whitaker and
Rosa Bosch (London, 2000), p. 33.
30 Jorge Rufnelli, De una Camila a otra: historia, literature y cine, in
Estudios Iberoamrica y el cine, ed. Francisco Lasarte and Guido Podest
(Amsterdam, 1996), p. 11.
31 Mara Luisa Bemberg, Being an Artist in Latin America, in An Argentine
Passion, p. 222.
32 For further discussion of the lm see Stephen M. Hart, Bembergs Winks
and Camilas Sighs: Melodramatic Encryption in Camila, Revista
Canadiense de Estudios Hispnicos, xxvii/1 (2002), pp. 7585.
33 Javier Tolentino, Julieta en el Pas de las Maravillas: una conversacin con
Norma Aleandro (Madrid, 2004), pp. 325.
| references
54 Ismail Xavier argues that El viaje attempts to reach encompassing views
of contemporary experience or of politics in certain regions through overt
allegorical strategies in Historical Allegory, in A Companion to Film
Theory, ed. Toby Miller and Robert Stam (Malden, ma, 1999), p. 350.
55 Philip Strick, El viaje, Sight and Sound (September 1993), p. 54.
56 As suggested to me in a conversation with former head of imcine, Ignacio
Durn Loera, in London on 13 November 2009.
57 Adolfo Aristarains Un lugar en el mundo (1992) is like other lms of this
period in that it enunciates a new political space for Latin America.
58 Feature Commentary with Director Guillermo del Toro, chapter Five,
extra feature on the Special dvd Edition of Cronos (StudioCanal, 2006).
59 Ibid., chapter Seven.
60 Extended Interview with Director Guillermo del Toro, extra feature on the
Special dvd edition of Cronos.
61 Del Toro mentions in an interview that he always believed that
Catholicism, alchemy and vampirism are linked. Feature commentary with
director Guillermo del Toro, chapter One.
62 Extended Interview with Director Guillermo del Toro.
63 Feature Commentary with Director Guillermo del Toro, chapter Four.
64 Ibid., chapter Four. Pointing in a similar direction the main character
goes through the main processes of alchemy water, fire, earth, air; ibid.,
chapter Five.
65 Ibid., chapter Six.
66 Extended Interview with Director Guillermo del Toro.
67 Feature Commentary with Director Guillermo del Toro, chapter Five.
68 Extended Interview with Director Guillermo del Toro; my translation.
69 Feature Commentary with Director Guillermo del Toro, chapter One.
70 Ibid., chapter Two.
71 Shaw, Contemporary Cinema of Latin America, p. 37.
72 Barbara A. Tenenbaum, Why Tita Didnt Marry the Doctor, or Mexican
History in Like Water for Chocolate, in Based on a True Story, p. 157.
73 See gures in www.boxofcemojo.com/movies, accessed 1 November 2013;
I remember the great excitement with which this lm was greeted by u.s.
audiences when I saw it in Lexington, Kentucky, in the spring of 1993.
74 Joan Smith, Love and Other Illegal Acts, www.salon.com, 4 October 1996.
75 As Tenenbaum points out, like water for chocolate in Mexican slang . . .
often implies the height of as-yet-unfullled sexual longing, particularly in
women; see Why Tita Didnt Marry the Doctor, p. 158.
76 Quoted in Harmony W. Wu, Consuming Tacos and Enchiladas: Gender
and the Nation in Como agua para chocolate, in Visible Nations: Latin
American Cinema and Video, ed. Chon A. Noriega (Minneapolis, mn,
2000), p. 184.
77 John Kraniauskas, Como agua para chocolate, Sight and Sound, ii/10
(1993), p. 42.
| references
91 Sandra Brennans review for the New York Times is available at
http://movies2.nytimes.com, accessed 15 March 2006. See also Lisa
Nesselson, Queen and King, Variety, ccclvii/5 (28 November 1994), p.
97. Strangely, neither of these reviews refers to Part ii of the movie, focusing
exclusively on Part i, perhaps for political reasons. In Part ii, Carmen returns
from Miami to Havana to reclaim her home back from her servant, Reina.
92 It was not the directors intention, however, to make any reference to the
gas chambers of the Second World War. As Espinosa has pointed out: In
fact you can see it as an allegory of the 1990s but the gas chamber has
nothing to do with the Nazis gas chambers; or at least that was not my aim
when I made the lm (email to the author, 15 July 2005; my translation).
93 Email from Garca Espinosa to the author, 15 July 2005.
94 For further discussion of Moebius see Geoffrey Kantaris, Buenos Aires
2010: Memory Machines and Cybercities in Two Argentine Science Fiction
Films, in Memory Culture and the Contemporary City, ed. Uta Staiger,
Henriette Steiner and Andrew Webber (New York, 2009), pp. 191207.
Other important lms of this period were Arturo Ripsteins Profundo
carmes (1996), which is about one womans obsession with a man leading
her to commit blood-curdling crimes, and Tata Amarals Um Cu de Estrelas
(1996), in which a young girls desire to full her dreams ends in violence;
for discussion of the latter lm see Charlotte Cleghorne, The Dystopian
City: Gendered Interpretations of the Urban in Um Cu de Estrelas / A
Starry Sky (Tata Amaral, 1996) and Vagn fumador / Smokers Only
(Vernica Chen, 2001), in New Trends in Argentine and Brazilian Film,
ed. Cecilda Rgo and Carolina Rocha (Bristol, 2011), pp. 22542. The
following year Enrique Gabriels En la puta calle (1997), as its title suggests,
offered a worms-eye view of the world, while Adolfo Aristarains Martn
(hache) (1997) provided a psychological study of the mind of a deluded
man. An important documentary of this period was Carlos Marcovichs
Quin diablos es Juliette? (1997); see Geoffrey Kantaris, Dereferencing the
Real: Documentary Mediascapes in the Films of Carlos Marcovich (Quin
diablos es Juliette? and Cuatro labios), in Visual Synergies in Fiction and
Documentary Film from Latin America, ed. Miriam Haddu and Joanna Page
(New York, 2009), pp. 21936.
95 Ismail Xavier argues that in Brazilian lms of the 1990s, the child is the
only universal left; Brazilian Cinema in the 1990s, in The New Brazilian
Cinema, ed. Lcia Nagib (London, 2003), p. 62.
96 Geoff Andrew, Walter Salles, The Guardian (26 August 2004).
97 Ibid.
98 Ibid.
99 Ibid.
100 1998 was a good year for Latin American lm: Fernando Solanass La nube,
Alejandro Agrestis El viento se llev lo que, Vctor Gavirias La vendedora de
rosas, Sergio Castillas Gringuito and Fernando Spiners La sonmbula all
| references
of Fire in the Great Court run, which was lmed in Eton College in July 1980.
16 Smith, Amores perros, p. 74.
17 Jean Oppenheimer, A Dogs Life: Interview with Rodrigo Prieto, American
Cinematographer, lxxxii/4 (April 2001), p. 23.
18 Carla Meyer, Nine Queens remake misses originals intensity, San Francisco
Chronicle (10 September 2004).
19 A number of other lms released in 2000 showed that Latin America had
nally turned the corner. These include Marcelo Pieyros Plata quemada
(2000), based on the novel of the same title by Ricardo Piglia, a lm about
fraud and double-crossing, and Juan Carlos Tabos Lista de espera (2000),
a lm about solidarity in Cuba.
20 David Archibald, Insects and Violence, The Guardian (28 November
2001).
21 Smith, Amores perros, pp. 856.
22 Jason Wood, The Faber Book of Mexican Cinema (London, 2006), p. 98.
23 Warren Buckland, Film Studies (London, 1998), pp. 6970.
24 Michael Guillen, At the edge of the World: Lisandro Alonso on La
libertad , www.twitchlm.com (26 November 2009); Joanna Page, Crisis
and Capitalism in Contemporary Argentine Cinema (Durham, nc, 2009), p. 63.
25 Ed Gonzalez, La Libertad, Slant, www.slantmagazine.com (1 October
2001).
26 A number of other signicant lms released in 2001, such as Lucrecia
Martels La cinaga (2001) and Juan Jos Campanellas El hijo de la novia
(2001) are not discussed here for reasons of space.
27 See nibus on www.rottentomatoes.com, accessed 1 December 2013.
28 Paulo Lins, Cities of God and Social Mobilisation, in City of God in
Several Voices: Brazilian Social Cinema as Action, ed. Else R. P. Vieira
(Nottingham, 2005), p. 129.
29 Fernando Meirelles, Writing the Script, Finding and Preparing the Actors,
in City of God in Several Voices, p. 15.
30 Leandro Firmino da Hora who plays Z Pequeno as a hoodlum and he is
convincing told me in an interview in November 2010 that he knew a
number of gangsters in Cidade de Deu, having grown up with them, but
he had followed his mothers advice and studied hard at school, thereby
escaping a life of crime.
31 In an interview with Csar Charlone, the cinematographer of Cidade de
Deus, in London on 27 November 2004, I asked him how he had
engineered that particular shot and he told me he had simply run with
the camera behind the chicken at about a foot from the ground.
32 In his presentation given at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, on
27 November 2004, Csar Charlone demonstrated how he used the exibil-
ity of digital editing to produce a colour coding for each of the three decades.
33 There is a good discussion of the apartment sequence in Stephanie Muir,
Studying City of God (Leighton Buzzard, 2008), pp. 957.
| references
49 Charlotte Higgins, I am the Only Normal Director, The Guardian
(22 August 2005).
50 Jon Romney, Review: Battle in Heaven, Independent on Sunday (30
October 2005).
51 A number of other signicant lms were released in 2005, including Fabin
Bielinskys El aura, Alex Bowens Mi mejor enemigo and Marcelo Gomess
Cinema, aspirinas e urubus. For discussion of the latter lm, see Stephanie
Dennison, The Brazilian Serto as Post-national Landscape in the Work of
Marcelo Gomes, New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, xx/1 (2012),
pp. 315. Amat Escalantes striking feature Sangre (Blood) was selected for
Un Certain Regard at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.
52 Jens Andersmann, New Argentine Cinema (London, 2012), p. 91.
53 J. Hoberman, Film After Film; or, What Became of st Century Film?
(London, 2012), p. 21.
54 Ed Gonzalez, Babel, Slant, www.slantmagazine.com (9 October 2006).
55 Peter Bradshaw, Babel, The Guardian (19 January 2007).
56 Philip French, Babel, The Observer (21 January 2007).
57 Jo Tuckman, Who really made Babel ?, The Guardian (9 February 2007).
58 Babel formed part of the record sixteen nominations for Mexican lms in
2007; see Diego Cevallos, Film: Oscar Nominations for Mexicans or
Mexican Filmmaking, ips News (22 February 2007); see www.ipsnews.net.
59 Some critics reacted in a hostile manner to Gonzlez Irritus experimen-
talism. Deborah Shaw, for example, argues that Babel creates an implied
world cinema gaze that is central to the construction of a world cinema
auteur, and for the marketing of a lm. As she goes on to say:
Nevertheless, the gaze is awed, as it can work through a universalist and
melodramatic take on the human condition. Esperanto failed as an inter-
national language as it lacked cultural and national roots, and Babel cannot
provide a model for a new cinematic language for the same reason; The
Three Amigos: The Transnational Filmmaking of Guillermo del Toro,
Alejandro Gonzlez Irritu and Alfonso Cuarn (Manchester, 2013), p. 154.
60 Gonzlez Irritu is, of course, employing a standard technique used in
Film School exercises, the Kuleshov effect, whereby editing two sequences
together allows the emotional reaction provoked by the rst to spill over
into the second.
61 Perhaps the best example, though, of the animatronics in the lm is the
eyeless monster who chases after Ofelia in her second task and who uses his
hands to see.
62 Peter Bradshaw, Meirelles Scores with Blindnesss Vision of Horror, The
Guardian (14 May 2008).
63 Roger Ebert, for example, has argued the following: Blindness is one of
the most unpleasant, not to say unendurable, lms Ive ever seen. It is an
allegory about a group of people who survive under great stress, but frankly
I would rather have seen them perish than sit through the nal three-quarters
| references
Guerras Los viajes del viento, Adrin Biniezs Gigante, Cary Fukunagas Sin
nombre (2009), and Luca Puenzos El nio pez (2009).
77 Christina Radish, Director Alejandro Gonzlez Irritu Interview Biutiful,
www.collider.com, accessed 15 December 2013.
78 Ibid.
79 Bill Graham, Director Jos Padilha talks Elite Squad: The Enemy Within,
www.collider.com, accessed 1 December 2013.
80 A number of signicant lms were released in 2010 demonstrating Latin
Americas cinematic maturity, including Pablo Traperos Carancho and Miguel
Cohans Sin retorno. Indigenous lm gained impact during this decade, includ-
ing works such as Erndira ikikunari (2006) and Aukinime (2010); see
Charlotte Cleghorne, Revisioning the Colonial Record: La relacin de
Michoacn and Contemporary Mexican Indigenous Film, Interventions:
International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, xv/2 (2013), pp. 22438.
81 Peter Bradshaw, Days of Grace Review, The Guardian (25 July 2013).
82 Manohla Dargis, Cannes Festival: From Chile, Pablo Larrans No, New
York Times (22 May 2012).
83 Andrew Alexander, Interview with Filmmaker Carlos Reygadas: Mexican
Auteur Brings Post Tenebras Lux to Atlanta, http://burnaway.org (19 April
2013).
84 Dennis Lim, Cannes Film Festival: Loud Boos Dont Faze Carlos
Reygadas, New York Times (27 May 2012).
85 Alexander, Interview with Filmmaker Carlos Reygadas.
86 Ibid.
87 A landmark Brazilian lm of 2012 was O Som ao Redor (Neighbouring
Sounds), directed by Kleber Mendona Filho, which was Brazils ofcial
Academy Award nomination; Shalini Dore, Brazil Sends Neighboring
Sounds to Oscars, Variety (20 September 2013).
88 Peter Bradshaw argues that Quemada-Dez, unlike directors such as Andrea
Arnold and Clio Barnard, who have used Loachs work as inspiration to
create beautifully realized and photographed dramas of naturalism, is
closer to the gritty, grainy original of Loachs style; Cannes 2013: The
Golden Cage, The Guardian (23 May 2013). Ken Loach, who attended
the lff screening, said he was impressed by the lm.
89 The shock of the event was enhanced, no doubt, by the directors clever
decision not to tell the actor that his character would be shot until the
morning of the take; as Quemada-Dez pointed out in a q&a at the London
Film Festival on 15 October 2013.
90 Other notable lms released in 2013 which are not discussed here for
reasons of space are Santiago Lozas La Paz, an atmospheric lm about
a young man from the upper classes, Liso (Lisandro Rodrguez), who is
unable to reconnect after a spell in a psychiatric hospital, and Amat
Escalantes Heli, which won the Best Director award at the 2013 Cannes
Film Festival, and contains a grim and graphic torture scene.
| references
select directors biographies
Alonso, Lisandro (b. 1975), Argentine film director who has directed four
features, La libertad (Freedom, 2001), Los muertos (The Dead, 2004), Fantasma
(Phantom, 2006) and Liverpool (2008). Known for his experimentalism.
Babenco, Hctor (b. 1946), Brazilian film director who has directed a number
of films, including Pixote: a lei do mais fraco (Pixote: The Survival of the Weakest,
1980) (normally considered his masterpiece), Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985)
and Carandiru (2003).
Bemberg, Mara Luisa (19221995), Argentine director known for her portrayal
of strong female protagonists, directed films such as Camila (1984, nominated for
an Academy Award), Miss Mary (1986), Yo, la peor de todas (I, the Worst of All,
1990) and De eso no se habla (I Dont Want to Talk About It, 1993).
Campanella, Juan Jos (b. 1959), Argentine director whose work includes El
mismo mar, la misma lluvia (The Same Sea, the Same Rain, 1999), El hijo de la
novia (The Girlfriends Son, 2001), Luna de Avellaneda (Avellanedas Moon,
2004), El secreto de sus ojos (The Secret in their Eyes, 2009), which won an
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and Metegol (2012).
Cuarn, Alfonso (b. 1961), Mexican film director who is best known for A Little
Princess (1995), Y tu mam tambin (And Your Mother Too, 2001), Harry
Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Children of Men (2006) and Gravity
(2013). The latter film received seven Academy Awards, including Best Director,
the most a Latin American director has ever won. Known as one of the Three
Amigos who have transformed Mexican cinema, the other two being Guillermo
del Toro and Alejandro Gonzlez Irritu.
del Toro, Guillermo (b. 1964), Mexican film director. As at home in Hollywood,
where he has made films such as Blade II (2002), Hellboy (2004), Hellboy II: The
Golden Army (2008) and Pacic Rim (2013), as with his Spanish-language Gothic
horror films such as The Devils Backbone (2001) and Pans Labyrinth (2006). The
latter generally seen as his masterpiece won three Academy Awards, for Best
Art Direction, Best Cinematography and Best Makeup.
Garca Espinosa, Julio (b. 1926), Cuban film director who studied with Toms
Gutirrez Alea in Italy in the early 1950s, returning to Cuba in order to make the
documentary El Mgano (1955). He helped found the Instituto Cubano del Arte
y la Industria Cinematogrficos (icaic) soon after the Revolution and went on to
be its director for a number of years. He directed a number of feature films,
including Las aventuras de Juan Quin Quin (The Adventures of Juan Quin
Quin, 1967) and Reina y Rey (Queen and King, 1994). He co-founded the
Escuela Internacional de Cine y Television in 1986.
Gutirrez Alea, Toms (19281996), Cuban film director (often known by his
nickname, Titn) who studied neo-Realism in Italy in the 1950s and, after the
Revolution, helped found the icaic and was closely associated with the develop-
ment of Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano. He subsequently made a number of films
which launched Cuban cinema, including Memorias del subdesarrollo (Memories
of Underdevelopment, 1968), La ltima cena (The Last Supper, 1977) and
Fresa y chocolate (Strawberry and Chocolate, 1993).
Llosa, Claudia (b. 1976), Peruvian director whose films include Madeinusa
(2006) and La teta asustada (The Milk of Sorrow, 2010), which was nominated
for an Academy Award in the Best Foreign Film Category. Her most recent film,
a short entitled Loxoro (2012), won the award for Best Short Film at the Berlin
International Film Festival.
Martel, Lucrecia (b. 1966), Argentine film director and founder member of the
New Argentine Cinema movement. Her main features are La cinaga (The
Swamp, 2001), La nia santa (The Holy Girl, 2004) and La mujer sin cabeza
(The Headless Woman, 2008).
Meirelles, Fernando (b. 1955), Brazilian film director who established his repu-
tation with Cidade de Deus (City of God, 2002), for which he was nominated
for an Academy Award for Best Director, The Constant Gardener (2005), for
which Rachel Weisz won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (2006),
and Blindness (2008), which is based on Jos Samaragos novel.
Padilha, Jos (b. 1967), Brazilian film director who began his career with the
highly successful documentary nibus (Bus 174, 2002), followed by Tropa
de Elite (Elite Squad, 2007) and its sequel Tropa de Elite O Inimigo Agora
Outro (Elite Squad: The Enemy Within, 2010), both of which were highly
successful commercially and received numerous awards.
Reygadas, Carlos (b. 1971), Mexican film director whose four features Japn
(Japan, 2002), Batalla en el cielo (Battle in Heaven, 2005), Luz silenciosa
(Silent Light, 2007) and Post tenebras lux (2012) are experimental, thought-
provoking and occasionally pornographic.
Rocha, Glauber (19391981), Brazilian film director closely associated with the
Cinema Novo movement. His films include Deus e o diabo na terra do sol (Black
God, White Devil, 1964), Terra em transe (Land in Trauma, 1967) and Antonio
das Mortes (1969). He is also famous for his theory of the aesthetics of hunger.
Sanjins, Jorge (b. 1936), Bolivian director who founded the Grupo Ukamau
and established himself as an important voice within the Nuevo Cine
Latinoamericano movement in the 1960s. His films include Ukamau (And So
It Is, 1966), Yawar Mallku (The Blood of the Condor, 1969), El coraje del
pueblo (The Peoples Courage, 1971), La nacin clandestina (The Secret
Nation, 1989), Para recibir el canto de los pjaros (To Receive the Birds Song,
1995) and Insurgentes (Insurgents, 2012).
Trapero, Pablo (b. 1971), Argentine director whose most significant feature
films are El Bonaerense (The Man from Buenos Aires, 2002), Familia rodante
(Rolling Family, 2004), Carancho (2010) and White Elephant (2012). Typically,
the focus of his films is everyday life.
Aguilar, Gonzalo, New Argentine Film: Other Worlds (New York, 2008)
Amaya, Hctor, Screening Cuba: Film Criticism as Political Performance during
the Cold War (Urbana-Champaign, il, 2010)
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Aumont, Jacques, et al., Aesthetics of Film (Austin, tx, 1992)
Barnard, Timothy, and Peter Rist, eds, South American Cinema: A Critical
Filmography, (Austin, tx, 1996)
Bermdez Barrios, Nayibe, Latin American Cinema: Local Views and
Transnational Connections (Calgary, 2011)
Brown, William, Film-Philosophy for the Digital Age: Supercinema (New York, 2013)
Buchsbaum, Jonathan, Cinema and the Sandinistas: Filmmaking in Revolutionary
Nicaragua (Austin, tx, 2003)
Buckland, Warren, Film Studies (London, 1998)
Buuel, Luis, My Last Sigh: The Autobiography of Luis Buuel (New York, 1983)
Burton, Julianne, Cinema and Social Change in Latin America: Conversations with
Filmmakers (Austin, tx, 1986)
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Chanan, Michael, The Cuban Image (London, 1985)
, ed., Twenty-five Years of the New Latin American Cinema (London, 1983)
Daicich, Osvaldo, Apuntes sobre el Nuevo cine latinoamericano (Crdoba, 2004)
Deleuze, Gilles, Cinema : The Movement-Image, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and
Barbara Habberjam (London, 1992)
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(London, 1989)
Dennison, Stephanie, ed., Contemporary Hispanic Cinema: Interrogating the
Transnational in Spanish and Latin American Film (Woodbridge, 2013)
, and Lisa Shaw, eds, Popular Cinema in Brazil, (Manchester, 2004)
Deutschman, David, ed., Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution: Writings and
Speeches of Ernesto Che Guevara (Sydney, 1987)
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Evora, Jos Antonio, Toms Gutirrez Alea (Madrid, 1996)
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, Queer Issues in Contemporary Latin American Cinema (Austin, tx, 2003)
Fowler Calzada, Vctor, Conversaciones con un cineasta incmodo: Julio Garca
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(London, 2009)
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| select bibliography
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My thanks for help of various kinds are due as follows: I express my gratitude to
the directors, scriptwriters, producers, cinematographers, writers and actors who
gave up time to discuss their work with me, including Fernando Birri, Lola
Calvio, Michael Chanan, Csar Charlone, Enrique Colina, Octavio Cortzar,
Alfonso Cuarn, Edmundo Desnoes, Ignacio Durn Loera, Vicente Ferraz,
Leandro Firmino da Hora, Julio Garca Espinosa, Gabriel Garca Mrquez,
Ernesto Granados, Mirtha Ibarra, Ken Loach, Germn Martnez Martnez, Carlos
Moreno, Laura Mulvey, Luis Ospina, Beatriz Palacios, Enrique Pineda Barnet,
Jorge Sanjins and Humberto Sols. I express my thanks to the Escuela
Internacional de Cine y Televisin in San Antonio de los Baos, Cuba, especially
to Aymara Mainet, Rafael Rosal and Hctor Veita, whose support of the annual
documentary film-making summer school, held there since 2006, has allowed me
to think in new ways about digital film, as well as to all the talleristas I have worked
with at the eictv; a special vote of thanks for Owen Williams, who has been a rock
over the years.
I express my appreciation for the support provided by the Faculty of Arts and
Humanities at University College London, specifically the two terms of research
leave which allowed me to complete this monograph. My special thanks to the ucl
School of European Languages, Culture and Society, and to its director Dr Dilwyn
Knox in particular, for the subvention which supported the reproduction costs of
the colour illustrations. I am grateful to the British Film Institute for providing a
number of the original stills and to Julio and Lola for some of the original photo-
graphs reproduced in the book. Thank you to Dany, Natasha, Matthew, Christian
and Jordan for your patience. Last but not least, I express my deep thanks to
Vivian Constantinopoulos and Aimee Selby at Reaktion Books for their sage
advice and dexterity in guiding this book through.
| acknowledgements
Photo Acknowledgements
The author and publishers wish to express their thanks to the following sources of
illustrative material and/or permission to reproduce it:
Courtesy of the bfi, London: pp. 75, 80, 88, 93, 96, 110, 118, 125; courtesy of Dolores
(Lola) Calvio: pp. 523; courtesy of Enrique Colina: p. 133; courtesy of Julio
Garca Espinosa: pp. 334, 40 and 78; courtesy of Jorge Sanjins: pp. 59, 64.
| photo acknowledgements
index
| index
Chronicles of Narnia, The (Lewis) 1578 documentary 1416, 345, 49, 56,
Cidade de Deus (City of God, 614, 7071, 73, 103, 1367,
Meirelles) 108, 1215, 141, 143, 179, 183
149, 160, 163, 187 Dog Eat Dog (Moreno) 168
Cidade dos homens (TV series) 1257 Dogme 95 8
Cinema Novo 413, 48 Dracula (lm; Browning) 56
Clooney, George 186 Dreyer, Carl Theodor 1634
Colina, Enrique 38, 1334 Drifters, The (Grierson) 169
Como agua para chocolate (lm; Arau)
834, 90, 924, 95 Eguino, Antonio 57
Constant Gardener, The (Meirelles) Eisenstein, Sergei 1823, 27, 31, 67
1489, 188 Elite Squad (Padilha) 163
Coraje del pueblo, El (Sanjins) 61 Elite Squad: The Enemy Within
Cornejo Villanueva, Enrique 18 (Padilha) 177
Corner in Wheat, A (Grifth) 8 Entre ciclones (Colina) 1334
Corrieri, Sergio 46, 5054 Escuela Internacional de Cine y
Cortzar, Octavio 38 Televisin 7, 78
Cronos (del Toro, Guillermo) 8998, espinazo del diablo, El (del Toro,
116, 185 Guillermo) 11516
cross-cutting 8, 5961, 156
Cruz, Sor Juana Ins de la 846 Fbrega, Paz 169
Cuarn, Alfonso 910, 90, 11720, Familia rodante (Trapero) 1389
150, 1868 Fantasma (Alsonso) 14950
featurementary 136, 169
Darn, Ricardo 113, 1712 Flix, Mara 26
Day of the Trifds 160 Fiennes, Ralph 148
De Sica, Vittorio 323, 98 Figueroa, Gabriel 26
del Toro, Benicio 126 lm festivals 48
del Toro, Guillermo 910, 8992, lm noir 30
11516, 1579, 1846 oating camera 445, 157, 173, 186
Deleuze, Gilles 1215, 30, 4952, Ford Coppola, Francis 46, 106
105, 1078 Franco, Francisco 158
Desnoes, Edmundo 54, 98 Frankenstein (Whale) 90
Deus e o diabo na terra do sol (Rocha) French New Wave 323, 41
413, 112 Fresa y chocolate (Gutirrez Alea) 958
Devils Backbone, The (del Toro, frontera, La (Larran, Ricardo) 65,
Guillermo) 11516 868, 102, 109, 138
Diarios de motocicleta (Salles) 1368
Das de Santiago (Mndez) 1356 Gainsbourg, Charlotte 128
Diegues, Carlos 41 Garage Olimpo (Bechis) 172
digital lm 89, 1059, 113, 1245, Garca Bernal, Gael 108, 110, 136,
12933, 173, 181 141, 151, 160, 163, 178
Dirty War (Guerra Sucia) 768, 81, Garca Espinosa, Julio 9, 334, 36,
102, 167, 171, 174 3840, 47, 78, 98101, 108, 168
| index
Machuca (Wood) 1345 Pacic Rim (del Toro, Guillermo)
Macu, la mujer del polica 1846, 188
(Hoogesteijn) 82 Padilha, Jos 121, 163, 177
Madeinusa (Llosa) 1435, 170 Pans Labyrinth (del Toro, Guillermo)
Mara, llena eres de gracia (Maria 116, 1579, 185
Full of Grace, Marston) 141 Paz, Octavio 28, 86, 119
Marker, Chris 63 Paz, Senel 95
Marston, Joshua 141 Penn, Sean 126, 131
Martel, Lucrecia 140, 1667 Pereira dos Santos, Nelson 41
mgano, El (Garca Espinosa) 345, 48 Perro come perro (Moreno) 168
Meirelles, Fernando 1216, 1489, pingo al volante, Del (Kouri) 14
15963 Pinochet, Augusto 61, 87, 134, 178
Mlis, Georges 14 Pinter, Harold 164
melodrama, Mexican 257 Pirandello, Luigi 54
Memorias del subdesarrollo (Gutirrez Pitt, Brad 151
Alea) 46, 4855, 187 Pixote: a lei do mais fraco (Babenco)
Mndez, Josu 1356 7074
Menem, Carlos 88 Porter, Edwin S. 14
Moebius (Mosquera) 1012 Post tenebras lux (Reygadas) 17882
Moguillansky, Alejo 1834 Preludio (Lucatero) 1778
Moore, Julianne 16061, 163 Pudovkin, Vsevolod 19
Moreno, Carlos 168 Puenzo, Luis 65, 7882
Mosquera, Gustavo 1012
Motorcycle Diaries, The (Salles) 1368 Que viva Mxico! (Eisenstein) 1824
movement-image 1315, 187 Quemada-Dez, Diego 1823
muertos, Los (Alonso) 13940, 149
mujer sin cabeza, La (Martel) 1667 Rada, Ricardo 5
Raquetteurs, Les (Brault and Groulx) 8
neo-Realism, Italian 324, 41, 4950, Reina y rey (Garca Espinosa) 98101
57, 71, 98, 101, 105, 108 Resnais, Alain 32
New Wave, French 323, 41 Reygadas, Carlos 1447, 1636,
nia santa, La (Martel) 140 17882
Nine Queens (Bielinsky) 11315 Ro, Dolores del 26
No (Larran) 178 Ripstein, Arturo 84, 90
Nueve reinas (Bielinsky) 11315 Rocha, Glauber 412, 478, 112
Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano 4661, Rodrigues, Alexandre 121, 123, 125,
1089, 112 141
Rossellini, Roberto 32
Ofcial Story, The (Puenzo) 65, 7882,
134, 172 Salles, Walter 1024, 1368
OHiggins, Bernardo 17, 87 San Martn, Jos de 17, 878
olvidados, Los (Buuel) 2731, 71 Sandino Moreno, Catalina 141
nibus (Padilha) 121, 200 Sanjins, Jorge 47, 5761, 108
Ordet (Dreyer) 163 Saramago, Jos 159
talkies 247
telenovela 27
teta asustada, La (Llosa) 16971
time-image 32, 514, 59, 187
Tire di (Birri) 357
Trapero, Pablo 1389
Trip to the Moon, A (Mlis) 14
Tropa de Elite (Padilha) 163
Tropa de Elite O inimigo agora
outro (Padilha) 177
Truffaut, Franois 32
| index