Projections

The Scar

2010-12-03T19:50:00.000-08:00

Steve Stekeley's 1948 Noir The Scar (also known as Hollow Triumph) is perhaps most notable because its leading man is Paul Henreid, who six years earlier had played the part of Victor Laszlo in Casablanca. Beyond that, The Scar is at first sight an eminently ephemeral movie, easily forgettable. But it's interesting in so far as it problematizes the very process of memory and recognition.

Henreid's character in Casablanca is a Czech resistance hero who is strangely both the center of the plot and utterly marginal. For though the film ostensibly revolves around Laszlo's efforts to flee the Nazis and seek asylum in America, what we remember is the tension and romance between Ingrid Bergman (playing Laszlo's wife) and Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine, the bar-owner who has the letters of transit that would make Lazslo's escape possible.

Similarly, in The Scar, Henreid again plays a character who fades from view... the difference being that in this film Henreid also plays the character who replaces him. Moreover, this is a film about the replacement itself, and the effect that it has (or, oddly enough, doesn't have) on the audience.

Henreid is Johnny Muller, a sophisticated and intelligent, but also brutal, gangster who at the movie's outset has just been released from jail. Reunited with his former fellow-criminals and underlings, he proposes they rob a casino run by a rival, one Rocky Stansyck. But the heist does wrong and though Muller one of his buddies, Marcy, get away with the dough, they know that Stansyck's men are on their trail, and what's more that Stansyck has a reputation as one who never forgets a slight. "Even if it takes you 20 years," he tells his heavies, they must at all costs make Johnny and his partner pay.

Marcy decides to hide out in Mexico, cursing Muller for letting him down: "I'm through with you. I'm going to blow. Mexico. South America. On my own. As far as I can get." But if there's one thing that Noir teaches us about crossing the border, it's that there's no refuge on the other side. Noir has no time for the notion that frontiers can protect us or keep us safe from what we fear most. Just as Janet Leigh in Touch of Evil finds no sanctuary north of the border, so Marcy finds none south of it. Soon enough, Muller is shown a newspaper headline and photo that confirms that the long arm of Stansyck's rough justice has caught up with his old pal, who has been gunned down in Mexico City.

Johnny himself is hiding almost in plain view, having taken up a civilian job offered him originally by the authorities when he left jail. But he knows that he, too, is not safe for long. And then he stumbles across a stunning coincidence: there's a psychoanalyst who has an office across the street who bears a striking resemblance to him. They could almost be the same person except that the analyst, Dr Bartok, has a prominent scar on one cheek.

And so Muller decides to take on Bartok's identity: he follows him around, studies the basics of psychology, learns the doctor's habits, romances his girl, and then finally etches a scar on his own cheek before disposing of his double and stepping into the dead man's life.

The one flaw in the whole arrangement is that Johnny finds he has accidentally disfigured the wrong cheek: he has made himself into literally a mirror image of his victim, with a scar on the right-hand side where the doctor had been marked on the left. But the film tells us that this doesn't matter: oddly enough, nobody notices the change; everyone, from Bartok's patients to even his wife, is prepared to accept that Muller really is Bartok.

In a film so centrally concerned with psychoanalysis, the message is obvious: desire trumps reality. Bartok's associates so wish it to be him, that they are prepared to ignore--better, that they simply do not see--the dramatic change in his face, the switch of the man's most distinguishing characteristic from left to right. And the same factor determines that the only person who does eventually see through the transformation is precisely the one who wants it not to be so: it is Bartok's secretary and lover, Evelyn, whom Muller had already seduced as Muller, who recognizes Johnny for who he is.

Finally, the ultimate irony is that Johnny's downfall comes precisely from the fact that he cannot over-ride the desire of others to see him as Bartok rather than as Muller. On the point of eloping with Evelyn on a liner to Hawaii, Muller is chased down by two thugs in the pay of a local casino... who are out to make Bartok atone for unpaid debts. Muller frantically tries to point out that his scar is on the other cheek from Bartok's, but to no avail: he, too, is gunned down and the casino's enforcers have got the wrong man, if for the right reason. Caught in the fantasy of living another man's life, Muller finds himself doubly accused in that his alter ego draws the same punishment that he himself had long hoped to evade. The problem with relying on desire to trump reality is that it is not merely your own desire that is at play.

See also: A good account of the film from Noir of the Week.
YouTube Link: the film's opening sequence.

Fitzcarraldo

2009-04-23T11:49:00.000-07:00

Fitzcarraldo (1982) portrays a European man impassioned to the verge of madness with the goal of building an opera house deep in the Amazon Basin. The opera house never becomes more than a gleam in his eye but the film is centered on a spectacle of even greater proportions. Director Werner Herzog drew his inspiration for Fitzcarraldo from an event the life of Carlos Fermín Fitzcarrald, a nineteenth century rubber tycoon, in which he had his approximately thirty-ton boat disassembled and transported over a Peruvian isthmus in the search for new rubber exportation routes.

Herzog aggrandized this event for his film, envisioning a promethean undertaking that would illustrate the maximum of the human capacity to surmount barriers when driven by a passionate idea. The result is an astounding scene in which Fitzcarraldo mobilizes an indigenous tribe to drag his steamboat over a mountain, a feat Herzog directed entirely without special effects. In Fitzcarraldo, as is apparent in the documentary Burden of Dreams, Herzog expresses his ambivalent relationship with Latin America through his protagonist. Like Herzog, Fitzcarraldo is spiritually moved when he experiences the landscape as sublime but at the same time repelled by perceiving it as vicious and base.

The film begins with a “civilization versus nature” motif that is ongoing. The first scene pans over the Amazon Basin, which appears prehistoric, then cuts to a grandiose theater in Manaus, Brazil. Fitzcarraldo (played by Klaus Kinski) arrives with his lover Molly via a rowboat, and the flustered pair stumbles into the theatre for the final scene of an opera starring Caruso. Fitzcarraldo catches the idea of building an opera house to bring Caruso to his town of Iquitos like one catches a fever. He becomes agitated and reckless, screaming from the bell-tower that Iquitos must have an opera house and drunkenly insisting that his contemporaries share his rapturous appreciation for opera. A sympathetic Don Aquilino shows him a regional map where there is an unexploited tract of rubber trees on the side of an isthmus that is inaccessible due to treacherous rapids.

Fitzcarraldo eagerly purchases the tract of land and a steamboat, signing a contract with the Peruvian government to productively use the land within nine months. The voyage southward is initially leisurely and filled with surreal elements, such as the partially blind captain who warns that the jungle impedes the ability to discern between reality and illusion. However, as the steamboat enters the territory of an allegedly headhunting tribe, a sinister mood intensifies to the point that most of the crew abandons ship. Tribesmen board the ship soon afterward, but do not harm the crew because they believe that gods in a white vessel will bring them salvation. Though they do not consider the crew to be gods, Fitzcarraldo intends to use their fixation with the ship unscrupulously to his advantage.

The steamboat finally reaches the isthmus. Fitzcarraldo plans have it pulled overland, used to exploit the rubber trees, pulled back and returned to Iquitos until he has sold enough rubber to finance the opera house. In the following months the indigenous people toil until the steamboat is dragged over the blasted and deforested mountain by a series of pulleys. However, the night after it reaches the opposite bank the tribesmen cut it loose, sending it northward towards the deathly rapids. The ship is heavily battered but survives, as does its crew of four men. Fitzcarraldo learns that the indigenous people toiled for their own ends, believing that delivering the sacred vessel would quell the rapids. Because Fitzcarraldo is now destitute Don Aquilino repurchases the steamboat. With this cash, Fitzcarraldo converts it temporarily into a theatre stage to carry an Italian opera production past the shores of Iquitos, thereby realizing a smaller-scale and fleeting version of his original dream.

Compared to their temperate environment, colonial Europeans cast the tropical environment of Latin America as both awe-inspiring for its beauty and grandeur and loathsome for its chaotic, promiscuous and pestilent growth. This conflicting projection is present in Fitzcarraldo, as is the typically colonial concept of nature as something to be conquered by technology and refined by culture. Fitzcarraldo is constantly antagonized by nature and he fights back with dynamite and opera. Interestingly, such attitudes do not only belong to the nineteenth-century characters but to the director himself, as is clear in Burden of Dreams. Herzog’s own feelings of desperation, wretchedness and struggle seem to permeate the film.

The native people of the Amazon have no notable roles or dialogue. We learn very little about their culture, but Herzog does subtly satirize European misrepresentations them as shrunken head collectors and the objects of civilizing projects. Fitzcarraldo simultaneously romanticizes the native people, by likening their belief system to a type of opera, and abuses them by working them to the bone. However, Fitzcarraldo is more akin to them in their indomitable spirit that is capable of moving mountains for an abstract belief than to his social class of rubber barons and railway tycoons, whose only aim and skill lies in finding the easiest way to make the most money.

The Magnificent Seven

2009-04-09T16:01:00.000-07:00

The Magnificent Seven (1960) is a Western modeled on Japanese director Akira Kurusawa’s Seven Samurai (1954), about seven gunmen hired to liberate a Mexican village from routine pillaging by bandits.

The Magnificent Seven opens with bandits, led by a scoundrel named Calvera (played by Eli Wallach), raiding a humble Mexican village while its inhabitants stand frozen and helpless. At their wits end, they consult their elder and he insists on confronting the enemy, sending them to the border to buy guns. The meek farmers are doubtful, but they go anyway. In an American town, the farmers witness two gunslingers called Chris (played by Yul Brynner) and Vin (played by Steve McQueen) displaying their valor by driving a hearse containing a dead Native American to the cemetery despite the ire of prejudiced locals. They appeal to Chris to work for them and he agrees to bring together some good gunmen, even though the farmers offer them a pittance in exchange. Aside from Vin, Chris succeeds in hiring a fortune-hunter named Harry, a tough Irish-Mexican named Bernardo O’Reilly, a reserved knife-thrower named Britt, and an outlaw named Lee. The six of them head down south and are trailed by an impetuous young Mexican named Chico, who Chris eventually accepts as a member of the group.

The villagers are too frightened to greet the foreigners and during the fiesta the next day the Americans merely watch and wait. They kill three of Calvera’s spies so that their presence remains secret. The following scenes depict the Americans working alongside the Mexicans to assemble traps and barricades, and to instruct them on how to operate guns. The Americans are portrayed as determined, patient and earnest teachers and the Mexicans as willing, but not always able students. Their first battle is a great success, due to catching Calvera and his men off-guard within the newly-fortified village, and they send the survivors high-tailing out. The victory fills the farmers with a newfound sense of bravado, but it is quickly dampened when they consider that Calvera may return. Cracks begin to appear in the rough-and-ready attitude of the seven. Vin yearns after the things he has sacrificed as a hired gunman: a home, a wife and a family. Lee has terrible nightmares and lives in fear of the final shootout when he will loose. Both the Mexicans and Americans argue amongst themselves whether to risk fighting Calvera again or reinstate the status quo. Chris and three Mexicans speak ardently to the others about the need to carry on.

When the seven return to the village one night, they are ambushed by Calvera and his gang, who humiliates them by demanding that they remove their gun belts and leave for good. With a surprising lack of foresight, Calvera only seized their guns to show the villagers who was boss, and returns their guns once the seven are outside the village. All but the wealth-driven Harry have become attached to the village, either for sentimental reasons or personal honour, and they return the next day for an intense shootout. They are outnumbered and casualties are high. Harry, who has a change of heart, is shot dead upon arrival, followed by Lee, Britt and O’Reilly. The farmers fight valiantly with nothing but chairs and spades, but Chris is the one to finally kill Calvera. In the final scene, three of the remaining seven are thanked by the village elder, and as Chris and Vin ride away, Chico turns back to remain with a Mexican girl whose infatuation draws him uneasily away from the footloose lifestyle of the older men.

The Magnificent Seven could not more clearly be an allegory for U.S. interventionism. Following cultural studies theorist Stanley Corkin, the film references a liberal interventionist model, one that seeks to improve social justice and material conditions abroad, and was produced when U.S. interventionism was viewed positively after the Korean War (1950-1953). At the outset of the film, the protagonist is shown risking his personal safety to ensure that the body of a Native American is treated with equal dignity. The task is apparently taken as a dare, but its moral undertones are clear. The personal motivation behind this act is not explained, nor is the fact that he organizes six other men to fight bandits in Mexico for a dismal wage. Moments before death, Calvera asks Chris incredulously: “You came back, to a place like this, why? A man like you, why?” The villain cannot recognize that Chris simply wanted to extend the liberties enjoyed in America to the Mexicans. These liberties include being free from persecution and also being free to accumulate wealth; it is emphasized that the village is poor because Cavera takes all of their surplus crops. This benign intervention has a cost, as is seen by the graves of the dead Americans. However, the final scenes show their success in leaving the village more peaceful, stable and productive.

The relationship between the Americans and Mexicans in The Magnificent Seven is incredibly paternalistic. The Mexicans passively accept being downtrodden by Calvera until the Americans bolster their courage, and they lack the gunmanship and strategy for counter-attack until given them by the Americans. This relationship of student/follower/recipient versus teacher/leader/provider is even expressed in the physical and verbal interactions of the two groups. The Mexicans are often seated when the Americans are standing, or in other formations that give the Americans greater stature. Often one American will address a group of Mexicans, and they will pipe up one after the other in a childlike fashion. The film does attempt to garner some respect for the Mexicans by suggesting that their bravery exceeds that of the Americans, having chosen the responsibilities of family and farming rather than being roaming mercenaries. At the same time, America emerges as a superior entity in The Magnificent Seven for its commitment to and capacity for delivering freedom to the oppressed.

Commando

2009-04-09T14:52:00.000-07:00

Commando (1985) is a typical 1980s Arnold Schwarzenegger action flick, complete with rippling muscles, rocket launchers, and cheesy comebacks. This particular version of the film formula has Schwarzenegger as retired Special Forces commando John Matrix, who has left the testosterone-filled world of guns and violence in the U.S. Army for some quality time with his daughter, Jenny. Slightly unsettling scenes of the massive, tanned and muscular John feeding deer in the woods with Jenny, going fishing with her, and chucking her effortlessly around in a swimming pool attest to the happiness he has found without his old action-filled life. However, his former life has not yet let him go. It begins to catch up with him in the murders of all of his former commando team members, despite their new hidden identities. General Franklin Kirby, John's former leader in the Army, arrives by helicopter to John's secluded house in the Californian mountains to inform him of these events, and to drop off a few men to protect him. The minute Kirby's helicopter flies away, John smells something on the breeze and drops to the ground on top of Jenny - just in time - as a number of men begin shooting at the house from the forest. The guards John was given are killed, and as John runs to his tool shed to get some weapons, Jenny is kidnapped by the mystery attackers who speed away in two cars. John is not ready to give up, however, and chases the kidnappers down with his Bronco, which he crashes. The men proceed to kidnap John as well and take Jenny and him to an unknown location, where the motive behind the kidnapping becomes clear. Exiled president of the fictional Latin American country of Valverde, Presidente Arius, promises to return John's daughter to him if John goes down to Valverde and assassinates the country's new president. Arius' henchmen, all Valverdians, are led by a former member of John's Special Forces Unit, Bennett, who has a grudge against John for having kicked him out of the unit. John reluctantly agrees to the demands.

John is taken to the San Diego airport with Jackson and Sully, two of Bennett's brutes, who will ensure he gets on the next flight to Valverde. Jackson and John get on the airplane while Sully watches from the airport until the plane takes off. As soon as they get to their seats in the airplane, John inconspicuously breaks Jackson's neck and covers him with a blanket and pillow to make him look like he is sleeping. He then makes his way to the cargo section of the plane and drops down to the tarmac via the landing gear. Sully doesn't see this. John has only 11 hours, the duration of the flight, to find Jenny, because when Arius' men in Valverde see that John has not arrived, Jenny will be killed. John finds Sully in the airport and follows him to the parking lot, where Sully is harassing a young flight attendant who is getting into her car. Sully is rebuffed and goes to his car while John sneaks up behind the young woman and commands her to follow Sully, jumping into her car with her. Terrified, she does as she is told. They follow Sully to a shopping mall, where he goes into a restaurant to do a deal with a mystery man. John tells Cindy, the flight attendant, to get Sully's attention and bring him to corner where John will wait for him. Cindy doesn't follow John's instructions and instead notifies the mall security guards that she is being abducted by John. The guards try to apprehend John, but he easily kicks their butts; however, in the process he attracts Sully's attention. Sully tries to shoot John, runs to his car, and drives away. John runs to Cindy's car and is about to speed away to chase Sully alone, but Cindy gets in the car and insists that she be part of the action. They chase Sully up into some secluded roads, flip his car, and John drops Sully off of a cliff. Before killing him, John gets a hotel room key from Sully's pocket. Taking Sully's car, John and Cindy, who is now sympathetic to John's cause and wants to help, they drive to the hotel, where they search for clues. They find a receipt from an airplane fuel service, which Cindy recognizes. As they are about to leave, another of Arius' henchmen arrives and a scuffle between John and him ensues, in which Cindy screams helplessly from the corner. John kills the henchman by impaling him on a bedpost. John and Cindy drive to "Surplus City", a closed department store, and break in using a nearby bulldozer. John steals dozens of weapons, from grenades to assault rifles to machine guns to a rocket launcher...all available at the neighborhood "Surplus City". The police show up and arrest John, alerted by all the bulldozing action. Cindy manages to sneak away with all the weapons. As John is driven away in a police van, Cindy follows in the car. She takes out the rocket launcher, and after accidentally firing backwards (it is her first time using a rocket launcher, after all), blows up the police van. John miraculously escapes unscathed, jumps into the car, and they are on their way.

John and Cindy drive to the address they find on the fuel receipt, which is a warehouse on the water. There they find maps indicating the location of a mystery island two hours north of San Diego along the coast. They also conveniently find a seaplane on the wharf, which Cindy, who is getting her pilot's license, can fly. Just as armed guards begin shooting at them, they fly away with the destination of the mystery island where Jenny is being held. Two hours later, they arrive. John tells Cindy to try to radio General Kirby for backup while paddling to shore in a speedo, all his body-builder's splendour exposed. When he reaches shore, he straps an impossible amount of weapons to his body, paints himself dark green, and sneaks up to a complex of army barracks filled with Latin American (presumably Valverdian) soldiers. In a matter of minutes he takes on at least fifty soldiers, mowing them all down with a machine gun after politely asking, "Como esta?". He also manages to blow up the five buildings of the complex and run into the woods to find Jenny's location. At this moment, the airplane John was supposed to be on arrives in Valverde, and Arius' men find the body of his seatmate. They call Arius, who authorizes the murder of Jenny, unaware that John has just arrived to his extravagant villa armed to the teeth. As Bennett enters the room where Jenny was held with a knife to kill her, he realizes that the clever little Jenny has escaped. Bennett begins to chase Jenny around the house. John, after having a marvelously successful shootout with the dozens of guards that surround the house and killing Arius, finds Bennett and Jenny in the operations room. Bennett catches Jenny and threatens to kill her, but John manages to convince Bennett that the fight is between the two men and that Jenny must be left out of it. The usual ten-minute action sequence in which the two huge enemies exhibit their massive strength and fighting skills follows, culminating in Bennett's being impaled by a steam pipe. Panting, John remarks, "Let off some steam". He picks up Jenny and they walk to the shore. General Kirby has just arrived with his soldiers, but John tells him all that is left on the island is bodies. Kirby asks John to come back to the Special Forces, but John refuses, smiling down at Jenny. Cindy awaits with the seaplane and the strange new little family climbs aboard and flies away.

Valverde is the typical anarchic Latin American state, victim to constant regime changes, sporadic violence, and external political manipulations. Arius has been deposed as president of the nation and must for some reason coerce an American Special Forces commando to get him back in power, seemingly unable to do so himself. It seems presidents come and go in Valverde, without any role for its people. The only scene that takes place in Valverde shows a street filled with vendors, and has a decisively Mexican flavour. The two gangsters sent to pick up John Matrix walk past a cement wall that is plastered with large prints of Arius crossed off with red ink, signalling a place of political unrest and instability. Arius himself is a darkly tanned, scowling man with a thick gold chain nestled among his dark chest hair. He is ruthless, power-hungry, and manipulative. If Arius is to be president of Valverde, Valverde is lost. It is surprising that Arius is unable to re-take Valverde's presidency, given the huge amount of Valverdian soldiers that surround him; hundreds of green-clad dark-skinned army men with mustaches swarm around him, yelling at each other in Spanish. They are very evil; they are overheard gleefully anticipating the torture of young Jenny, and boasting that "cutting the skin of a young girl is like cutting butter with a hot knife". They are also utterly useless, evidently, as John kills every single one of them without so much as a scratch.

This film follows the theme of namelessness and anonymity of Latin American countries. Valverde is a fictional country with a generic Spanish-sounding name. No details about its culture or geography are given, because these have little importance. Neither is the political situation well-explained, as this is not importance either. Latin America is just a place, a featureless setting. What is really important is that Valverde has produced a bad guy that threatens John Matrix' life, and he must be destroyed.

A Day Without a Mexican

2009-04-08T11:34:00.000-07:00

A Day Without a Mexican (2004) is a mockumentary that imagines what would happen were all the Mexicans to disappear from California. The movie stresses the role of the media, and so it begins with an emergency news broadcast announcing that “the Mexicans are all gone.” Next the scene shifts to a few days before the disappearance and shows a montage of Mexicans working at various jobs, to show how Mexicans are an integral part of California life. But it remains to be seen of how much their contributions are appreciated, as an interview with the California State Senator Stephen Abercrombie (John Getz) reveals that he has to defend himself against his wife hiring illegal immigrants to paint their living room. Next the images move to an anti-immigration protest on the Mexico-California border where activists complain that Mexicans are taking jobs from Americans, eating up the economy’s welfare, and bringing drugs into the country. Budding news reporter Lila Rod (Yareli Arizmendi) is then shown auditioning for employment at the local news station. A man from the station tells her not to Americanize her Spanish seeing as many Latinos have no career without their accents. A contrast of immigration views is then presented between a father and son; the father whose best friend is a Mexican working on his farm, and the son who suffers from the prejudice paranoia that the Mexican workers will hurt his child or his father’s business.

Then, rather abruptly, all the Mexicans begin disappearing. The only explanation is a strange fog that is surrounding California, cutting off all communication to the rest of the world. The effects of such a loss begin to reveal themselves: farmers lose their entire crops because they don’t have any labourers; no garbage clean-up; no maids or nannies; no celebrity latinos; no workers employed at minimum wage jobs. The problems begin to multiply; not to mention the confusion as Latinos disappear while driving, causing their cars to veer wildly in the streets, one of which hits Lila Rod while she is driving in her car. Senator Abercrombie (who is now acting governor because his superiors are also Latinos gone missing), declares a state of emergency. Is it terrorism? Is the military kidnapping unsuspecting people? Others believe that the apocalypse is upon them and is taking the most faithful first. As the days trudge along, the Caucasian population falls to pieces as they have to perform the menial tasks that the Mexicans had previously taken care of. Restaurants close due to no servers, cooks, dishwashers, or fresh food. The drug trade becomes secondary to the thriving ‘fresh fruit and vegetable’ trade. The border patrol attempts to clean up their image which projects them as racist nationalists, an image not unfounded by the characters.

Eventually it is discovered that Lila Rod (or Rodriguez) is the only Mexican left untouched by the ‘disappearance epidemic’. She is at first worshipped as a sign of hope in these dark days as she donates her body to science in an attempt to discover why she is ‘the missing link’. But her popularity soon turns sour as the remaining racist Californians begin to celebrate the disappearance. Lila soon realizes that the government’s primary objective is to safeguard the rest of the population against disappearing (with a vaccine made from Lila’s blood), and secondary is to find the missing Mexicans. When the scientists express that they want to ‘flatline’ Lila to see if she can go to a parallel world to discover where all the Mexicans are, her Aunt Gigi confesses that Lila is actually Armenian and her Mexican ‘parents’ had kindly taken her in as their own daughter. Lila breaks down and wails that “love is thicker than blood” and that her heart is Mexican. With that, she disappears, despite being Armenian.

At this point there are 13 million people missing. As all the main characters sadly reminisce about their absent loved ones, a small drop of water falls from above each of them; an act somewhat similar to christening. They have completely transformed their views of Mexican immigrants and have realized how essential each person is to California and the people there within. The fog then magically clears up and the Mexicans all reappear, just as they were, with no memory of the event. They are welcomed back with appreciation, love, and public displays of affection. Perhaps the most comical reception is when the entire border patrol descends on two unsuspecting Mexicans trying to cross the border. The officers can’t believe their eyes and ask them, “¿Son Mexicanos ustedes?” (Are you Mexican?); and an affirmative reply results in an eruption of cheers as the border patrol hug the two illegal immigrants and carry them around on their shoulders. The two Mexicans look at one another and agree that, “Damn, these Americans are fucking cool!”

The film is interspersed with details of the Mexicans vital role in California’s society, such as:

*Thanks to the Mexicans, California is the world’s fifth largest economy.
*20% of all K-12 California students are Hispanic.
*Mexicans comprise a third of all Californian consumers.
*Eight of the L.A. Dodgers are Latinos.
*60% of California’s construction workers are Mexican.
*Mexicans contribute to the economy far more than they take from it in social services.

The reality of American ignorance regarding Mexican identity also goes on display when Abercrombie comments that he doesn’t want illegal Mexicans from Guatemala or Honduras working for him; or when a meter maid comments that they’re all Mexicans south of the border, prompting a message on the screen which states that there are in fact 40 countries south of the US-Mexico border. The devastation in the aftermath of the disappearance questions previous prejudices, such as the Mexicans stealing employment opportunities; whereas afterwards, the remaining Americans are forced into the hard-labour jobs which they loathe. The social message presented becomes an issue of humanity, not race. A colleague comments to Lila that California now needs the Mexicans, and she replies, “I wish they could have heard that before.” This film blatantly states the obvious: For a state which is dependent upon Mexicans for its survival, the non-Hispanic population certainly does not view the societal role of Chicanos, as well as those seeking citizenship, as vital.

A Million to Juan

2009-04-07T16:19:00.000-07:00

A Million to Juan (1994) is a rags-to-riches Chicano comedy which overtly illustrates the disparity between rich, white Americans and broke, struggling Chicanos. Ten-year-old Alejandro Lopez (Jonathan Hernandez) introduces a collection of characters, starting with his father Juan (Paul Rodriguez), who has an affinity for being penniless even though he is the master of odd jobs. Alejandro gets babysat regularly by the neighbours, Mrs. Gonzales and her daughter Patricia, and he lives with his father (his mother died 3 years earlier) and two uncles: Jorge and Alvaro, who cry during their beloved Spanish soap-operas. Their place of residence is a run-down apartment in East L.A. owned by Mr. Jenkins, a crabby landlord who lets only Mexican immigrants live in the building so that he can report them to immigration services if they complain. One afternoon, Mrs. Gonzalez performs a small spiritual ritual on Juan, complete with candles and air freshener, which is specifically designed to ask the saints to bestow wealth upon Juan. That night, Juan discusses job opportunities with his brothers and he realizes that he will have to work for Hector Delgado by selling oranges on street corners; a job which he swore he’d never do.

After Juan’s trampy girlfriend Anita starts to date Hector and Juan doesn’t think his life can get any worse, a white limo pulls up to the street corner where he’s selling oranges. The back window cracks open a few inches and an anonymous hand presents Juan with an envelope. In the envelope is a cheque for one million dollars addressed to Juan Lopez and a note that states the terms of the ‘experiment’: If Juan returns the cheque in 30 days to the same limo, he will receive a gift. Everyone is dubious of the cheque’s authenticity, but Olivia (Polly Draper), Juan’s kind and beautiful immigration officer, suggests that Juan verify the cheque at the bank, just to be sure; especially when Juan has been rejected for a green card and may be deported to Mexico within the week. The cheque turns out to be authentic and Juan is immediately treated with respect wherever goes. He and his brothers head out on a shopping spree in Beverly Hills, buy a Mercedes, and Juan even gets invited to the bank manager’s cocktail party. He gets credit at stores which had refused him earlier and restaurants bring him drinks which he hasn’t ordered; all he has to do is flash the cheque. While out with his son at a Mexican restaurant, Juan bumps into Olivia, who can’t believe that the cheque was real. They make a dinner date in order to discuss plans of Juan opening a small business; while Olivia’s boyfriend Jeff grumpily leaves the restaurant due to his great dislike of everything Mexican.

Although Juan is now able to live a rich lifestyle, he doesn’t ever forget his responsibilities or lose his kind demeanor. At the dinner date, Olivia advises Juan to open a restaurant on account of his excellent cooking skills. They both become more interested in one another as the night progresses and then, seeing as Olivia has already been invited to the bank manager’s cocktail party through Jeff, they decide to meet one another there to act as moral support against the snobbery of the other guests. Juan arrives at the party only to be immediately labeled as a valet by those who don’t know him (due to his Hispanic descent), or complimented profusely by those who know about his new-found wealth. He soon escapes to the balcony where a man in a white suit approaches him and asks him questions about his employment. Juan lies at first, but then, as if forced by the man’s gaze, he admits that although he almost completely broke (apart from the cheque), he still yearns to start his own business. The bank manager suddenly appears and when Juan asks for a loan, the man in the white suit vouches for Juan as a man of integrity and vision, allowing Juan to obtain the loan. Later on that night, Jeff storms out of the party when Olivia and Juan begin to ‘fraternize with the help’, allowing Juan and Olivia to leave the party and go celebrate Juan’s loan on the rooftop of his apartment building, where they begin to slow dance and finally progress to kissing.

The next day, Juan is ready to propose to Olivia, but before he is able to, she announces that they should keep their relationship strictly professional. To add to the grim situation, Patricia Gonzalez dies of pneumonia due to a broken heater and faulty window in the apartment. Mrs. Gonzalez takes all her religious knick-knacks down as she loses her faith and Mr. Jenkins attempts to evict her from the apartment. When Juan tries to stop the eviction and set the record straight: that the defective building had caused Patricia’s death; Jenkins frames Juan to make it look like he was going to attack him with a knife. Juan is taken to jail, but Olivia is able to get him out; only to tell him that everything he had gotten on credit was repossessed and that she has quit her job and is moving to Seattle with Jeff. Juan is dumbfounded and exclaims that he loves her now more than Jeff will ever be able to love her. Olivia knows that Juan is right, but is caught between the two men as Juan goes back to selling oranges. Suddenly, the white limo appears again. Juan passes the cheque back through the window and a hand, along with the voice of the man in the white suit, gives Juan an address to go to in order to receive his gift. Juan becomes angry at how this man is playing with his life and throws away the address as the limo departs. Just then Olivia drives up and proclaims her love for him. Alejandro, in the back seat, then notices a billboard bizarrely graffitied with a note to Juan containing the address on the piece of paper he had thrown away. The three of them drive to the location, a run-down and abandoned building, and find a certificate naming Juan as the proprietor. Juan immediately sets to work and everyone in his life chips-in to help restore the building into The Angel Café. Juan and Olivia marry and move into a beautiful mansion, living with all their loved ones and preparing for the arrival of a new family member, Esperanza. The tale of Juan’s amazing good luck ends with the man in the white suit gazing through a window to check-up on the family before slowly walking away and disappearing into a flash of white light.

There is constant banter about the Chicano’s living situation in L.A., particularly in comparison to Mexico. Jorge comments that a job is difficult to find in the US; especially when so many other immigrants can exploit their struggles and beg for money. He then continues to say that he should have never left beautiful Mexico. Even though his brother, Alvaro, mentions that the increased cost of living in America is well-worth not having to carry cement bags for a wage of $3 an hour in Mexico; Jorge still insists that Mexico is heaven on Earth compared to the hell of the US. Caucasians are constantly depicted as ignorant, such as the woman who hands a pop can to Juan, instead of money, saying, “You people recycle these, don’t you?” As she drives away, Juan crossly crushes the can into the ground with the heel of his boot. Many Mexicans have learnt how to work the system with sob stories and lies; but Juan, who is the most sincere and reliable Chicano in the film, cannot find it in himself to stoop to that level, even if it means that him and Alejandro might be sent back to Mexico (even though Juan has lived in the US for almost his entire life). Yet, however dire this situation may be for Chicanos, A Million to Juan still sheds hope on their social condition and encourages honesty and responsibility among Chicanos in order to attain their dreams while in America. While many, such as Jorge, may wish to return to Mexico, the film stresses that happiness can still be found in a foreign land.

Duck, You Sucker!

2009-04-06T20:42:00.000-07:00

Duck, You Sucker! (1971) is the work of Sergio Leone, director of the famous Dollars trilogy starring Clint Eastwood. Despite having attracted little recognition in its day, it is one of the most interesting examples of how Leone splices political commentary into his movies alongside the locomotive explosions and wild shootouts.

Duck, You Sucker! tells the story of how a troubled ex-IRA explosives expert and a Mexican bandit become caught up in the Mexican Revolution. The movie begins with an abridged Mao Tse-Tung quote on how “revolution is an act of violence,” followed by the metaphor-laden image of a stream of piss drowning an ant colony. It is clear that Duck, You Sucker! will be no ordinary Western. The urine comes from Juan Miranda, a grubby and crude Mexican who catches a ride from a coach driver who wants to play a joke on his ostentatious passengers. Throughout the journey, Juan passively receives the demeaning insults hurled at him by the rich Europeans and Americans, but when the coach pulls into town and is seized his family of shotgun-wielding bandits, the tables are suddenly turned. Juan has all of them, the men stripped naked, dumped into an animal pen. Juan and his boys, fathered with an unknown number of women, take to the road and before long encounter John Mallory. Juan instantly tries to enlist him to rob the legendary Banco Nacional de Mesa Verde. John, aside from fleeing the British Secret Service for his terrorist activities, is escaping his painful past, which we periodically see in gauzy, dialogue-free flashbacks.

After Juan carelessly detonates a church that John has rigged, killing Mexican military personnel and a German mine owner, the two men proceed to Mesa Verde. Mesa Verde is in the grip of a tyrannical governor who conducts public executions. The pair descend into a dingy basement where revolutionaries, lead by a Dr. Villega, are planning a coordinated attack with Villa and Zapata. John is already in league with them and they tell the confused Juan to go ahead with his planned bank robbery. On the day of the attack, John detonates the bank entrance and Juan and his boys fight through the federal soldiers inside. After blowing the locks off the store rooms, Juan finds no cash but becomes an unwitting revolutionary hero; the bank was recently converted into a political prison and held 150 men, who now pour out into the streets. Later, in an encampment outside Mesa Verde, Juan expresses his resentment at being tricked into participating in the revolution. He assails John with a cynical rant about how a revolution involves “the people who read the books” discussing ideas around the dinner table and inciting “the people who don’t read the books” to loose their lives fighting.

This rant piques John’s conscience, leading him and Juan to attack a federal army contingent by machine gun then detonate the bridge underneath them. Meanwhile, there is a massacre at the encampment, including Juan’s six young boys. John solemnly observes while Juan grieves. When Juan is captured by the federal army, John goes into town and witnesses the revolutionary ringleaders being shot, noting that the ringleaders were betrayed by Dr. Villega. The next day, John rescues Juan on motorbike and they stow away on a train carrying the governor. Before long, the train is held up by revolutionaries and Juan shoots the escaping governor in vengeance for his children, elevating yet again his revolutionary status. Revolutionary leaders tell the duo that a military train loaded with over a thousand soldiers and heavy weapons is coming straight towards them, and they can expect no reinforcement. When night falls, John loads the locomotive with explosives and takes Dr. Villega on a kamikaze charge into the oncoming train; he finds that he ultimately cannot judge Dr. Villega for he regrets killing his Irish friend who too was an informer. The trains crash, with John jumping out just in time, and the revolutionaries finish off the survivors. John is shot the back; in the moments before death he returns the cross that Juan cast away after the massacre, then drifts off into happy memories of Ireland. As Juan frantically leaves to get help, John blows himself up in a death fitting to an explosives expert.

Duck, You Sucker! can be read as Leone’s protest against filmmakers who romanticize and sanitize revolution by avoiding the depiction of brutality and creating impossibly pure heroes. At the same time, he creates monsters of the Mexican governors and military colonels and the foreign capitalists, creating uniformly evil villains. These characters are thoroughly despicable, from the pretentious Europeans and Americans who have the manner and appetite of pigs, to the Nazi-like Mexican federal forces who drive in armored tanks and execute peasants en mass. Though Leone makes his political allegiance with the peasant class very clear, unlike many revolution-themed movies the heroes are selfish and fallible. This is true of John, who is haunted by having murdered his friend for a cause, and especially of Juan, who is considered a revolutionary hero because he freed the political prisoners and killed the governor, but he was first motivated by bank robbery then by personal revenge. In Duck, You Sucker! the Mexican Revolution provides a context in which to denounce the glorification of war, where killers can become heroes and friends turned into enemies. Interestingly, Duck, You Sucker! has a complicated release history in which scenes of violence at profanity have been edited out and later restored. It seems that when the movie was released in 1971, right in the middle of the Vietnam War (1959-1975), American audiences did not have a pallet for depictions of massacres and morally troubled heroes.

A Date with Judy

2009-04-04T11:13:00.001-07:00

A voice-over begins A Date with Judy (1948) by commenting on the characteristic features of the ordinary town of Santa Barbara, California. The voice mainly focuses on two men: Mr. Pringle, a successful tycoon who has very little time for family life; and Mr. Foster, who may not have as nice a house as Mr. Pringle, but who always finds time for his family. The scene then shifts to a performance rehearsal where Judy Foster (Jane Powel) is practicing a song to sing at her parents’ wedding anniversary. Her boyfriend Ogden Pringle (Scotty Becket) is leading the orchestra and staring adoringly at Judy, until his sister Carol (a stunning, young Elizabeth Taylor), who is also Judy’s best friend, interrupts to say that Judy is singing the song a little too joyfully and should be more seductive. Judy agrees, as Carol is her idol, but Ogden thinks the song is good as is, innocence and all. Judy then heads home to get ready for the high school prom that night. Carol’s power over Judy is again illustrated when Judy changes from her new blue dress to an old pink one upon Carol’s insistence (seeing as Carol was already wearing a blue dress). Carol then privately tells Ogden (or ‘Oogie’ for short) that he should play hard-to-get with Judy by sending another friend to collect her for the dance. Judy is devastated when Oogie doesn’t show. She decides to phone him to give her a piece of her mind, but must do it from the local soda shop because her younger brother is occupying the phone at the house. After telling Oogie off, Judy sits dejectedly on a stool until the owner of the soda shop, Pop Scully, offers to have his handsome nephew, Stephen Andrews (Robert Stack) take her, as he is just starting his shift at the shop. Judy is elated and attempts to act as mature as possible (but to no avail) because Andrew is considerably older than herself. At the dance, Stephen is embarrassed to be among high school kids until he spies Carol in the corner while Judy is on stage singing a song. The two are then introduced by Judy, who is immediately ushered away by Carol to go greet the guest performer Xavier Cugat (played by himself). Xavier hits it off with Judy’s parents, who are also at the dance, and takes her mother on the dance floor to rumba when her father good-naturedly refuses. Carol and Stephen also begin to dance as Judy and Oogie have a spat over why Oogie did not pick Judy up himself. Judy is determined to stick with Stephen through the night, even if he’s not interested in her, if only to spite Oogie. When Stephen walks her to her door after the dance, she unabashedly kisses him; much to Oogie’s disappointment, who was watching from the bushes. Oogie tells this news to Carol, who promises to take care of everything for Oogie, if only to get Stephen for herself. The brother and sister then sadly remember their deceased mother and pine for a father like Judy’s who is there for the family, instead of their own Mr. Pringle.

The next morning, both girls are swooning over Stephen and go to the soda shop to see him. Carol tells Judy that she has landed her a radio program at her father’s station and asks her to go see her father about sponsorship. When Judy leaves hurriedly, Carol invites Stephen to dinner at her house; which he accepts. Stephen thinks that Carol is beautiful, but also sees that she is spoiled and egotistical. Meanwhile, at Mr. Foster’s work, he has enlisted the help of Rosita Cochellas (Carmen Miranda) to teach him the rumba so he can surprise his wife at their wedding anniversary; however, when Judy arrives to speak to him, he must hide Rosita in a closet to keep the dance lessons secret. The dancing is rather sensual for Mr. Foster, but he perseveres. That night, at the dinner Carol has planned, Stephen shows up with Judy, in hopes to get her back together with Ogden. When Ogden shows up, Stephen requests that they do a performance together, to which Judy reluctantly complies. Oogie and Judy prove sensational as a duo and they plan to do the radio show together, but only as business partners, as Judy stresses. Oogie then reveals to Judy that he would like to marry her one day, to which she replies that she is far too mature to consider marrying him; while Stephen tells Carol that she tries too hard to impress him which makes her furious. Carol later tells Judy to never trust men because, like her father, they will one day forget about you. Judy is still swooning over Stephen later that evening and tells her father that she wants to marry him, to which Mr. Foster quickly replies that he will sponsor her radio program, if only to keep her from eloping (even though he doesn’t realize that Stephen isn’t interested in marriage).

Carol wakes up early the next day to tell her father about Stephen, but he barely listens between phone calls. The butler later tells him about the love situation his daughter is in, and Mr. Pringle immediately enlists the butler to investigate Stephen. Meanwhile, Judy and Oogie go to get Mr. Foster to sign a contract for the radio program, and happen to arrive during the dance lesson. Rosita quickly hides, but Judy spies her dress in the closet door, leading her to suspect that her father is having an affair. At the radio rehearsal, Judy is despondent and then reveals to Carol the ‘tragedy’ that she had ‘witnessed’. Carol accidentally reveals that she’s in love with Stephen, to which Judy replies that she’d be very angry if she wasn’t already through with men. Judy decides to make her home as pleasing as possible for her father, but when Mr. Foster hints to his family that he has a surprise for them at the anniversary party the next night, Judy fears the worst.

Carol’s butler attempts to covertly interview Stephen but is immediately exposed as an investigator, causing Stephen to storm into Mr. Pringle’s office and berate him for being a terrible father. Mr. Pringle takes this to heart and immediately attempts to reconcile a history of neglect between him and his children. Oogie then goes to serenade a miserable Judy, but is rejected. And so Oogie turns the tables by declaring that he is too old for her games and promptly leaving. The next day, Rosita gives Mr. Foster his last lesson before the two of them go to the hotel in preparation for the night; unknowingly being watched by Carol and Judy who agree that they can’t say anything of the affair until after the celebration. But when Rosita sings a song that night with Cugat’s band and focuses her attention on Mr. Foster, Judy is outraged. She confronts Rosita afterwards and demands to know why she is fooling around with a married man who has children. Rosita herself becomes furious as she confuses the allegations with her fiancé, Xavier Cugat, whom she pulls from the stage to answer questions as to why Judy is claiming he is married with children. The dance lessons are finally revealed and apologies are made once Mr. Foster takes the dance floor with Mrs. Foster to show off his rumba moves. After much arguing, Judy finally forgives Oogie and Stephen arrives with Mr. Pringle to tell Carol that he wants to be with her. A happy ending is finally achieved as the guests at the party all join in a sing-along to celebrate Mr. and Mrs. Foster’s happy marriage.

A Date with Judy is another one of the many Hollywood films which showcase America’s fascination with Carmen Miranda. Her ticket into these pictures has always been her passionate way of song and dance, but the comparison between her Brazilian rhythm and the plain, childlike ways of Judy in this film present a stark contrast between American and Latin styles of performance. Mr. Foster comments that the rumba appears to be a vulgar dance; that is, until he learns it and begins dancing around the house and wearing colorful new ties, demonstrating exactly how Americans want to be caught up in the Latin craze, but are at most times too conservative to try.

In the film, Rosita is engaged to Cuban Xavier Cugat, but the interesting aspect of this couple is that Carmen Miranda plays the unknown singer while Xavier is celebrated in the film as a celebrity band leader. Rather than this being seen as a machismo view of Latino male performers, it should be noted that at the time of the film’s release, the casting of Carmen Miranda as an unheard of entertainer would only be considered an act of irony, as the Brazilian star could be recognized in any role due to her swaying hips, flashy attire, and brilliant smile. During one song, she sings “I’m the zootiest chick this side of Brazil”, a line which strangely emphasizes her immigrant status during the time of the notorious Zoot Suit Riots. It must be suggested that perhaps such a statement was meant to bring a sense of class and prestige back to a term which had recently taken on a somewhat threatening connotation in the United States.

Mi Vida Loca

2009-04-03T15:37:00.000-07:00

Mi Vida Loca (My Crazy Life, 1994) shows a series of events from the different perspectives of several Chicano teenagers belonging to the gangs in the Echo Park neighbourhood of Los Angeles. This compilation is split into three chapters: "Sad Girls Y-Que," "Don't Let No One Get You Down," and "Sauvecito."

Sad Girls Y-Que

Sad Girl (Angel Aviles) begins by describing the Echo Park barrio as a place that has slowly evolved into a from English to a Hispanic neighbourhood and has everything you need. The residents live in a karma-like environment where they know that ‘what goes around, comes around’ and you just have to take the good with the bad. This explains the shocking scenes of teenage mothers having profane catfights; oblivious to how this is affecting their young children witnessing the scene from nearby strollers. Sad Girl and Mousie (Seidy Lopez) have been best friends since they could remember. They even joined the ‘homegirl’ gang the Locas (and thus the bizarre pseudonyms). Mousie soon becomes interested in Ernesto, aka Bullet (Jacob Vargas), who is part of Echo Park’s male counterpart gang, the Locos. Things soon get serious between the adolescents resulting in Mousie becoming pregnant and then giving birth to a son. As Mousie becomes reclusive with her child, Ernesto begins to take an interest in Sad Girl and their affair results in more offspring for Ernesto and an insurmountable barrier of hatred between Mousie and Sad Girl. Mousie then continues the story explaining how after being thrown out by her father, she had moved from house to house with her son until one day she has a confrontation in the park with Sad Girl (displaying their utter immaturity in spite of their attempts to be ‘bad ass’), which results in a plan for the two to settle their differences in the hills later that evening. The plot then turns to Ernesto who has turned to drug dealing in order to make enough money to support his progeny and to buy a new truck, Sauvecito, which he keeps secret from both Sad Girl and Mousie. But the truck is no secret to El Duran, the playboy leader of the River Valley gang, who stalks the Echo Park neighbourhood in his 1950s collectible cruisers, searching for the Sauvecito because he claims it should be his. Ernesto has pledged to both Sad Girl and Mousie that he will keep them safe the night of the fight, but as the girls hesitate while facing each other down, they are startled by two gun shots, echoing through the valley. It turns out that Ernesto had been dealing to a ‘white chick’ with his new female associate Whisper, a member of the Locas, when all of a sudden the client had pulled a gun, killing Ernesto and injuring Whisper in the leg. Mousie and Sad Girl turn despondent after the death, but are then drawn closer as they find strength through the similarity of their new situation which finds them without the father of their children.

Don’t Let No One Get You Down

Whisper then tells about when the Locas took a road trip to the nearby women’s prison to collect Giggles, an older generation Loca who was sent to jail for a crime that her deceased husband had committed. Giggles tells the group about Sauvecito, which she learned about from Big Sleepy, a veteran Loco who had down some work on the truck. The news causes the Locas to consider selling Sauvecito to make money for the families Ernesto had left behind. Mousie and Sad Girl take a covert peak at the truck, which is under the watchful eye of Ernesto’s younger brother Shadow; but he refuses to give the girls the truck because the River Valley gang is after it. The Locas at first look-up to Giggles because she was the first Loca to go to prison, but they soon change their minds when Giggles talks about getting a jobs with computers and starting a future where they don’t need men to take care of them. Giggles then tries to connect with her neighbourhood friends such as Big Sleepy. The two end up spending the night together which is when Big Sleepy offers for Giggles and her daughter to live with him, but Giggles refuses his kind offer on the grounds that she wants to be independent.

Sauvecito

A side-story then introduced about Sad Girl’s sister, Alicia La Blue Eyes, which tells of the bizarre love affair that Blue Eyes has with a prison inmate named Juan Temido, whom she has only met through his poetry in a magazine and then weekly letters. The two end up pledging their love to one another, but then much to Blue Eyes’ disappointment, the correspondence stops. Next is El Duran’s perspective which describes the gang conflict between the Locos and River Valley which has been present for more than 60 years; as such, the issue of attaining Sauvecito is more a matter of honour for El Duran than his actual desire for the truck. Back in Echo Park, one of the Locas reveals that Juan Temido is actually the real name of El Duran and the group brings the heart-broken and naïve Blue Eyes to a River Valley party where she will unknowingly meet El Duran. Meanwhile, Shadow discovers that Sauvecito has been stolen and the Locos go on a blood mission to kill El Duran, who they assume is the culprit. At the party, Blue Eyes is captivated by El Duran’s way with women and the two begin dancing, but she is soon mortified when it is announced that El Duran and Juan are one and the same, causing Blue Eyes to flee from the building and into the comforting embrace of her sister. Suddenly the Locos arrive and immediately shoot El Duran, no questions asked, before escaping into the night. The next day it is revealed that a younger Loco had actually stolen and crashed the truck and that El Duran had been murdered without cause. But the killing continues as a group of River Valley girls attempt to shoot a Loco while outside a local store, but end up accidentally shooting Big Sleepy’s young daughter who was caught in the cross-fire. The film ends at the girl’s funeral, with Giggles slowly walking away from the grave with Big Sleepy and the Locas also walking away together, but on a separate path.

The ending of Mi Vida Loca displays the madness which saturates the lives of these Chicanos, but it also shows the wisdom which develops from living through such experiences. The veteran gang members observe the dead-end lives that result from the constant drug-dealing, fighting, and promiscuity. In this sense, the plot is similar to that of American Me, which also depicts a community of Chicanos stuck in the vicious cycle of younger generations picking up habits inspired by the older generations; even though the veterans of the ‘crazy life’ realize how illogical such a path is in attempting to find happiness.

Although Ernesto often criticizes his white, junkie clients as a class of ‘weak’ humans who get greedy when faced with the ‘stress’ of their perfect lives; the issue of gender in this film appears to take precedence over any concern about race. Even though the women still take on the role of care-givers to the children, they also identify with the machismo attitude of pride and the bond which develops from their inclusion in the gangs; so much so that some members tattoo their aliases onto their knuckles. These girls worry about being killed in gang fights, but still fuss over daily chores such as doing the laundry and getting groceries. Their lives suggest a new perspective on the Chicano community, one where the citizens accept their plight of life in American society and even acknowledge it by naming their gangs the 'Locos' and the 'Locas' (meaning ‘crazy’). Giggles remarks that “women need skills because their men are in prison, disabled, or killed by the time they are twenty-one.” These Chicanas have taken the matter of raising the next generation into their own hands, where they use weapons out of love instead of to prove a point. In the final scene, Giggles embodies the notion of moving away from the ‘gang life’ to start over as she walks away with Big Sleepy; but the cycle continues as the rest of the Locas choose a different path to walk with their children.

The Lawless Frontier

2009-04-03T12:05:00.001-07:00

The Lawless Frontier (1934) tells the story of John Tobin, played by John Wayne, as he brings a crafty outlaw named Pedro Zanti to justice for killing his family and threatening the lives of frontier settlers. In some ways The Lawless Frontier seems like a straightforward Western of the white hat versus black hat variety (whereby the moral make-up of characters is denoted by their hat colour), but the fact that the villain is an ethnic mish-mash gives this story a strange twist. Zanti is half white and half Native American, but he disguises himself as a Mexican and speaks Spanish (unconvincingly).

The film begins with John Tobin discovering his dead parents after a raid led by Pedro Zanti, an outlaw wanted for cattle rustling and murder. Subsequently, Zanti is shown surveying a ranch for a future raid; he rides down to talk to its owner, an old man named Dusty, and Dusty introduces him to his attractive daughter Ruby. Zanti, decked out in a flamboyant costume and appraising Ruby with bulging eyes, is meant to be a sinister and lecherous character, but comes off as comical to the modern viewer. When Zanti reconvenes with his posse he states his plans to raid the ranch and seize Ruby as his prize; little does he know that Ruby overhears this and immediately warns her father. Dusty attempts to smuggle Ruby off the ranch, wrapped in heavy cloth and slung over a horse, but the horse falters at a river crossing. Luckily for the fast drowning Ruby, Tobin is present and dives off the river bank to save her. Zanti watches this, infuriated that the pair tried to trick him, and sends his gang to pursue them on horseback. They escape after a desert chase scene, thanks to Tobin diverting the gang and loosing them when he takes a spectacular plunge, still on horseback, from a cliff into the river.

When Tobin discovers that Zanti was the pursuer, the hunt for him becomes personal. Tobin returns with Dusty to his house, followed by the dubious sheriff who is obstinate that Tobin and Zanti are in league. Tobin succeeds in isolating Zanti from his gang, and a second desert chase scene ensues which ends in Tobin socking Zanti into an unconscious heap with one theatrical swing. Back at the ranch, the sheriff handcuffs Zanti to a bed, but within minutes Dusty crashes to the floor with a knife lodged in his back. Tobin and the sheriff investigate, but upon finding Tobin’s initials on the knife, the sheriff triumphantly handcuffs the dismayed hero alongside Zanti. Zanti squirms loose from his shackles, kills the guard, and is about to shoot Tobin when Dusty miraculously appears and shoots Zanti. In the Old West back-stabbings apparently count as minor flesh wounds. Zanti rides off with Tobin in hot pursuit, initiating the third desert chase scene. This one however involves Tobin luging down a man-made river, then pursuing a hobbling Zanti on foot until he collapses to drink from a poisoned watering-hole, then dies with terrible grimaces. In the penultimate scene, Zanti’s gang attempts to enter Dusty’s house via an obsolete mine-shaft, but Tobin detonates one end, trapping them inside so that they can be delivered into the hands of the law. In the end, heroism is duly rewarded as Ruby becomes Mrs. Tobin and Tobin becomes the new sheriff.

The Lawless Frontier does not take place in any precise geographical location, but on the imagined fringes of a nation where the rule of law is weak and decent folk must defend themselves from a myriad of enemies. However, exactly what constitutes the enemy is surprisingly uncertain for an otherwise straightforward movie. The archetypal good characters have nothing ambiguous about them: the damsel in distress, her devoted and jovial father, the brave and dashing cowboy. On the other hand, the bad characters of the sheriff and Zanti are more problematic. The sheriff is by no means evil, nor does he ever break the law. However, he has upheld a position of authority despite being inept at enforcing the law, a poor decision-maker and over-eager to exercise his power. The fault seems to lie not in this mediocre individual but the institution that bestows authority upon him. Even more intriguing is the character Zanti, who could just as well been a Mexican bandit, but the filmmaker stresses multiple times that Zanti is not Mexican. This film was produced in the years when Hollywood, committed to the Good Neighbour Policy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was cleaning up its projections of Mexico. In The Lawless Frontier the imagery of the Mexican bandit is still employed to denote threat, but it is only superficial.

The Undefeated

2009-04-01T16:13:00.000-07:00

The Undefeated (1969) tells the story of ex-Union Colonel John Henry Thomas (played by John Wayne) and ex-Confederate Colonel James Langdon (played by Rock Hudson) as they cross paths in Mexico and become caught up in the Franco-Mexican War (1862-1867).

The Civil War (1861-1865) stripped many wealthy Southerners of their estates, including ex-Confederate Colonel James Langdon and his community of about four dozen men, women and children. With nothing to loose in the United States, Langdon accepts an offer from Emperor Maximilian to lead his people over one thousand miles to the Mexican state of Durango, where an escort will await to take them to Mexico City. Meanwhile, Colonel John Henry Thomas is resigning from the United States Army, taking ten loyal men with him. Thomas plans to take the men to capture wild horses to sell to the army, which will enable them to restart their post-war lives. After an impressive round-up of three thousand horses, Thomas meets with United States Army purchasers who make him a poor offer. Thomas smells a scam and sells the horses instead to representatives of Maximilian, who promise to make payment upon their delivery on the Durango plains. Both Langdon’s wagon convoy and Thomas’s herders cross the border into Mexico.

The parties become aware of each other when Blue Boy, Thomas’s adopted Cherokee son, spots the tracks left by the Confederates as well as a group pursuing them. They approach the Confederate camp and despite highly-strung Civil War tensions stay the night. Surely enough, they are ambushed they next day by Mexican bandits demanding that they surrender their supplies and women. The Americans dispel their attackers with the Confederates shooting from within a tight circle of wagons and the Yankees delivering a surprise attack on the flanks. The battle results in an incipient brotherhood between Americans divided by Civil War allegiances, a theme developed to a greater extent in the Fourth of July party that follows, and a secretive crush begins between Blue Boy and Langdon’s teenage daughter Charlotte. However, the mood turns ominous as the French cavalry escort to the Confederates is found dead, murdered by Juaristas, and Blue Boy is beaten up by a bigoted Confederate captain.

Matters worsen when the Confederates are received in a Durango town with great fanfare, but once trapped inside a court yard find themselves the victims of an elaborate Juarista ambush. General Rojas singles out an astounded Colonel Langdon to explain that the Maximilian-affiliated Confederates are considered Juarista enemies. He explains that because Maximilian could not acquire any more European soldiers to support his reign, he is bringing down Confederates after the Civil War. Rojas demands that Langdon go to Thomas, who is awaiting payment for the herd nearby, and tell him that he bring the horses or the Confederates will be shot. Though Langdon is loathe to ask anything of a Yankee, he duly meets with Thomas. Though Thomas’s men will lose their payoff, their Christian mercy and American brotherhood lead to a decision to help the Confederates. As Langdon’s men are being selected for execution, Thomas and his men rally the herd into motion with guns blazing and break through a line of French cavalry that attempt to impede them. Horses pour into the plaza just in time and Rojas halts the firing squad. In an unconventional conclusion to an armed hostage situation, the three men drink together, each toasting to his political affiliation: Mexico, the United States, and the Confederacy.

The Undefeated offers a good piece of advice for any traveler: know the political climate of the country you are about to visit. John is savvy about the dangers of Mexico from the beginning. When his men ask if he is expecting trouble, John replies sardonically, “We got Maximilian on one hand and Juarez on the other, and bandits in between. On top of that, we’re Americans in Mexico taking a cavy of horses to a very unpopular government. Why should we expect trouble?” Langdon, on the other hand, did not realize his role in this geopolitical mire until held at gunpoint. Many Western movies portray American cowboys blundering into Mexican wars and coming to the aid of the morally righteous underdog; in The Undefeated, Thomas surrenders the horses badly needed by the Juaristas, but he had to be coerced into doing so as he was closing the deal with Maximilian. Even though the Americans to not extend their moral responsibility to the Mexicans, nor do they change the course of foreign political affairs unless made to do so, the Juaristas are nobly portrayed. It is notable that despite having ambushed the Americans, General Rojas is portrayed as dignified and not cruel; he is visibly relieved to call off the execution.

Above all, the core theme of The Undefeated is unity. The toast given at the end between Rojas, Langdon and Thomas is symbolic of pan-American unity, a favourite theme in United States history since the Monroe Doctrine which called for the U.S. to be vigilant for European incursions into “its” hemisphere. If Mexicans and Americans can unite against the French, so too can the Confederates and Unionists unite against the Mexicans. The extended scene of the Fourth of July party during a hiatus from attacks from Mexican bandits and Juaristas shows how a body politic can be brought together despite its diversity both by symbolic national events and a common enemy threat. Also, Blue Boy and Charlotte make their mutual affection public, and this is well-received by both of their fathers. This union between Native American and white Southern youths seems to celebrate diversity and the coexistence of cultures, however in the final scene we see that Blue Boy has cut his traditionally long hair to the shortness of a typical Anglo-American boy, turning him from a symbol of positive inter-racial relationships to the power of white American cultural hegemony.

American Me

2009-04-01T15:42:00.000-07:00

Edward James Olmos directs and acts in the film American Me (1992), which is inspired by true events and examines the life of a Chicano mobster as he comes to understand how his life choices have affected those closest to him. First we are introduced to the poetic reminiscence of Montoya Santana (Edward James Olmos), who is in prison sifting through a box of old photographs. His musings take the plot back to the Los Angeles in the year June 1943, when his parents, Pedro and Esperanza, two proud ‘zoot suitors’ had first started to date. Their love for one another is strong, but it is overshadowed by the racial tension between Latinos and US sailors which leads to a night of sickening chaos as the couple is caught up in one of the famous Zoot Suit Riots. Sailors beat Pedro to a pulp and rape Esperanza with absolutely no remorse. Montoya then shifts to the year 1959, when he was 16 years old and starting a Latino neighbourhood gang called La Primera. The gang allows Montoya (nicknamed Santana) a reprieve from his father’s chronic anger. Members are initiated via a small tattooed symbol on the back of their hand at the bottom of their thumb. The group consists of Santana; his best friend JD (William Forsythe), who is Caucasian but walks and talks like a Latino; and the newly-initiated Mundo. The group decides to take a shortcut one night after Mundo’s initiation which brings them through the Hazard gang’s territory, provoking a chase. La Primera breaks into a shop and manages to lose their pursuers, only to encounter an enraged storeowner who shoots JD and almost kills him. The breaking-and-entering gets Mundo and Santana time in Juvenile Hall. His first night there, Santana is raped by a fellow juvenile, but then refuses further submission and stabs his rapist in the throat. That killing earned Santana a jail sentence once out of Juvenile Hall, but also the respect of every adolescent in his surroundings. Santana knows that a clica is built upon respect and so he begins to assemble a Latino gang by the name of La Ema (for the Mexican Mafia) which unconditionally welcomes JD once he is out of the hospital and also serving his sentence.

The film progresses to Folsom State Prison where the original gang has grown and the choices they have made to survive have earned them 10-25 years; but the power that they now possess by way of extortion, gambling, prostitution, drugs sales, and even charging rent to inmates, has made them the ultimate force in the prison hierarchy, with the only other gangs in the yard being the Black Gorilla Family and the Aryan Brotherhood. Santana still receives visits from his mother and much younger brother, Paulito. Other visitors secretly supply La Ema with drugs through a method of hiding the package in a series of body cavities. A riot is almost imminent between the Black Guerilla Family and La Ema when a black inmate contaminates some of the cocaine and is then set on fire and killed by Latinos as punishment; but the excitement is set back to just a solemn threat from the African American gang to Santana once the guards begin to arrive. This event causes Santana to be sent to the Hole for solitary confinement; which he only laughs at because he can still run his business from such an isolated location. But the business is beginning to fail as the prison system attempts to break-up La Ema by sending its members to different prisons. Soon Folsom sees new Latino gangs surfacing, such as Nuestra Familia headed by El Chucko. To halt this threat, Santana enlists La Ema’s newest and youngest member, Little Puppet, to kill El Chucko and restore power to La Ema. Life for Santana then begins to change as he receives news of his mother’s death and soon after JD is released. Then, after an astonishing 18 years of prison time and many years to think about his actions and their effects, Santana is finally released into a world that he has difficulty adjusting to. He is welcomed by his friends and family, all except his father, at an intimate celebration and begins to take a liking to Julie (Evelina Fernández), Little Puppet’s cousin. Julie attempts to make light of his struggle in the outside world; but Santana is unable to react as he can’t seem to think with his heart instead of his head.

It doesn’t take long for Santana and JD to get back into business by first confronting the Italian Mafia boss with their proposal of running the drug business in East L.A. and all trades with Mexico in exchange for the safety of the son of the Italian boss, who incidentally was just sent to Folsom. The boss laughs at their offer, until he hears the news that his son was raped and killed on account of La Ema. Meanwhile, Santana opens up to Julie as they get to know each other and she shows him many things for the first time such as driving, going to the beach, and making love, which Santana fails to adjust to as he flips Julie over and attempts to have anal sex with her before she runs away from him screaming. Perhaps things would have eventually worked out between them if it hadn’t been for the Italian boss’ retaliation of sending pure, uncut cocaine into the Mexican barrios and immediately causing upwards of 50 deaths, including Julie’s younger brother, Nito. After this, Santana and his father finally bond as they sit by Esperanza’s grave. It is here that Pedro tells his son about his mother’s rape and how he could never truly love Santana because he always knew that it was an indiscriminate sailor who had fathered him, and not Pedro.

The drug business begins becoming a dangerous place as the Black Gorilla Family stays true to its previous threat and kills several young Latinos by making them deeply breathe-in the pure cocaine which they are cutting for Santana. In an attempt at normalcy, Santana acts as best man at the wedding of the recently-released Little Puppet. Santana is able to talk to Julie outside of the reception and he explains that he is simply working with this reality of drugs, but Julie is repulsed and says she once cared about him, but she doesn’t know this monster who he is now. Suddenly, two police officers appear and start interrogating the two as to why they are on the street talking. After searching ‘Santana’s’ jacket (which is actually Little Puppet’s) the officers find Little Puppet’s drug stash and Santana is then sent back to Folsom. JD goes through with a plan to enlist the Aryan Brotherhood to send a message to the Black Gorilla Family, which ends up being utter bloodshed with racial overtones that Santana disapproves of. La Ema begins to quietly talk about Santana’s new weakness while they solicit Puppet (Little Puppet’s older brother) to kill Little Puppet for accidentally putting Santana back in prison. The film ends in a spirit of utter madness as Puppet reluctantly kills his younger brother, imploring him not to look him in the eyes as he does it; Santana voluntarily concedes to his murder by La Ema as they stab him with the same brutality as any other; and on the outside, Paulito follows in Santana’s footsteps as he initiates younger kids into the gang and then gives them a gun to shoot at the other neighbourhoods in the name of La Primera. But which innocent bystander should the new recruits shoot? It doesn’t matter.

Even the title of American Me taps into the identity crisis existing for Chicanos living in America. Santana says that his parents were proud pachucos, but this didn’t stamp out the Zoot Suit Riots in their era which were ignited by racism and fuelled by media coverage which hailed the sailors for ‘purifying’ America during a time of nationalistic frenzy. This prejudice continues when Santana is a teenager, especially in Juvenile Hall where the gangs are no longer segregated by neighbourhood locations, as in the Chicano barrios, but instead by race. The power hierarchy runs on machismo pride and because of its connection to survival, no ethnic groups are excluded. Near the end of the film, it is revealed that both Julie and Pedro have the Mexican gang tattoo on their hands, which Julie tries to hide with make-up and Pedro looks at with disdain. This symbolism drills home the fact that even those people in the Mexican community who don’t approve of the drug trade are still affected by it due to their connections of family and race. Julie condemns Santana’s actions by saying, “There’s no fucking hope for our kids, for our barrios, with people like you around.” And this cycle doesn’t end with Santana’s death. The message is clear: the Chicanos in this community will never be rid of the crime and drugs that pervade their streets. Malleable adolescent minds look up to the drug lords and see only the attractive shell of power which surrounds these ordinary men of flesh and blood. Everything: the racism, the clicas, the death, the drugs; will continue because the thirst for supremacy is now in that blood.

Frida

2009-03-31T17:48:00.000-07:00

Frida (2002) chronicles the passionate and tempestuous private and professional life of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, played by Salma Hayek. It begins in 1925 in Mexico City, when Frida was 18 years old. She is portrayed as a free-spirited, sexually experimental young woman, the third of four daughters of a Mexican woman and a German Jewish man. It is at 18 that she first sees her future husband Diego Rivera, painting a naked woman in the auditorium of her university. The sensual and bright-eyed young Frida is cursed for the rest of her life in a bus accident which results in a broken collarbone, broken spinal column, broken ribs, a broken pelvis, broken leg, broken foot, and dislocated shoulder. An iron rail pierces her abdomen and uterus. These injuries will haunt her for the rest of her life, the extreme pain often rending her immobile for long periods of time, the abdominal injuries causing complications for her reproductive ability. As she heals, her father pays for her many operations and gives her canvases and paints to amuse her. After many months of recovery, Frida is able to walk again. She has been very prolific in her painting, and has received much praise from her family. To find out if her paintings are indeed good, she goes to look for Diego Rivera and asks him to critique her work. He is immediately entranced by its rawness, sexuality and symbolism. A friendship evolves between Frida and Diego, and Diego pulls her into his world of communists, artists, and political activism. Together they paint, protest, and party. Frida sees with her own eyes Diego's famous womanizing, and she sexually experiments herself, with women and men. Inevitably, Diego and Frida fall in love, beginning the tempestuous relationship that will last the rest of Frida's life. Frida is aware that Diego is incapable of being faithful to her, but she asks him to always be loyal. Despite the fact that neither of them believe in marriage, their love is so strong that they are married. At the wedding, Diego's ex-wife Lupe has an attack of rage, warning Frida that Diego belongs to no one but himself. Frida is enraged. She has high hopes for their marriage.

These waver when married life with Diego turns out to be hard. Lupe and Diego's children live above them and continue to be involved in Diego's life, which bothers Frida. Diego often comes home smelling of another woman, after having sex with his art models. Despite Frida's resignation to the fact, she is still repeatedly hurt. Diego's art is becoming world famous, and he is offered an exhibition spot at the new Museum of Modern Art in New York. Diego and Frida go to the United States together, living the exciting life of New York socialites for a while. Both Diego and Frida have love affairs in "Gringolandia". Frida becomes pregnant, and despite Diego's worry for her health, decides to try for the baby. She soon has a miscarriage, which causes her a great deal of pain, but which also inspires many of her paintings, which are grotesque and pain-filled. Diego is asked to paint the mural "Man at the Crossroads" by Nelson Rockefeller, which promises to be a huge success, but when Diego paints Lenin as a central figure of the mural and refuses to compromise his communist vision and change it at Rockefeller's request, the work is taken down. Frida's mother dies back in Mexico, and the two painters return to their home country. Here, they live in two separate houses, connected by a thin bridge. Everything is going well until Diego has an affair with Frida's younger sister Cristina, which Frida perceives as a true betrayal. She leaves Diego, and cuts all her hair off, which inspires the painting "Self Portrait with Cropped Hair", in which she sits in a chair with her hair all around her on the ground. Her sense of betrayal continues for a long time, until one day Diego approaches her and asks her a special favour: Leon Trotsky has been granted asylum in Mexico, and Diego would like to welcome him with her. Frida agrees, as Trotsky is one of her greatest heroes. Trotsky and his wife Natalya arrive and settle in to live with Frida and Diego in the famous Casa Azul. Frida and Trotsky bond through their suffering, spending time together, climbing the pyramids of Tenochtitlan. This leads to an illicit affair between them. This does not last long, however, as Natalya finds out and demands that the Trotskys leave the Casa Azul. When Diego finds out, he is extremely jealous and hurt.

The next event in Frida Kahlo's life is an invitation to Paris for an exhibition. In Paris she has many affairs and much artistic success, but she writes to Diego often and realizes how much she loves him. When she returns, he asks for a divorce. Soon after, Leon Trotsky is assassinated. Rivera is a suspect but because he is absent the authorities arrest Frida, and she spends a few days in prison being interrogated. Rivera pleads with President Lazaro Cardenas to get her released. Following this, Frida, who is living in the Casa Azul and painting, has an increasing number of health problems. Her toes are amputated because they are gangrenous, and the pain in her back and pelvis becomes so terrible that she is often in a wheelchair or bedridden. Diego and her remain friends, and eventually he asks her to marry him again. Frida's health becomes so bad that she cannot leave her bed. In order to be at her first solo exhibition in Mexico City, she is transported in her bed to the venue. Soon afterwards, in 1957, she dies. Shortly before her death, she writes, "I hope the exit is joyful - and I hope never to return - Frida". The final scene shows her bed flying up into a blue sky and being engulfed by flames, as she lies smiling peacefully on the pillow.

Frida is filled with the colourful symbolism and traditional Mexican culture that characterize her paintings. Often the scenes of the film morph into paintings in Frida Kahlo's style, showing the direct inspiration that the film takes from her paintings. The colourful traditions of Mexico fill the scenes of Frida: the skeletons and candles of the Day of the Dead ceremonies, the mix of Catholicism and indigenous superstitions, the incessant consumption of tequila and traditional Mexican food, and the constant traditional Mexican huasteca and corrido music. Just like Kahlo's paintings, Frida wears colourful Mexican garments and has pet monkeys and chihuahuas. But Frida puts a brave new twist on these Mexican traditions, with her radical political ideology, her sexual liberty, and her modern surrealist art. Frida contains a combination of the traditional notions of Mexico as well as very modern, very liberal Mexico. While Diego is a typical machista, with his constant philandering and jealousy, Frida is not the image of marianismo, with her open bisexuality and her own fierce independence. While Frida's family portrays strict upper-class Catholic ideals, the art scene in Mexico City is liberal, modern, and radical. The modern Mexico, however, is not anti-traditional; it relies on tradition as its foundation, like Frida's art. Mexico is not only the inspiration for Frida's art, it is the fertile soil which allows her to grow, it is her home and what she lives for. Frida's great sense of national identity and pride show Mexico to be a vital, inextricable part of her. Frida is Mexico and Mexico is Frida.

When Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo go to the United States, which they call "Gringolandia", they are surprised by the American way of life, by the immense ambition of the people, the success. Living in a snowy New York apartment, Frida is unhappy. Her miscarriage represents some kind of inner damage done by life in America. Despite the grandeur and modernity of the United States, Diego and Frida do not belong there. Their communist ideals do not go well with the opposing capitalism of the New York elite. In order to stand up for their beliefs and remain themselves, Diego and Frida must return home, to Mexico. For Diego, Mexicans are "as dumb as mules", and he claims to hate them, yet Mexico is his home. Diego and Frida and the other Mexican intellectuals are few compared to the United States or France, where there is true economic and cultural development. However, in the end, Mexico is the food for their minds, and what gives meaning to their lives. Frida's greatest pride is to have an exhibition in her home country, Mexico. It is her and Diego's home.

Four Days in September

2009-03-31T16:23:00.000-07:00

Four Days in September (1997) is based on Fernando Gabeira's book O Que E Isso, Companheiro? (What is this, Comrade?), which tells the true story of his involvement in the kidnapping of American Ambassador Charles Burke Elbrick in September of 1969. The kidnapping was an act of resistance to the military regime that had been in power since 1964, and Gabeira's involvement in it has left him unable to acquire an American visa and enter the United States since '69. After the kidnapping, Gabeira was exiled from Brazil until the regime ended in 1979. He is now an active Brazilian politician who helped found the Brazilian Green Party and is a federal deputy for the state of Rio de Janeiro.

The film begins with a montage of black and white pictures of Rio de Janeiro in the 1960s, with the song "Garota de Ipanema" playing in the background. The viewer is informed of the 1964 military coup and the subsequent suspension of civil rights and freedoms by the junta in 1968. The first scene shows the streets of Rio full of protesters, yelling for the end of dictatorship. Among them is young Fernando Gabeira. Following this are scenes of Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon and the celebration at the American Embassy in Rio, where Ambassador Charles Burke Elbrick cuts a cake in the shape of the moon and is congratulated by Brazilian diplomats. Fernando and his friends Cesar and Arturo are watching the space transmission on T.V., pointing out critically that the United States is using their space program as a weapon in the Cold War. It is clear that these three young men are Communists, the very kind abhorred by the military government. When the T.V. is turned off, Cesar and Fernando inform Arturo that they are joining the armed resistance against the military government, and that they would like him to join. Arturo refuses, saying he does not want to risk his life. The following scene shows members of the official resistance movement blindfolding Fernando and taking him to a safe house, where he is introduced to his fellow recruits in the radical leftist MR-8 organization. They are all introduced under false names. The group consists of a pretty young woman, Renee, and three young men, Julio, Oswaldo, and Brandao. Oswaldo is Cesar's false name, but Cesar and Fernando pretend not to know each other. The leaders of the group are the beautiful tough-talking Comrade Maria and the muscular Marcao. Fernando falls in love with Maria at first sight. The revolutionaries' job is to forget their old lives, their friends and family, and fight the military dictatorship by creating civil unrest using guerrilla tactics. Their first job is a bank heist, which is successful except for the fact that Cesar is captured by the police after being shot in the leg while trying to escape. He is tortured and interrogated by secret service agent Henrique, but since he knows only false names, the interrogation is useless. The members of MR-8 are frustrated with the lack of media coverage their bank heist has received, and realize they must do something of more consequence to get attention for their cause. Fernando comes up with the idea of kidnapping the American Ambassador, which is sure to get international media coverage.

Experienced guerrilla fighters Jonas and Toledo join the group and help plan the kidnapping. Renee makes a contact with the head of security for the American Embassy in order to get the necessary information for the job. When the group has set up a safe house and been provided with the necessary supplies, they execute the kidnapping, blockading the Ambassador's limousine and taking him blindfolded to the safe house. Their demands to the military government are the release and transport to Mexico of 15 political prisoners, including Cesar. If these demands are not met within 48 hours, the ambassador will be killed. The following hours are stressful and strange for the kidnappers, who sit silently in the house, sweating, and waiting. During this period, Maria gives in to Fernando's advances and they have a passionate encounter. The Ambassador Charles Burke Elbrick is revealed to be a very educated, kindly, and courageous man, for whom Fernando and Renee especially have much sympathy. He is treated kindly by all the kidnappers, who wear black hoods over their heads so that he cannot see their faces. Elbrick is allowed to write a letter to his wife to prove that he is alive, as well as being given food and drink. Fernando spends some time talking with him about politics, a conversation which convinces Elbrick that his kidnappers are just young kids caught up in an ideological fervour, and fundamentally good people. Jonas and Toledo question Elbrick, using Fernando as a translator, and ask him if the U.S. supports the military government. Elbrick answers that the United States does not support any non-democratically elected governments, and that military juntas are supposed to be in place for a short time only. This answer pleases the kidnappers. The news reports MR-8's actions favourably, reading out their demands to the public. This makes the group very happy, their political message finally being transmitted country-wide. When Fernando goes to get some food at a nearby pizza place, the taxi driver who gives him a ride tells him that the kidnappers are heroes for the Brazilian people.

Unbeknownst to Fernando, the purchase of a large number of pizzas raises suspicion, and the police are informed. This leads the secret service to discover the location of the safe house. They do not, however, invade, because they are afraid the Ambassador will be killed. As the deadline for the ransom approaches, the kidnappers must decide who will kill the Ambassador, and none of them wants to do it. Jonas, who hates Fernando, instructs Fernando to do it. Minutes before the deadline, the authorities contact the group and agree to their demands. Fernando and the Ambassador are relieved that no one has to get hurt. The following day, television footage of the 15 political prisoners arriving at a Mexican airport convinces the kidnappers that their work is done. They prepare the Ambassador for his release. Renee has washed his clothes and helps him get dressed. When he is ready, they drive to the Maracana Stadium, where a soccer game has just taken place, to release him. On the way, the secret service follows them in a car, but a police vehicle cuts the secret service off, insisting that the Ambassador return home safely. Elbrick is released among the crowds of soccer fans, and the kidnappers escape unscathed. In a touching scene, Elbrick is reunited with his wife Elvira, who is sick with worry. For the following month, the kidnappers must remain completely in hiding, but Fernando is so desperate to see Maria that he goes to her house to spend some time with her. At this point, the police barge in and capture both young people. Eight months later, however, another resistance group kidnaps the German Ambassador and demands the release of Fernando and his comrades. The demands are met, and Fernando, Maria, and the rest of the kidnappers are sent to Algeria. They are granted political asylum in Britain. Democracy returns to Brazil in 1989.

The Communist ideology that pervades this film portrays a very leftist-oriented Brazil. The leftist movement in Brazil is strengthened and intensified by the opposite reactionary traits of the military government, a strength that has remained in Brazil until today. The backlash against the military government in the film is a stronger foundation for this Communism than is the Cold War; in no part of the film do the revolutionaries allude to the Soviet Union or Marxism. Theirs is a unique Latin American leftist movement. However, in order for this movement to gain a voice, it must involve itself with a main actor in the Cold War, the United States. Unexpectedly, the capitalist pig that the young communist kidnappers expected in the Ambassador turns out to be a dignified, kind, and intelligent man with whom they can discuss their ideological views. And so the Cold War is shown to be an absurd concept in Latin America, a war that is largely irrelevant to the social and political dynamics of its nations and only causes damage with its rhetoric. The film shows a Latin American left which is not related to the Cold War, but to the nature of its people.

The fact that the Ambassador's kidnapping is the main cause for attention to the resistance movement in Brazil shows that the United States is of central importance to politics in Latin America. Brazil's plight seems to be ignored by the world until America is involved. The film puts emphasis on the validity of the Brazilian struggle, and of Latin American politics in general, with or without the United States' involvement. The fact that the Ambassador is truly external to the Brazilian political conflict of the 60s and 70s implies that the United States does not belong in Latin American politics because it too is fundamentally external to Latin America's political environment.

Four Jills in a Jeep

2009-03-29T23:26:00.000-07:00

The US war propaganda film Four Jills in a Jeep (1944) is introduced in the opening credits as a tribute to the performers who had the privilege to go overseas and entertain troops during WWII. The story is based on the actual experiences of Hollywood actresses Kay Francis, Carole Landis, Martha Raye, and Mitzi Mayfair, who all play themselves.

The women are at first in Hollywood doing an exclusive live radio show for troops overseas. These actresses sing and swoon over men they haven’t met, as the soldiers ‘over there’ gather around their radios, listen intently, and reminisce about being back home. After the show concludes, Kay talks to jazz band orchestra leader Jimmy Dorsay (also played by himself) behind the scenes and they realize that they are both to be stationed in London within the next few days. Kay sadly reveals that she can only go if she puts together an ‘entertainment unit’ to help her cheer-up the troops; however, all problems are solved when she overhears Martha, Mitzi, and Carole telling Colonel Hartley that they’d be keen to go overseas and help the men. Kay recruits the three beauties and they fly to an American camp just outside of London.

Living the life of a soldier isn’t quite what the Hollywood actresses had expected as they get introduced to 5:30 am wake-up calls, canons, rain, and helmets. While walking to the Mess Hall, Carole loses her boot in the mud and enlists a passing soldier to help her regain her boot. The officer, Ted, immediately falls for Carole, even though he cannot understand why he finds her so familiar. After she leaves, he realizes that it was Carole Landis and nearly plants himself face first in the mud with a silly, star-struck expression on his face. The women are faced with the business of a working war camp as they attempt to brighten the men’s spirits. Their efforts are commendable and they try their hardest to support in any way they can. At one point, Mitzi runs into her ex-performing partner Dick Ryan, now a lieutenant, and they begin a loving bicker like old times. Carole encounters Ted again and the two promise to meet up once he is back on a 24-hour leave. A few days later, the girls all receive a bout of letters and Kay breaks protocol by letting them know that their beaus can meet them tomorrow night in London where they are all scheduled to perform. The ladies relish the elegant concert as Dick performs with Mitzi, Kay flirts with Colonel Hartley, Carole passionately kisses a persistent, but charming, Ted, and Martha convinces several high-ranking officials that she would love a chance to be stationed with the men on the front lines in Africa.

The next few days find Carole eagerly awaiting Ted’s return from his mission during a Christmas concert. The troops all gather in the Mess Hall to listen to the live radio broadcast from Hollywood which features a swooning song by Betty Gable and a hip-knocking, singing and dancing number by Carmen Miranda. The soldiers in the camp then allow the ladies a little rest and relaxation while they perform songs and musical numbers in their honour. Unfortunately, the performance is cut short when a siren sounds to announce that there is a plane about to make an emergency landing. Carole rushes outside just to see the plane hit the ground and explode. She fears the worst, until Ted appears at her side wishing her a merry Christmas and the two embrace. The next scene is at Ted and Carole’s happy wedding. Everyone is happy and enjoying the celebration until some telegrams arrive telling the ladies that their request to be posted in Africa has been granted and they must leave immediately. This spoils the newlyweds’ honeymoon plans, but Carole insists that she is a valid member of the U.S. Army and must obey orders at all times.

When the ladies arrive in Africa, the troops can’t believe their eyes. This camp is far more dangerous than the previous one in London, and the ladies soon find themselves lending a hand in the casualty unit, from sterilizing instruments to scrubbing floors. At one point Mitzy feels faint, but Kay tells her to imagine she’s back in Hollywood working on a motion picture. Love follows the ladies to Africa as well as Kay runs into Colonel Hartley once again and Dick tracks down Mitzy in order to profess his love to her. The women are tired after a long day of volunteering, but still muster the strength to do a stunning performance when the soldiers request it of them. Suddenly alarms sound and bombs begin dropping which sends everyone to the trenches to hide. The women are terrified as the troops are ordered to counter-attack. As the noises and lights of the fighting slowly fade away, the four actresses are offered a chance to return to a safe country while they can, but these determined females instead all opt to stay and see the boys through their tough times away from home.

During WWII, Brazil was seen by the American population as a perplexity among the allies. For all intensive purposes, the South American country was certainly a huge asset to the US, but it’s true relationship with Germany still remained hazy in the popular eye. On this note, Carmen Miranda’s minute role in Four Jills in a Jeep is also portrayed in a light which lends an image that is very foreign, despite the fact that she is in support of US troops. From the palm tree back-drop to the customary Carmen Miranda attire (complete with extravagant head-dress), this legendary Brazilian performer is depicted as a tropical illusion in the midst of blonde songbirds and American soldiers. Her appearance in the film, which seems to be completely unnecessary, raises the question of ‘Why?’ Could it be to give the men overseas the sensual thought of spinning hips? Or perhaps a peek into the tropical vacation that the soldiers can look forward to when they go on leave? The most obvious detail about Carmen’s performance is that she remains in the US while the American stars are overseas and in direct contact with the heroes that they support in the war. And so it appears acceptable to have a foreign performer give a show, but not to send her over to be with the troops in person; a fact which shadows the reality of America and Brazil maintaining good relations during WWII, but with Brazil always staying quietly out of focus as a friendly face on the sidelines.

Real Women Have Curves

2009-03-29T16:32:00.000-07:00

Real Women Have Curves (2002) challenges the cultural stereotypes which are thrust upon a generation of young Chicanos growing up in America but still living in the shadow of Mexican tradition. It is clear from the first scene that Ana García (America Ferrera), a graduating high school student, does not get along well with her mother, Carmen (Lupe Ontiveros), who appears to be constantly complaining about some bodily ailment so that she can persuade Ana, out of guilt, to listen to her woes and care for her. This time Ana steadfastly refuses to play her mom’s warped game, and instead leaves to catch a series of buses to head out of her Mexican neighbourhood and into Beverly Hills where she attends high school. In class, the students excitedly talk about what they will do to continue their education. At Ana’s turn, she exclaims that she’s looking forward to backpacking in Europe. This prompts her teacher Mr. Guzman (George Lopez) to approach her after class and inquire as to why she hasn’t handed in any college applications. Ana quickly replies that her family can’t afford it, and then ironically heads to a greasy fast food place to quit her job. Upon returning home that evening, her family surprises her with an intimate graduation celebration. Here her mother’s character begins the first of many jokes throughout the film regarding Ana’s weight. Ana simply rolls her eyes, as if she’s heard it a thousand times before. Carmen then interrogates Ana about quitting her job before finally deciding for her that she will work at her sister, Estela’s, clothing factory to earn money. Ana is clearly an intelligent girl and is reluctant to work at such a mindless job. Suddenly, as if in answer to Ana’s aversion to the factory, Mr. Guzman appears at her party to talk to Ana’s parents about Ana attending university; but is quickly informed that they need Ana to contribute to the family’s income.

The following day, Ana begins her employment of ironing the dresses that are produced at her sister’s factory. Here she is introduced to her co-workers, a handful of Mexican-American women, who are also barraged by Carmen with unappreciated insults about being overweight. Ana insists to her mother, a seamstress in the factory, that she’s only going to work there until she can find another job. Meanwhile, as she questions her sister about the cost and profit of the beautiful dresses she irons, Ana realizes that Bloomingdales sells the dresses for $600 while the factory is only paid $18 per dress; thus giving the factory the status of ‘sweatshop’, a term which Estela refuses to acknowledge. The seamstresses enjoy their gossip, but when the focus of the conversation drifts, on account of Carmen, to Ana’s weight, Ana intentionally burns a dress with the iron and storms off down the street, only to be coaxed back after another round of guilt from her influential mother.

Ana then secretly hands in university applications to Mr. Guzman, and as she leaves his office she runs into her classmate Jimmy (Brian Sites) who gives her his number, causing the introverted Ana to become embarrassed and hastily flee. Ana finally gathers the courage to plan a date with Jimmy, of which her understanding Grandpa keeps a secret in order to not alarm Carmen. When the young couple is finally unaccompanied in a Mexican restaurant, Jimmy can’t stop staring at Ana’s large breasts, and it is apparent that, due to his teenage hormones, he finds them to be two of Ana’s more stunning features. The two have an awkward yet enjoyable date which ends with a first kiss and a shower of self-esteem and optimism for Ana. On a following date, Ana confides to Jimmy that she is always at odds with her mother, especially concerning her physical appearance, to which Jimmy replies with sincere complements as well as the upsetting news that he will be leaving to go to college in 2 weeks. Back at the factory, Estela is in a panic because she has lost half of her employees (who all belong to the same family) as one of them is getting married and so they have all decided to move back to Mexico. At this news, the remaining workers must work twice as hard, with no immediate pay, in order to finish the dresses before the deadline. Ana manages to gain a loan for Estela through their father after the dress manufacturing corporation refuses their request for a cash advance. A few days later, Mr. Guzman appears at Ana’s house once again, but this time with the news that she has been accepted to the prestigious Columbia University in New York City on a full scholarship. Ana is elated and holds her ground in order to see her educational dreams through when her parents express that they are disinclined to have their family break apart by having her move to New York.

This new bout of audacity motivates Ana to buy condoms and reveal to Jimmy that she is ready to have sex, which is extremely against the family tradition of waiting until marriage to have sexual intercourse. Before they begin, Ana turns on the light and stands in front of a mirror so that they can both see what she really looks like. This act gives her a sense of worth which leads to the most memorable scene in the movie when, back at the factory, the summer’s heat is so intense in the work room that Ana removes her t-shirt to work instead in her bra. Her mother is appalled but Ana quickly recruits an entourage of Chicana workers to remove their clothes as she exclaims that they are all women with the same bodies. Then, much to Carmen’s disgust, the women begin to lightheartedly compare their bodies’ imperfections and Ana announces that her weight says, “Fuck you!” to anyone obsessed with appearances because she would rather be respected for what she thinks, rather than how she looks. Carmen leaves in disgust and Ana flicks on some Spanish music as the women contentedly finish working on the order in their underpants. Ana has gracefully allowed her relationship with Jimmy to be seen for what it is as they both head off to different schools and are forced to keep only the memory of their experiences together. All of Ana’s family has given her their blessing to chase her dreams in the big city; all except her mother who is so distraught at Ana’s departure that she doesn’t even swallow her pride enough to say good-bye. And so Ana leaves her family life behind and enters into an exhilarating life change. The last scene shows her walking the busy streets of New York with an air of confidence and a sense of self which permeates every part of her being.

The film highlights the differences between Mexican and American culture and how Chicanos, in particular, deal with this daily disparity. The neighbourhood around the factory is teeming with Mexican customs, from the busy outdoor markets to mariachi bands for-hire, which is in direct contrast to the Beverly Hills community, representing the successful American dream which Ana aspires to be a part of. However, the movie places these dreams in direct correlation to the confidence in one’s appearance. North America has long been known for its obsession with the ‘perfect female figure’, generally represented by a body as thin as a plank of wood, which is difficult to attain for someone like Ana who was born with a curvy, Latin body type. Ana’s appearance is accepted by the male figures in her life, but is seen by her own gender as being undesirable. This contrast in turn portrays an upside-down perspective on the normally joyous family life of Latinos, which has now been poisoned by Carmen’s longing for Ana to be thin in order to obtain a husband. The divergence between mother and daughter becomes clear when Carmen reveals to her husband that she finds it unfair for Ana to be able to go off to university while Carmen has had to work hard labour for close to forty years; thus illustrating the difference in traditions of the older Mexican generations and the younger Chicano generations.

The dresses from the factory offer a different insight into the Chicana mentality when Ana notes that she only irons the beautiful dresses but will never wear them. Such a statement corresponds to the Chicano community as the foundation of an economy which many Chicanos can’t truly enjoy due to financial struggles. This issue of cheap foreign labour is emphasized in the ‘sweatshop-like’ environment of the factory. The dresses also symbolize the transformation of Ana’s self-confidence. Upon first arriving at the factory, Ana wistfully studies a size 7 dress on a mannequin, until her mother comments that she will never be able to fit into it and that she is too big for her own good. After Ana’s self-esteem increases over the course of the movie, her sister gives her a sexy red dress as a present. At first, Ana refuses saying it will never fit her, but Estela insists that she made it exclusively for Ana so that it would fit her body perfectly. The message here to Chicanas is clear: Do not try to fit someone else’s expectations, whether they are the expectations of your country or of your family, because there is always a way to fit into your own unique persona without any adjustments; just as when Ana proudly declares to her mother, “This is who we are. Real women.” With curves.

Straight to Hell

2009-03-26T22:43:00.000-07:00

Straight to Hell (1987) is the brainchild of Alex Cox, a British director who was shunned by Hollywood after the production of his unconventional and politically-loaded film, Walker (1987). Straight to Hell, a homage to Spaghetti Westerns with offbeat humour and a punk rock cast, scandalized and bewildered critics, but attained minor cult status and can at least coax a smile from Sergio Leone fans.

Straight to Hell has a tagline promising “A story of blood, money, guns, coffee and sexual tension,” and though not having a plot to speak of, delivers generously on all accounts. The film opens with hitmen Willy (played by Dick Rude), Norwood (Sy Richardson) and Simms (Joe Strummer) botching a job and taking off with Norwood’s pregnant girlfriend Velma (Courtney Love) to avoid the wrath of their boss. As they are refueling their getaway car, they casually rob a bank then speed off into the desert. After night falls they spot a small town; they bury their suitcase of cash on the outskirts and decide to lie low. In the morning do they discover the strange nature of their hideout; Velma is accosted by a boy with apish expressions and a London accent who warns her that “bad men” are coming. Suddenly two pick-up trucks carrying a whooping band of marauders clad in mariachi suits descend upon the town. They have been out pillaging and plundering, but their loot unexpectedly consists of coffee beans and espresso-making paraphernalia. It turns out that the town is by-and-large populated by the gunslinging, incestuous, coffee-addicted McMahon clan, lead by the white-suited Frank McMahon.

The xenophobic McMahons quickly have Willy, Norwood and Simms in a gun-toting standoff. However, in a fluke the trio kills an American gangster who was threatening Bruno McMahon and Angel Eyes McMahon, earning Frank’s gratitude. Cox introduces the “sexual tension” promised in the tagline when Simms bursts into the hardware store, owned by a bizarrely French-accented couple named George and Fabienne, and sparks instantly fly between Simms and Fabienne. Simms uses a pretext to get George out of the room then the couple pounces on each other, neck-biting furiously enough to draw blood. The four newcomers are invited to the McMahon’s nightly ritual of coffee binging and singing around a banquet table. In the following days, the sexual tension mounts as the three men watch a scantily-clad Fabienne seductively soap-up her husband’s motorbike, Simms fools around with Frank’s wife, and Willy has a futile crush on Louise, one of Frank’s female miscreants. We are reminded that the trio are criminals at large when two Mexican police officers arrive to look for them. Another man shows up claiming to represent their boss, is scapegoated for the recent murder of Grandpa McMahon and hung in the town square. The audience can anticipate the final shootout scene when an American real-estate entrepreneur appears out of nowhere and bestows a suitcase of machine guns upon the three men.

On the final day, George shoots Angel Eyes who was trying to coax Fabienne into having sex. Thinking that one of the outsiders shot Angel Eyes, the McMahon clan mobilizes for a wild shootout against Willy, Norwood and Simms. The chaotic shootout, throughout which the McMahons keep slurping coffee from their little white mugs, continues until almost no one is left standing. The trio turns unexpectedly treacherous as a badly-wounded Willy and Simms hobble off to where the money is buried, leaving Norwood trapped in the cross-fire, and then Simms shoots Willy. Simms is then shot by Velma who has eloped with Frank, but their life as millionaires is cut short when they discover that their getaway car has no breaks and they careen off a cliff. The final scene shows the remaining characters departing from the town, Norwood and Fabienne in a truck of female McMahons and the boy with the London accent with a truck full of corpses, as the town is claimed the property of Farben Oil with a large new billboard.

In copying the Spaghetti Western convention of filming movies in Spain that are set in Mexico, Cox parodies how directors often use foreign places interchangeably with no regard for their geographic and cultural differences. For example, Cox makes it clear that Straight to Hell is set in Spain; the robbed bank is called Banco Central de Almeria and standing outside the town is the iconic Spanish statue of the bull silhouette. At the same time, the hardware store is full of Mexican knickknacks and the police officers look and sound stereotypically Mexican. Cox methodically manipulates and spoofs a number of the expectations cinemagoers may have about Latin America or Latin Americans. For example, the McMahons are clothed in Mexican mariachi suits, which is something American villains in old Westerns have been known to do, prompting the question of why this cultural garb should be associated with criminality. Whereas in many Westerns set in Latin America, the sought after resource is gold, in Straight to Hell it is coffee. This seemingly absurd twist prompts the audience to envision the modern coffee trade in the form of Old Western gold thieves.

Furthermore, Cox embeds a critical message about the violent underbelly of American corporations abroad. We notice that the American real-estate tycoon, after appraising that the town could be “just like America” once they build a 7-11, out-sources his dirty work to the protagonists by giving them suitcase of machine guns. We see no more of this character, but once the two factions have annihilated each other, his clean-up crews arrive and his company billboard is erected. Cox is famous for his condemnation of the American-funded Contra War in Nicaragua, another out-sourcing of violence by American foreign policy. For a film that some critics accused as one big “in-joke” for its cast and crew, Straight to Hell has a great deal of under-the-surface complexity.

Moro No Brazil

2009-03-26T18:36:00.000-07:00

Moro No Brazil, "I Live in Brazil" (2006) is a documentary musical journey that delves deeply into the heart of Brazil. Finnish writer and director Mika Kaurismaki covers 4000 miles of Brazil's musical terrain looking to discover and expose its musical diversity and richness. It begins in Helsinki, Finland, in 2000, with a bleak scene of a snow-covered city with a lonely Kaurismaki standing outside, wind whipping all around him. The following scene shows an open jeep bouncing through the Brazilian bush under the hot sun, a smiling Kaurismaki in sunglasses and a sleeveless shirt at its wheel. Kaurismaki is in Brazil to make a documentary about samba, from its roots to its modern manifestations in funk and rap. He begins in Pernambuco, in the northeast, the poorest region of Brazil. There the Fulni-o indigenous group shows Kaurismaki the origins of the samba. To them, music is a way of keeping alive their history; all the songs tell of their people's story, from genesis to colonization to the modern era. Many of the Fulni-o mourn the fact that modern "white" Brazilian music replaces the indigenous music in many young people's lives. The Fulni-o's entire social structure is based upon music, something that is demonstrated by the fact that the small village has 14 musical groups. Kaurismaki leaves Pernambuco behind and heads to Caruaru, the capital of forro music. Forro elaborates on the samba of the indigenous people by adding many different wooden percussion instruments as well as flutes, accordions, bells and whistles. There, a young musician Silverio Pessoa tells Kaurismaki of his childhood and how his music is based on growing up in a Brazilian village with his grandmother. He explains that music makes the poor people of the region strong and courageous, and gives them a livelihood. The experience culminates in a big nighttime concert where Silverio and a famous forro singer Jacinto Silva perform a great concert and all the people of Caruaru dance the night away.

On the way to their next stop is Silverio Pessoa's home, where Silverio relives his childhood and the music that permeated every element of his and the other villagers' lives. They stop in a village outside Recife, where the black cultures of the coast have developed Maracatu, which is a secret, mystical song and dance that becomes a profession for those who perform it. The colourful costumes that go with the Maracatu are clearly African-inspired. Kaurismaki and Silverio head into Recife, where they meet Antonio Nobrega, who explains to them the perfect symbiosis of Brazilian music with dance and physical movement. He plays a specific style of samba called the frevo, which incorporates the fiddle and the tambourine. Another character they come across is Ze Neguinho do Coco, who plays the samba do coco, inspired by Africa, the Indians, the forests, and the fisherman of the north Brazilian coast. He makes his money by teaching children, educating them in the essential cultural value of music. The music he plays has given him his name; it defines his identity. When Kaurismaki finally makes his way into the heart of Recife, he interviews a duo of brothers, Caju and Castanha, who play the embolada, which they claim is the basis for all modern rap. They have played together since they were children, improvising all their lyrics from the scenes they see in everyday life. Also in Recife among the favelas (shantytowns) the documentary-maker and Silverio find dancing schools where children learn to sing, dance, and play drums and instruments since they are tiny. One of these is called "Comrades in the Struggle", a group that gives poor children from the shantytowns a sense of solidarity and belonging. The other is Maje Mole, a girls' "ballet" group which rescues young girls engaged in prostitution and drugs and tours them around the country to dance their unique "ballet". In Recife, people are primarily black, and they claim that "Brazil is black".

The next stop is Salvador Bahia, where they sing and dance the Condomble, created by the African slaves who originally populated the city. They are inspired by the African god Orixas, which is a combination of all the different gods that each African brought from his or her tribe back in Africa. In Bahia, the people have mixed their gods, their religions, their influences, and their music. The samba means something different to every person, and through hybridization, is a constantly changing style. Kaurismaki also shows us the Capoeira, the martial-arts dance of Brazil. It is also danced in Rio de Janeiro, the next and final stop of the Finnish director's journey. In Rio, samba is a "state of mind", especially for Walter Alfaiate, a tailor and samba composer whose style is based on love, inspired by all the loves he has had and lost, the experiences that shaped his heart, and the ultimate lack of permanence in love. His protege is Seu Jorge, a young man who began living in the streets of the favelas and was launched into the world of music by Alfaiate and other samba-composers who saw his talent. In Rio, samba educates the young and the old alike. Rio's largest favela is Mongueira, where the people, although poor, keep the samba alive. An old woman, Dona Zelia, sings of her long lost love, her dead husband, and his guitar. The most famous samba school in Rio is here, a huge room full of young men and women with drums, making a resonant, multi-dimensional and energetic sound. Scenes of the Carnival are shown, in all its extravagance and noise. Kaurismaki's last focus is Ivo Meirelles, a young man from Mongueira who has created a funk group, Funk n Lata, with his friends. Instead of leaving the favelas like other successful musicians have done, he sets an example for the people there and remains, embracing his roots and offering music as a positive alternative to drugs and gang violence that are part of everyday life in Mongueira. The film ends with a lovely Brazilian woman singing "Juizo Final at a club in Rio. It is revealed that this club belongs to Kaurismaki, who after his musical journey throughout Brazil decided to remain there and make Brazilian music his life. His club gives opportunities to the numerous Brazilian music acts to showcase their talents and the Brazilian musical tradition.

The focus of this film is the vast diversity of Brazilian music, which reflects exactly the vast diversity of Brazil's people. The indigenous people with their painted faces and their grass skirts, singing and dancing in the jungle, are just as much Brazilians as the more Portuguese mulattoes of Rio or the blacks of Recife. Between these lies a spectrum of ethnic and cultural mixes that produce a dazzling array of musical styles which are expressed both in song and dance. And each region's music has been inspired to varying degrees by these different cultures. This heterogeneity is not only ethnic or musical, however; it is also economic. Highlighted in the film is the great inequality that Brazilians face. Poverty and lack of access to resources and education are portrayed as almost ubiquitous, with scenes of garbage and insecure living conditions in every place. Constant mention of drugs, prostitution, and crime reminds the viewer that life in Brazil is not all music and happiness; people's difficulties are made lighter by music, but suffering is deeply entrenched. Kaurismaki makes a point to highlight the issue of inequality in Brazil.

Samba is in every part of a Brazilian's life. Tiny children sing and dance in the streets, playing instruments with amazing skill for ones so young. Everywhere that music is played, people are listening, watching, dancing, and commenting. Making music is a collaborative process which includes everyone in the community and is a culmination of the region's history. Samba educates the people, many of which cannot get a formal education. It gives people a chance to lift themselves out of suffering, poverty, and crime. It includes every age level, from babies to young people, to the middle aged, to the very very old. No age group is excluded from musical life. In the streets of the favelas, impromptu concerts bring the whole community together to sing and dance at any time of day. It seems the entire country is buzzing with sound, movement, and rhythm; never is there an absence of music. To Kaurismaki, a synonym for Brazil is samba.

Compañeros

2009-03-24T18:59:00.000-07:00

In Compañeros (1970), directed by Sergio Corbucci, Franco Nero plays Yodlaf Peterson, a Swedish arms dealer who becomes unexpectedly involved in the Mexican Revolution. Compañeros has the extravagant shootouts and departures from realism typical of Corbucci’s style, but its most salient feature is a leftist political message that clearly condemns American capitalism.

The film begins with Yodlaf and El Vasco standing twenty paces apart, each with his gun trained on the other; as Yodlaf reminisces about how they arrived at this moment, the audience is brought back in time. It all began in Mexico when Vasco, who is a simple-minded peasant and Che Guevara look-alike, unwittingly won the approval of General Mongo, who made him commander in the town of San Bernardino. General Mongo is a two-faced revolutionary leader who is only involved for the money. Yodlaf, completely incongruous in San Bernardino with his refined speech and tidy apparel, has arrived with a train cart loaded with arms and ammunition to sell to General Mongo, but is soon accosted by student revolutionaries who ask him not to make the deal. They are acting in absence of their leader, Professor Xantos, who went to the U.S. to request help, but he was detained because the implementation of his revolutionary ideas would threaten American oil wealth in Mexico. Mongo, with revolutionary goals always second to lining his pocket, is desperate to open a gigantic safe that only Xantos knows the combination of. Yodlaf suggests that he retrieve Xantos from U.S. imprisonment, taking an unwilling Vasco with him, and that they later split the money inside the safe.

After crossing the border between the U.S. and Mexico, news of their massacre of eight border guards and train heist reaches the ear of an eccentric villain named John. John and his men ambush the train, which is carrying only Yodlaf, and he begins to sinisterly reminisce about when they sold malfunctioning arms in Cuba and Yodlaf let him take the blame. The Cubans nailed his hand to a tree and left him to die would it not have been for his hawk Marsha, who freed him by gnawing the hand off. In retribution, John leaves Yodlaf hanging by his neck with only a shaky barrel under his feet. Meanwhile, three American businessmen offer Xantos freedom if he signs away all Mexican oil on a ninety-nine year contract should he become president, which he vehemently rejects. The thwarted men then solicit John to kill Xantos; they offer an award of $10,000 and they throw in an envelope of “loco weed” to sweeten the deal. Vasco rescues Yodlaf and they hatch a plan to kidnap Xantos. Vasco enters Fort Yuma via a prostitute-carrying carriage, sets the fort on fire, and amidst the scramble to extinguish the fire the pair escape with an unconscious Xantos on a stolen fire truck.

Riding back to San Bernardino, the trio has a couple of near scrapes with John. First, John captures Vasco and tortures him by trapping a sharp-clawed rodent in an upturned basket on his belly. They evade John a second time when their attempt to sneak past the Mexican border patrol disguised as monks turns into a wild shootout. Finally, John captures Xantos and is about to execute him when Yodlaf and Vasco, aided by Xantos’s followers, demolish the firing wall and whisk Xantos to safety. The noble Xantos chides his young revolutionaries for taking lives during his rescue; an ardent pacifist and patriot, Xantos cannot bear that any Mexican should die violently. For this reason, Mongo knows that he can lure Xantos into town with the threat of killing a group of prisoners. Yodlaf and Vasco follow Xantos and conduct an out-and-out massacre of Mongo’s men, ending with the death of Mongo himself. Yodlaf realizes that there is no money in the safe after all and steals the relic of San Bernardino, hoping to glean some profit from this venture. As Vasco threatens Yodlaf not to take it, the end of the film loops back to the beginning scene. John shoots Xantos in cold blood, which prompts Yodlaf to launch the relic into a trigger he had rigged on his train cart of weapons, causing it to explode and consume John in flames. Yodlaf makes motions to leave Vasco and the revolutionaries, but he changes his mind, perhaps prompted by the destruction of his material wealth or perhaps by a sense of compassion. Upon seeing the Mexican military advancing, he leads the charge against them with the impassioned cry: “Vamos a matar, compañeros!”

In Compañeros, Corbucci used the most American of film genres to give an explicit critique of American capitalism. In the film, the U.S. government and big business work hand in hand to exploit the natural resources of foreign countries; the military illegally detain Xantos while businessmen pressure him to sign over ownership of Mexican oil. Xantos is clearly disgusted by their under-handed opportunism. Many Westerns have focused on the Mexican Revolution, and the heroism of their protagonists is amplified when they abandon their profit-seeking goals to help the Mexican peasant rebels. Usually the characters of these rebels are not fleshed out, but Xantos is well-developed both in terms of his character and his ideological soundbites. He preaches pacifism and has a deep love for his countrymen, but at the same time professes distaste for nationalism. When Yodlaf finally opens the safe, he finds that Xantos keeps inside a pile of humble objects to symbolize the grain, soil and labour that will eventually bring them wealth. The allusion to Che in the character of Vasco, who evolves from a buffoonish shoe shiner to a stoic rebel leader, completes the infusion of leftist values into an otherwise familiar Western context.

The Way of the Gun

2009-03-24T17:52:00.000-07:00

The Way of the Gun is a 2000 film from Christopher McQuarrie, director of The Usual Suspects. It begins with the introduction of our two protagonists, let's call them "Parker" (Ryan Phillippe) and "Longbaugh" (Benicio Del Toro), like the real names of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. They are a criminal duo, looking to make a buck in whatever situation they encounter, stealing their way through life. While at a sperm donation facility trying to make some money, they overhear a telephone conversation concerning a $1 million payment to the surrogate mother of a rich man's unborn child. Their interest is piqued, and they go to the fertility clinic they heard named in the phone call, planning to kidnap the surrogate mother for ransom. Unbeknownst to them, the parents of the unborn child are Hal Chidduck, a crooked millionaire, and his young trophy wife. The surrogate, Robin, is carefully protected by a team of bodyguards whose leaders are Jeffers and Obecks, two cold-blooded associates of Chidduck's. As Robin and her bodyguards are leaving the pregnancy clinic, Parker and Longbaugh attempt to kidnap her, but this proves difficult and results in a shootout. Jeffers tells Robin to go inside and up the elevator, as his priority is protecting the Chidduck's baby at all costs. She begins to do so, but then suddenly determinedly walks out the doors where the shootout is taking place, risking her life. Parker and Longbaugh manage to kill all Robin's bodyguards and snatch Robin, stuffing her into their car and driving off. Jeffers and Obecks have survived the shootout and follow the kidnappers in their car. The following car chase proves futile for Jeffers and Obecks, who are arrested by the police as they pursue the fleeing kidnappers. These scenes show the well-honed skills of Parker and Longbaugh in the art of reckless violence.

As the fugitives head south for Mexico, Jeffers and Obecks are bailed out of jail by Joe Sarno (James Caan), a seasoned operative and close friend of Chidduck's, a man who does all the dirty work necessary to take care of Chidduck's business. Sarno begins to coordinate the rescue of Robin, to whom it seems he is personally attached. Meanwhile, the fugitives are with Robin at a truck stop just before the border; as they rest, Robin starts to suffer nausea and pain, causing the kidnappers to call her gynecologist Allen Painter and order him to confidentially come to the truck stop to treat her. Allen Painter arrives and, at gunpoint, determines that Robin's sickness comes from dehydration and that she should be fine. When he returns from the examination, he heads straight for Chidduck's house, and it is revealed that Painter is Mr. Chidduck's son. At this point, Painter's phone rings and Longbaugh is at the other end, demanding a $15 million ransom for Robin and the baby. Chidduck is enraged because the payment of this ransom will lead a money trail back to the people he does business with, dangerous people who will avenge themselves by killing Chidduck and his family if their business is discovered. He sends Sarno as a "bag man" to try to cut a deal with the kidnappers, who are now at a Mexican roadside motel with Robin. Sarno offers Longbaugh $1 million if he surrenders Robin and walks away, but Longbaugh refuses and returns to the hotel room where Parker and Robin are playing cards. Here, Robin admits that her initial agreement to have the Chidduck's baby because she needed the money has given way to a feeling of maternal possessiveness of the baby. Meanwhile, Jeffers and Obecks are at the Chidducks' house planning a way that they can keep the money by killing everyone and safely returning Robin to the Chidducks while pretending that the ransom payment has gone smoothly. Here, it is also revealed that Jeffers is having an affair with Chidduck's young wife. The time comes for the ransom to be paid, and Jeffers, Obecks, and Painter drive down to the motel; Sarno drives down separately with $15 million in duffel bags. At the motel, Parker is having second thoughts about the kidnapping and tries to convince Longbaugh to walk away, giving Robin the opportunity to barricade herself inside the hotel room with a shotgun, shouting at them to leave. Robin manages to call the police from the room, and when their sirens approach, Parker and Longbaugh escape into the hills. Two Mexican police officers arrive, followed by a car carrying Jeffers, Obecks, and Painter. Painter and the bodyguards try to convince Robin to leave with them, but she is hesitant, causing the Mexicans to draw their guns and make everyone lie down on the ground. Suddenly, Parker and Longbaugh start shooting from a nearby hilltop, resulting in a brutal shootout that kills the two Mexican officers and wounds Obecks. Painter and Jeffers drag Robin into their car and drive south, leaving Obecks behind. The kidnappers run down to the motel and pick up Obecks, taking him into the hills and torturing him until he reveals Jeffers' destination.

The destination is a secluded Mexican brothel, where Robin is confined to a seedy room with Dr. Painter. Robin is in severe pain and bleeding heavily because the placenta has torn away from the uterine wall, and Painter realizes that he must perform a Caesarian section to save the child. At this point, Robin reveals that the child is not the Chidducks', but hers and Dr. Painter's; the baby was conceived because the in vitro fertilization did not take and she was desperate for the money. During the bloody and non-sterile operation, the heavily-armed Parker and Longbaugh invade the brothel and search for Robin, exchanging shots with Jeffers as well as a Sarno and his henchmen, who have also infiltrated the brothel. When the two kidnappers enter the room where Robin is, Jeffers threatens to kill Painter and the baby to stop them from shooting, but Painter shoots Jeffers in the throat with a hidden gun. Now Parker wants to kidnap Robin again, but Longbaugh refuses, saying "She's had enough". Robin is sedated and covered in blood, struggling to survive as Dr. Painter digs his hands into her belly, trying to get the baby out. Outside, Sarno and his men have stacked the $15 million in the brothel's courtyard and await to ambush the kidnappers. As Parker and Longbaugh emerge from the building, there is a violent shootout in which they kill all of Sarno's men except Sarno, who shoots both kidnappers in the legs, maiming them to the point of immobility. He then calls an ambulance, which arrives just as the cries of a baby are heard. Painter and Robin emerge with the paramedics, a newborn baby in Robin's arms. It is implied that Robin is Sarno's daughter. The ambulance takes Robin, Sarno, and Painter with the $15 million away, leaving Parker and Longbaugh dying in the dust. The final scene shows Chidduck's wife, days later and miles away, telling Chidduck that she is pregnant.

Mexico for Parker and Longbaugh is a place to which they can escape, collect their thoughts, and get ready for the money transfer. The ransom payment must occur in a neutral place, and a seedy Mexican motel seems just right, a place where people are unconcerned with their business. It is not, however, a place where they are safe from Chidduck's men; indeed, it seems the Mexican border is a porous, penetrable line through which the men pass at will and without difficulty. The same reckless violence and lawlessness exists on both sides of the border, with no difference between the truck stop north of the border and the motel south of the border. Both places are seedy, dusty, and surrounded by desert. After the shootout in the motel parking lot, a group of Mexican men who were sitting in the bar stand silently outside, observing the scene. They do not get involved, not even to help the screaming, pregnant Robin. When the Americans leave, they turn around, poker-faced, and re-enter the bar. The brothel where the final violent events occur is a bewildering place. It seems deserted and quiet, a dead place; inside there are rooms full of prostitutes, but they make little noise. It seems that the protagonists are the only people there throughout all the action, reinforcing the notion that Mexico is a place of neutrality, where the Mexicans stay out of whatever violent business the Americans choose to negotiate there.

The theme of moral ambiguity is prominent in the film, with no character evoking true sympathy. Everyone is generally bad, but shows evidence of goodness at some points in the film. The evil millionaire Hal Chidduck is still excited to be a father and will do anything to save his unborn child; his vacuous, heartless blonde wife shows a maternal instinct in her desire to have a child. The bodyguards Obecks and Jeffers are just doing their jobs. Sarno is just doing his job as well, but he cares deeply for Robin and the child and makes several merciful and good decisions throughout the film, leading him to save the day and call an ambulance. Painter is a weak man who has worked for his crooked father, but he saves Robin and her baby's lives. Robin lies about her pregnancy to make $1 million, but she cares deeply for her baby's life and is primarily a victim throughout the film. Parker and Longbaugh show mercy and kindness to Robin while she is in their possession, as well as abandoning their efforts to kidnap her in her condition at the end. The Mexicans in the film are also morally ambiguous. They are bystanders, watching indifferently as people kill each other. They are also policemen, who try to save Robin from the dangerous men who pursue her, and lose their lives doing so. They are prostitutes, disinterested in the violence that surrounds them, but they are also ambulance drivers who come and make order of the chaos. The Mexican border is just a line, dividing no one. People are neither good nor evil on both sides of the border, and national lines have no effect on morality.

Django

2009-03-23T16:49:00.000-07:00

Django (1966) is a lurid B-movie, banned in the UK for over 25 years due to its grisly scenes, but is also a classic in the Spaghetti Western genre for director Sergio Corbucci’s apocalyptic vision of the West. Django’s plot follows a similar course to Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (1961), about a mercenary who arrives in a town with two rival factions, and by making selective alliances leads them to destroy each other in bloody warfare. This archetype was famously employed by Sergio Leone in his Dollars trilogy starring Clint Eastwood, but Django is tremendously darker than the Dollars trilogy in the moral conduct of its characters, the level of explicit violence, and even the physical environment.

As the opening credits roll, Django is seen dragging a coffin across a bleak craggy landscape upon a layer of slick grey mud. Most folks in the Old West traveled long distances by horse; most folks were not as tough as Django. The first scene is of a Mexican gang whipping a beautiful prostitute tied between poles in a remote desert. Unlike any other Western hero, who would have turned the horrific scene into a display of heroism, Django merely watches. Suddenly a band of red-scarved gunslingers shoot the Mexicans and untie the woman, only to accuse her of moral depravity and prepare a cross to burn her on. Only then does Django take pity on her, shoot her captors and take her to the nearest town. The town is a collection of decrepit buildings lining a street of churned-up mud; there is not a living soul except for in the brothel. The brothel owner, a nervous man named Nathaniel, lays out the local politics for Django. Death has loomed large over the town due rivalry between the Mexican gang led by General Hugo Rodriguez and the Confederate gang of Major Jackson; the main prostitute, Maria, vexed the gangs by seeking business from both of them.

Corbucci establishes Major Jackson as evil incarnate when his henchmen, wearing the red scarves turned into KKK hoods, whip Mexican peasants into running so he can use them as target practice. In the brothel, where Jackson charges Nathaniel an exorbitant “protection” fee, Jackson describes to Django his private fight for white supremacy, hanging on to the Confederacy despite the post-Civil War era. Sensing a shoot-or-be-shot scenario, Django kills all the Confederates except Jackson, inviting Jackson and his 48-strong army to fight against only himself. Based on a conversation in which Django expresses that Jackson has no right to think that Mexicans are inferior, one might assume that Django is a noble vigilante out to destroy the KKK. However, after a spectacular battle in which he whips out a machine gun from his mysterious coffin and plows down scores of Jackson’s men, we discover that his sole motivation is to avenge his lover’s death at Jackson’s hands.

General Rodriguez’s reprehensible character is displayed in a fantastically gory scene where he and his henchmen slice the ear off a Confederate spy, force it into his mouth, and then shoot him in the back. Surprisingly, Rodriguez and Django are old friends, albeit a friendship shot through with mutual distrust. This is most surprising to Maria, who is handed back to her torturers by the one man she thought cared about her. Rodriguez is awe-struck by the power of the machine gun and hatches a plan to rob Jackson’s gold in order to buy more machine guns to conquer Mexico with. Django helps to plan the heist, wanting a cut of the gold. They use Nathaniel’s traveling brothel as a Trojan horse; once inside Jackson’s fort, the Mexican gang bursts out of the carriage with guns blazing and make off with the gold. However, Rodriguez makes clear his intention to deny Django his share of the loot, so Django covertly fills his coffin with it and escapes, unwillingly taking Maria with him. Rodriquez catches up to them as they hopelessly try to retrieve the coffin from quicksand; he shoots Maria and orders a henchman to cruelly smash Django’s hands. The pair survives and Django deposits Maria at the brothel, leaving a message that he awaits Jackson at the cemetery. After many miserable attempts to prop his gun on a cross with his bloodied hands, Django kills Jackson and his men in rapid succession. He slowly walks away from the massacre over the crest of the hill, destitute and broken but liberated from his burden.

Django is a notable film in the Western genre, pushing the envelope for the depiction of graphic violence, and bringing a darker twist to Sergio Leone’s anti-hero archetype. As Django is an Italian-made film, its director makes an effort to replicate the conventions of American Westerns, but to an extreme and often at the expense of realism. Mexican generals and renegade members of the Confederate military are often cast as the villains of American Westerns, but Rodriguez and Jackson take the sadism expected of villains to such an extreme that Django was either banned or highly rated in many countries. Many American Westerns have a preoccupation with the U.S.-Mexico border, tending to promote the message of a closed border that can only be crossed by diplomatic negotiation. In Django, Jackson is leading the cavalry to chase the Mexican gang who has robbed his gold, but the minute in which the gang crosses the border, the cavalry stops dead in their tracks. Despite being in the middle of an unidentifiable wasteland, they halt on this invisible line and explain to an irate Jackson that they can go no further. This projection of the fixity of the U.S.-Mexico border is a staple of American Westerns, but in Django it comes off as absurd. The American West seen as abject and unsterilized through Corbucci’s eyes has made Django an iconographic film for the era of cynical Westerns. On top of creating a gritty antithesis to the clean-cut cowboy, Corbucci invented a macabre setting to contrast with the sun-parched landscapes typical to Westerns. In Django, with its dilapidated town which is home to no one but a brothel of sickly prostitutes, nothing avoids being caked in blood and mud.

Dance With Me

2009-03-23T11:43:00.000-07:00

Dance With Me (1998) begins with shots of the sun-splashed streets of Santiago de Cuba, with smiles and Caribbean beats dancing on the air. The scene then shifts to a local cemetery where Rafael Infante (played by the successful Puerto Rican singer, Chayenne) is laying flowers on his mother’s grave in memory of her birthday. Later, when he returns to his home, an excited mailman bounds up the stairs to announce that ‘He’ has written back. The letter is from a man in Houston named John Burnett (Kris Kristofferson) who has legalized the details to get Rafael a job in the US. It is later revealed at Rafael’s going away party, when he divulges to his friend that he only told John that he needed a job, that there may be more to this journey than what’s on the surface. Rafael then arrives in Texas at the bus station and is picked up by the beautiful Ruby (Vanessa L. Williams), who attempts awkward Spanish until Rafael smiles and asks in English if she can speak English. She takes him to John’s dance studio where she works. All the employees are friendly, except for John who is abrupt and unceremonious when he first meets Rafael as he quickly introduces him to his handyman duties around the studio as well as his new living quarters at John’s house. It is clear that Rafael did not expect this kind of greeting from John but he nonetheless is grateful for all the help. Years ago, John had worked with Rafael’s mother on a cruise ship. It is clear that he still has strong feelings for her, which is why he agreed to help Rafael come to America. When questioned about his father, Rafael quickly replies that he is “long gone”.

The next day, Rafael begins his new job at the studio, but is transfixed by Ruby who is practicing with her incompetent partner for the upcoming dance competition in Las Vegas. When she is alone and practicing her technique without any music, he comments that perhaps she should play something in the background so that she is not quite so stiff. Ruby is instantly insulted and retorts that he should stick to things he knows about. Later she is in John’s office and sees a couple dancing on the TV. It is apparent that she has had relations in the past with the male dancer. When John mentions that the couple on the screen have recently split up, she becomes visibly anxious and comments that she wants to get back into professional dancing, after a six year hiatus. Rafael soon proves his worth as a worker when he does a fantastic job decorating the studio for the weekly party, and then shows his gentlemanly morals when he is the only man to tell Ruby just in the nick of time that the zipper on her dress has slowly undone while she had been dancing, much to the disappointment of the on-looking males. As a return favour, he asks Ruby to go out dancing with him. Ruby is visibly uncomfortable at the bouncing Cuban club and she attempts to teach Rafael how to dance with technique: ball changes, counting, stiff arms, etc. When this fails, she retreats to the washroom and then returns to see Rafael heating up the dance floor like had been a professional his whole life. Ruby quickly leaves the club without saying good-bye. The next day Rafael explains that he really doesn’t know how to dance like her because his type of dancing does not use traditional techniques.

Rafael finally hits it off with John when he asks if he can fix up the old beater truck in the garage. To start the repairs, he enlists Ruby to drive him to a parts shop where the two enjoy each other’s company over some Cuban music and food while they wait for the shop to open. Upon seeing people entering the shop, they go in to find it’s owned by Cubans who immediately invite them to join in on an engagement party in the backyard. Ruby enjoys the family culture and she and Rafael even get to have a slow dance of their own. Then, when Ruby returns to the Cuban club to show Rafael that she isn’t afraid of his style, she becomes pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to let herself go into the rhythm and use the entire dance floor, being passed from partner to partner in a fast-paced dance scene. The night is a success and afterwards Rafael walks her to her door, only to be soaked by the sprinklers in the yard. Needing to dry off, he is invited inside and meets Ruby’s son, Peter, whose father is Ruby’s ex-dance partner. Later, as Rafael stands before her, wrapped in a towel and expressing sympathy for her situation as a single mother, their passion is released, but then, just as quickly, it’s repressed as Ruby realizes it’s not a good idea.

The next day, John’s dance partner, Patricia, comes to him pleading to change partners because John has been spending more time fishing than practicing for the Vegas competition. She opts to dance with Rafael instead, who has been showcasing random knowledge of dance while in the studio. John agrees and Rafael quickly masters the moves and he and Patricia enter the competition. Much to Rafael’s disappointment, Ruby has chosen to dance with her ex-partner Julian in the competition. Before leaving for Vegas, Rafael confronts John about him being his father, but John insists that he doesn’t have a son, causing Rafael to regret ever coming to America to look for such a callous man. At the competition, Rafael runs into Ruby backstage, but the two barely get a chance to talk as Julian rushes her away. At rehearsals, Ruby adds her own Cuban flair to the dance moves, but is quickly cut down by Julian who demands that she follow the routine. Rafael and Patricia then give an immaculate performance in their division and win first place; but Rafael is more pleased about the fact that John came to Vegas to watch him dance and confess that he is in fact Rafael’s father. The two quickly bond and Rafael decides to stay in America instead of returning to Cuba. The next scene is the professional division with Julian and Ruby easily making it to the finals. In the last dance, Ruby spots Rafael and visibly falters in her step as she yearns to dance with him again. Her emotions improve her performance and she and Julian win the grand prize in the professional division. At the after-party, Ruby arrives with a large trophy, but a sad face, as Julian wanders off to dance with other women. She is offered a lucrative contract, but simply walks away when Rafael appears at her side and silently offers her a dance. They then dominate the dance floor in an unscripted, Latin dance which shows their passion for one another. The film ends with a group lesson, involving all the movie’s characters, in the dance studio, with Rafael and Ruby as the instructors of the Latin moves.

Dance With Me emphasizes the disparity between immigrants and Americans by casting Rafael as an outsider. The dance studio employees make excuses for him, such as “Oh, he’s from a different country”, and oftentimes Rafael will even highlight the differences himself, by making comments such as “I’m Latin, but I’ve never seen a Latin dance like that” (commenting on Ruby’s stiff technique), or “I’m a Cuban, of course I can dance”. The film bares resemblance to Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights where, once again, the lead Latin male teaches the technique-driven American girl how to get lost in the Cuban beats and let the music lead her. The fact that there is no instance of reverse-gender in these roles begs the concept of male machismo and control, which dominates Latin society; but what more, how Latin society in general has to actually teach Americans how to enjoy life. Perhaps a notable difference between these two films is the fact that in Dance with Me the lead couple is able to start a new life in America, while in Havana Nights the young love must be separated as it can not bloom in the revolutionary streets of Havana; which lends a certain amount of fantasy to the ‘dreams of America’ and a sentiment of hopelessness to the situation in Cuba. The bouncing rhythms and the romantic storylines of these movies may attempt to conceal it, but this divergence of cultures is still readily apparent.

Touching the Void

2009-03-22T19:51:00.001-07:00

Touching the Void (2003) tells the true story of two young British climbers, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, who attempted to reach the summit of the Siula Grande mountain in Peru in 1985. The film consists of a combination of narration by the actual climbers Joe and Simon, interspersed with a sequence of acted footage of the climb. It begins with the introduction of the two young climbers, in their mid-twenties, and their reckless eagerness to find new routes and unclimbed mountains. They have decided to climb the Western face of the 21 000 foot high Siula Grande, which has never been done. They recruit another British traveller, Richard Hawking, to help them with their climb and remain at the base camp they will set up below the mountain's glacier. Day one begins with Joe and Simon leaving Richard behind with the tent and supplies as they set off to climb first the glacier, then the treacherous Western face. They climb "Alpine Style", which is done in one push with rucksacks full of only the necessary supplies. The first stage is crossing the glacier, which is riddled with dangerous crevasses. The importance of trusting one's climbing partner becomes clear; Joe and Simon depend upon each other for their survival, tied together by ropes as they are by fate. Joe and Simon leave the glacier behind and start climbing the almost-vertical ice-wall of the face, using ice picks and crampons. As night falls, they make a snow cave where they will spend the night, using their gas stove to melt enough snow to keep them adequately hydrated.

Day two proves much more difficult. The altitude is exhausting and difficult and the temperatures are very cold indeed. They reach 20 000 feet, leaving the ice-walls, which are relatively easy to climb, for vertical cliffs of powdery snow, which are unstable and dangerous, causing small avalanches with every step. To the climbers' dismay, a storm arrives, blowing ice-cold powder all over them, coating them with a layer of ice. The climbing becomes very treacherous and slow, and it takes them 6 hours to climb 200 feet. They are suffering minor hypothermia by the time they dig a snow cave and settle in for the night, taking a long time to warm up. The next morning, day three, the weather is excellent. However, the powdery cliffs provide a dangerous challenge. By midday the men have reached the Northern Ridge, which they follow to the summit of Sulia Grande. Joe and Simon are triumphant and exhausted, but they know that the descent is what is dangerous, being responsible for 80% of climbing accidents. As they descend the ridge, a whiteout cloud covers them and limits their vision to the point that they get lost, wandering along what they think is the ridge until night falls. They dig a snow cave for the night. Since they had expected to finish the climb that day, the gas from their stove runs out and they are unable to melt snow for drinking. Day four is the day where disaster strikes. Joe Simpson stands on a cornice which is unstable and it collapses beneath his weight, causing him to fall and break his leg, pushing his lower leg up through his knee joint. Joe thinks, "If I've broken my leg, I'm dead". Simon, instead of abandoning Joe as Joe expects, stays with him and helps him to descend, lowering him down metre by metre and holding him from a solid foothold. A storm rages around them, and they are both freezing cold, exhausted, and dehydrated. The climbers continue descending the almost-vertical snow cliff metre by metre. Suddenly Joe, who is hanging from Simon's rope, falls over an overhang and is suddenly hanging 150 feet in the air, suspended only by rope. He yells for Simon, but the storm makes hearing impossible. Simon is bewildered by the sudden weight on the rope, and tries to jerk the rope to communicate with Joe, but Joe cannot respond because he is hanging in such a precarious position. Simon tries to hold Joe up for two hours, when he becomes so exhausted that he is unable to hold his position and begins to slide from his foothold, the powdery snow giving way under him. When Simon approaches the overhang, he realizes what has happened and that he must cut Joe loose to save himself from falling over the cliff. He takes his penknife and cuts the rope, letting Joe fall into the abyss below him. He then digs a snow cave to spend the night, tormented by thoughts of what he has done to his friend.

Joe has not died, however. He has fallen into a crevasse in the glacier, where a 3 foot ledge has saved him from falling into its deathly bottom. Joe has concluded that Simon has died and has fallen from the cliff, but when he tugs on the rope it comes down with the severed end. In an excruciating amount of pain, Joe realizes that he is to die in the crevasse in the pitch dark. He cries and screams all night, enraged that he will die so young. The next morning, on the fifth day, Simon lowers himself to where Joe has fallen but sees only a crevasse and presumes that Joe is dead. Dehydrated and severely frost-bitten, Simon stumbles down the glacier to the base camp, where Richard is waiting for him. Joe is desperately seeking a way to escape the dark crevasse where he is trapped. It seems the only way to go is down, and he lowers himself with ropes and clips to the bottom, where he drags himself along the crevasse's floor to where he can see a hole far above him with sunlight pouring through: his way out! The following brutally painful climb up an ice wall takes several hours in which Joe almost faints from the pain in his leg with every step. However, he finally reaches the top and climbs out of the snowy hole, free from the crevasse. Before him, however, is the near-impossible task of crossing the treacherous glacier and climbing the many kilometers down to base camp. Initially, Joe can use Simon's tracks to see where to go, but a windstorm fills them in until Joe must navigate around the crevasses on his own. Night passes, with Joe freezing, exposed, on the glacier, and Simon and Richard in the tent, waiting for Simon's health to return so that they can leave. The next morning is day six, which consists of Joe's excruciating and slow descent of the glacier. Joe is near death, highly dehydrated, out of food, and severely frostbitten. Each step takes all his will and energy to take. He reaches a surreal plane where he has hallucinations and feels himself the victim of the evil mountains surrounding him.

On day seven, Joe is convinced that he will die, but he is desperate not to die alone and drags himself towards the camp, hoping that Simon and Richard have not left. In reality, the two have burned Joe's clothes as a symbolic "goodbye" gesture and are preparing to leave in the morning. Around midday, Joe finds water, which saves his life and re-fuels his body. He drinks litres and litres of it, vomiting, urinating, at the edge of his humanness. He continues down the mountain until nightfall, when he reaches a rocky spot where he chooses to die, overcome by exhaustion and confusion caused by starvation and trauma. It begins to snow, and Joe is ready to die. Suddenly, a strange smell alerts Joe that he is in the latrine area of the base camp! He begins to scream "SIMON!" repeatedly until Simon and Richard hear him and come to find him, unable to believe that he is alive. Joe is saved. The film ends with a written statement telling the viewer that Joe lost one third of his bodyweight in the ordeal, and that it took two years and six operations until he could climb again. Apparently Simon received a great deal of criticism for his actions on the mountain, but Joe continues to defend him. No one has ever successfully repeated Simon and Joe's climb to the summit of Siula Grande.

The Peruvian Andes in the film are portrayed in all their white jagged grandeur. Their grandeur is a malignant, threatening one. They are volatile and treacherous, with sudden storms and avalaches endangering the climbers with every step. The vast hostility of Siula Grande commands the climbers to stay away, that any attempt to conquer the mountain will result in certain death. But the climbers, with their disregard for the power of nature, are eager to have victory over the mountain. In the end, Siula Grande wins; although Joe and Simon have summited the peak, they have done so at an astronomical cost, the cost of losing their humanness and their trust in eachother. These European and North American men who think that they can conquer the world risk their lives to beat nature, unlike the South Americans, who respect and fear nature. In the end, the Andes will break any men who try to beat them, remaining hostile, proud, and omnipotent.

Tequila Sunrise

2009-03-22T10:01:00.000-07:00

Tequila Sunrise (1988) begins with two drug dealers nervously waiting for a meeting with their buyers. Dale ‘Mac’ McKussic (Mel Gibson) appears to be the more experienced of the two as he secretly hides the pound of cocaine in the back of their hotel room’s toilet because he had noticed too many peanut shells on the ground outside their room (a sure sign of cops on the stake-out). Soon the buyers arrive and Mac makes a quick exit, but not before ‘taking a leak’ first to collect the drug stash, and then meets one of the buyers in the hall. Identities are uncovered as the two beginning chatting and the ‘buyer’ in the hallway is revealed as Dt. Lt. Nick Frescia (Kurt Russel) who quizzes Mac on why he is back on the drug scene and out of retirement. Mac replies that he’s simply teaching his lawyer, who has come upon some cocaine, how to sell the drugs, and that the police won’t find any evidence in the room because Mac couldn’t let a kid like Andy get busted. It is apparent that Mac and Nick share a unique bond between drug dealer and police officer as Nick warns Mac not to return to his car. As promised, a full-on raid descends on the building and Mac barely escapes to his favorite Italian restaurant, Vallenari’s.

Nick later sits down next to Mac at his table and tells him that they know he’s up to something and that the cops in the van outside, DEA Agent Hal Maguire (J.T. Walsh) in particular, think that he’s dealing through code from within the restaurant. Suddenly the restaurant’s host, Jo Ann Vallenari (Michelle Pfeiffer) appears at the table and Nick is immediately love-struck. When Hal brings Jo Ann in for questioning the next day and attempts to blackmail her for information on Mac, Nick comes to her rescue and is consequently owed a dinner at the restaurant from the willing Jo Ann. As the two are dining, their platonic relationship becomes something more, even though Jo Ann knows that Nick is scouting for information on Mac. Although Nick is the new Head of Narcotics for Los Angeles County, he can’t imagine arresting his friend; that is, until Hal reveals that his sources say there will be a massive cocaine deal going down soon between Mac and the mysterious Mexican dealer, Carlos (Raul Julia). This situation begs for Nick to put his friendship on hold and discover all he can about the deal, if only to help his friend get an easy sentence.

Mac notices the heat on him and so stalls the deal between him and Carlos. The two drug dealers have been friends ever since Mac went to a Mexican jail for two years for smoking marijuana on a beach in Mexico and Carlos happened to save his life while on the inside. Mac decides to focus instead on his son’s birthday for which he asks Jo Ann and her restaurant to cater. At the party, Jo Ann sees her best customer as a doting father, not a drug dealer, and tells Mac afterwards that she has been talking with Nick. When Mac gives Jo Ann a $2500 tip for the party, she believes it to be a bribe to keep quiet and confronts Mac on the beach outside his house only to embarrassingly discover that he had given her the envelope for his ex-wife and not the one to pay for the party. At that moment, Mac’s son Cody takes a nasty spill on his surfboard and Jo Ann is obliged to help Mac care for him. It is here that Mac and Jo Ann have a heart-to-heart and Mac reveals that he doesn’t go to her restaurant to make drug deals, but instead to see her.

That night at the restaurant, Jo Ann is happy to see Nick until he leads her to the wine cellar where the Mexican Federales, and in particular Comandante Xavier Escalante, are hiding with the DEA to plan a raid on Mac when Carlos arrives. The DEA needs the Comandante’s help to ID Carlos as no one knows what he looks like. Jo Ann realizes that Nick is still just using her to get to Mac and goes to Mac’s house to look after Cody while Mac is away. After Cody is picked up by his mother, Mac returns and he and Jo Ann finally release their sexual tension in a passionate hot tub sex scene, much to the delight of the Mexican Federale surveillance team. Mac steps back into the house and is suddenly confronted with the Comandante, who actually turns out to be Carlos. He is a reckless drug dealer and attempts to run the deal that night, but Mac is reluctant due to his relationship with Jo Ann, who is called back to work only to realize that Nick had called her to get her out of Mac’s house before the raid.

Jo Ann returns to the house to find Carlos getting ready to leave for his boat. He brings her along and then proceeds to get intoxicated with Mac so that he can convince him that Jo Ann needs to be eliminated as she is the only one who can identify them. Mac manages to drunkenly get Jo Ann and himself into a smaller motorboat, which carries the cash and cocaine stash, and Jo Ann promptly reveals to Mac that she’s in love with him. Meanwhile, Nick has put two and two together and realized that Carlos is the Comandante. Then he and Hal pick up a radio transmission from the ‘Federales’ giving away Mac’s position. Before Nick can arrive, Mac drops Jo Ann off and then attempts to blow-up Carlos by leaking the motorboat’s gas, but not before Carlos pulls a gun on Mac. The two struggle and finally the gun goes off, running the bullet first through Mac’s side and then into Carlos’ gut. Carlos dies in his friend’s arms just as Hal arrives and begins mercilessly shooting at Mac who jumps into the water. The bullets light the leaking gasoline on fire, and Nick arrives just in time to see his friend becomes lost in a sea of fire and explosion. The next scene shows Jo Ann arriving at the beach upon Nick’s instructions, at some unspecified length of time after that fateful night. Suddenly she sees Mac hiding in the waves just off the shore and races into his arms. As Nick watches from above, it is clear that he is allowing the woman he loves to be happy with his best friend, Mac, instead of him, while keeping them both under his watchful eye of protection and away from the clutches of the law.

The international relations displayed between these two countries are a bit unclear as the Mexican Federales actually turn out to be Carlos and his henchmen, and the DEA officers are made to look ignorant in the wake of trusting the comandante as an ally for 8 years. The one apparent tie to the US for Latin America, in particular Mexico and Colombia, is that they are the drug suppliers for the white, American dealers. Colombia is described only in terms of the Mac’s incessant accounting problems with them, while Mexico is portrayed through Carlos as a corrupt and dishonest culture and, although quick to keep friendships alive, also merciless in their attempts to escape justice; for example, wanting to kill Jo Ann for fear of being identified. The final conclusion drawn shows a landslide victory for the foreigners being the ones who are needed to make the drug deals proceed, but are also the ones who take the fall as the American drug lords are able to continue living their lives in peace, under the protection of their very own police force.

Heartbreaker

2009-03-20T17:05:00.000-07:00

Heartbreaker was released in 1983, but focuses on the 1970s as it examines the culture of automobile fanatics, low-riders in particular. It is soon realized after the first scene that the flashy cars are the real stars of the show: they sparkle, they roar, they even bounce; and everything is in the meticulous detail. In this society, appearances mean everything.

Beto (Fernando Allende) is Latin American and his popularity is obvious as he enters a local nightclub. He suddenly spots Kim (Dawn Dunlap), a petite blonde bombshell on the dance floor, whom he immediately begins to make eyes with. She is receptive to his flirtations, but her dance partner, Hector (Peter Gonzales Falcon) is not quite so pleased and immediately leads her off the floor. Beto, who ends up chatting at their table with mutual friends, reluctantly leaves after sensing Hector’s discomfort, but not before he confirms his shampoo appointment on Tuesday with Kim, who just happens to be a local hairdresser. Hector warns Kim that Beto is a player, but Kim dares not trust Hector either when, as he drops her off at her parents’ house, he becomes angry and calls her a little girl when she refuses to move out and live with him.

The next day, the low-rider enthusiast club, The Golden Knights, are introduced, complete with matching gold windbreakers. Beto is the president of the club which is known for its high standards and attention to detail. As the guys joke around and examine each others’ cars, Angel (Miguel Ferrer) teases that he’s going to race Beto for the presidency. Surprisingly, Beto responds by saying that after the next car show he will turn the club over to Angel because he wants to focus on other things now. As a token of contract, Beto gives the club’s beloved golden knight statue to Angel to hold on to for a few days. Beto then goes to get a hair cut from Kim who, despite Beto’s forward advances, insists she is not available. In the next scene, Hector proposes a car show to the Golden Knights where the grand prize is $10,000. Beto refuses because he thinks Hector is under-handed in how he raised the prize money; and due to this refusal, an arsonist sneaks into Angel’s garage at night, steals the knight statue, and torches Angel’s beloved car, which, come morning, is nothing but a hunk of burnt metal. A tip-off from a neighbourhood kid causes the group to suspect Wings, a dishonest character from The Vikings car club, as the arsonist; but before Angel can do anything drastic, Beto asks him to stick with the club and address this problem correctly. Beto then enlists his African-American friend, and fellow car enthusiast, Hopper (Michael D. Roberts), to collect information about the arson. Hector warns Wings that he is being suspected of the crime and sends him out of town for a while to collect an old car; the same car that Hector offers to Angel to restore as a sponsorship to enter his car show. Despite Angel’s reluctance to betray Beto and the Golden Knights, he desperately yearns to work on a car again and accepts the offer.

Meanwhile, Beto tries his hardest to spend time with Kim, but she won’t give in, explaining that things just seem to move so fast when Beto is around. Finally, in a local diner, Beto yells out, in front of Kim and all the customers that he’s in love with her. He is met with cheers from the on-lookers and an embarrassed, but flattered, expression from Kim, and the two begin spending more time together. Kim’s parents are aghast that she is friends with such a “greaseball” and wants to move out into that “part of town”, but their opinions do a complete turn-around when they are immediately charmed by Beto as he arrives to help move Kim’s things. After everything is moved, Kim finally accepts Beto’s offer of a date and the two primp and preen themselves in anticipation. Just as Beto leaves his house, he finds a note on his car giving him directions on where to go to get information about the arson. Against his better judgment, he races to the location, an arcade, to find Hopper playing games and knowing absolutely nothing about the note. Unbeknownst to Beto, as he tries to get a hold of Kim by telephone, Hector had heard about their date and tried to get Beto out of the way so that he could go to Kim’s and, due to his intoxication, try to rape her. Kim chases Hector away with a knife, but is so distraught that she can not even open the door when Beto finally arrives. Beto becomes depressed as Kim cuts off all communication to him. He tries everything to get her attention, but finally, after what seems like several weeks, it is Kim that seeks him out and the two begin a tender relationship full of love and admiration for eachother.

Then, at Hector’s anticipated car show, Hopper tells Beto that someone is selling the golden knight statue for $100. He plans to mark a hundred dollar bill and then follow the vendor to see who was behind the arson. This plan would have worked if he hadn’t been distracted by the wet t-shirt contest on stage and lost the vendor in the crowd. Later, while chatting with Beto, Hopper spots the vendor again, this time standing with Wings. Beto confronts Wings and challenges him to a private fist fight in Hopper’s car-trailer. Beto wins the fight and Wings confesses that it was Hector that set fire to Angel’s car. Meanwhile, Angel had just won the best-in-show $10,000 prize, but becomes enraged when he hears who was behind the arson, resulting in an all-out car chase as the Golden Knights track down Hector. Angel finally corners him and gives the dishonest crook’s car a few bashes with a metal rod before Beto arrives and reminds Angel that whatever he plans to do, the whole club will be watching him. Angel understands the warning and grudgingly lets Hector go, throwing the best-in-show trophy at him in disgust. Beto gives the recently retrieved golden statue back to a gracious Angel. With that, Beto declines the invitation to go to the car show’s after-party and instead begins his new life with Kim as they head home.

Despite more than half of the cast being Latino, their country of origin is never specified. The only clue to this puzzle is when Beto tries to teach Kim the Mexican phrase “órale”, meaning “let’s do it”. It is significant that both clubs, the dishonest Vikings and the honorable Golden Knights, have Latino members; thus not stereotyping any one race as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. The main prejudice in the plot is one of social classes which then lends itself to race. Kim’s mom asks her why she wants to live in the “other part of town”, connotatively the bad part, as her father adds in racial slurs, such as “wetbacks”. But Heartbreaker maintains its ideal of equality when Beto ends up mesmerizing Kim’s parents with his polite manner and magnetic personality; apparently not the qualities that they were expecting from someone of Latin descent living in the ‘other part of town’. At first, when Beto tries to court Kim, she displays this same bigotry, saying, “We are different people, with different attitudes towards life.” Beto doesn’t stand for this kind of statement and quizzes her on how they are different: Because their colour of hair is different? Or is it their skin, one looking like mashed potatoes, the other like refried beans (lending significance to their separate cultures)? It is at this point that Beto announces to the diner that he is in love with Kim and this melts away any barriers of background which may have stood in their way. The majority of Latinos in the film are constantly beating away the stereotypes of separate cultures as they allow their love of cars to open up doorways into a common ground, upon which one of any heritage can present their hard work. The reward for Beto’s attempts to combine both the American and the Latino worlds comes in the last scene when Kim smiles at Beto and says, “Órale”, thus permitting both cultures to co-exist in harmony.

Wild Orchid

2009-03-18T09:37:00.000-07:00

Wild Orchid, a 1989 erotica film, begins with Emily Reed (Carré Otis), a ‘whiz-kid’ lawyer and translator of several languages, obtaining a job with a prestigious law firm in New York City. The only catch to accepting the job is that she must leave for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the following day with fellow lawyer Claudia (Jaqueline Bisset) to try to close a deal with Chinese investors regarding the construction of a resort and hotel complex. Claudia proves to be a confident and ambitious woman who takes charge of her life. Thus, when Elliot (the construction site consultant) isn’t in Rio when they arrive, she takes it upon herself to fly to Buenos Aires to collect him; leaving Emily the task of taking Claudia’s place at a dinner date that night. Before leaving the construction site, Emily explores the ruined hotel, climbing through dark stairways with dripping water, until she inadvertently comes upon a local couple having passionate sex in one of the empty rooms. At first she is stunned by the spectacle, but then their absolute rapture proves too much for her meek demeanor and she races away.

Emily dresses glamorously for her dinner date with the mysterious and extremely wealthy James Wheeler (Mickey Rourke), who is instantly mesmerized by Emily’s beauty. They walk through the street markets at night, James’ bodyguards in tow, as Emily takes in the sights and sounds of a culture that captivates her. They end their stroll at a lavish restaurant teeming with tokens Brazilian ethnicity. There they play a game of guessing the different lives of all the guests. They choose one seemingly unhappy couple and Emily tells the made-up story of how they met, which eventually leads to the wife cheating on her husband in an old run-down hotel, much like the scene Emily had witnessed earlier that day. James is bizarrely perceptive of Emily’s discomfort with the subject of sex, and so he leads her into the adjacent ballroom where the guests wear extravagant masks and dance extremely provocatively to the tribal beats. Emily is enthralled by the spectacle until an unknown guest slips behind her to nibble at her neck, causing her to bolt back to the hotel. The next morning, she awakens to James sitting in her room. He attempts to make amends on the previous night by taking her for a motorcycle ride with the unhappy couple, Hanne and Otto Munch, they had seen the night before, to whom James had introduced himself and discovered that Emily’s ‘made-up story’ wasn’t too far off the mark. During their motorcycle ride, they stop at a road-side dance. While there, Hanne is accosted by several drunken US sailors and then has her top ripped down as someone attempts to steal her elegant necklace. The four of them run for James’ bodyguard’s car, and as Otto attempts to cover-up Hanne’s breasts, she surprisingly becomes emotionally distraught at this ‘insult’. Safely in the limo, James then acts as marriage counselour to the Munches as he helps them to overcome their troubled past together and find their passion in the moment. Much to Emily’s revulsion, they mount each other right there in the backseat of the limo. Emily quietly pleads with James to ask them to stop, but James replies that he couldn’t if he tried. The Munches have given in to their primal emotions, and where Emily sees them as only having filthy sex, James sees it as them making love. The car then stops at the construction site, and James walks Emily up through the stairwells, all the while commenting on his own make-believe story of her life. His account is inexplicably accurate and causes Emily to become emotional. She reaches out and holds James, who immediately stiffens and explains that he can’t handle being touched.

Emily returns to the hotel and sits naked in front of the mirror, reconsidering the visions of passions she had seen in the last two days. This excites her and she returns to the restaurant from the night before, mask in place, to try to find James. Sitting at the bar, she orders a drink in Portuguese and is then approached by an American named Jerome who thinks she is a local. He offers her cash for sex which insults her. She coldly walks away and comes across James who eerily explains that she is only feeling insulted because the prospect excites her. With this she goes to Jerome’s room and at first is frightened by his forcefulness, but then gives into the sensations of this sexual encounter and overcomes her emotional barriers. The next day when Claudia returns, she and Emily begin negotiations for the construction site and coincidentally Jerome ends up being the opposing lawyer. He believes that due to Emily’s nervousness he will win the deal, but as soon as Claudia is informed of their situation she coyly reminds Jerome of his wife and kids back in America, causing him to back down and the women to win the negotiation.

Claudia then reveals to Emily that she has always had an obsession with James, who used to be a stuttering orphan in Philadelphia before constructing his empire of wealth from scratch. Then, just before Claudia and Emily go to the contract signing with the Chinese investors, they are informed that Jason has bought the old hotel on the construction site. This enrages Claudia as the old hotel was the deal-breaker for the Chinese. She decides to go ahead with the contract signing anyways, even though Emily advises her that this is misrepresentation. The deal goes through and then the crowd of investors begins to celebrate as Rio’s famous festival of Carnival kicks off. The next morning, Claudia decides to get rid of her obsession with James as she invites a handsome Brazilian into her hotel room and gets Emily to translate for them. Just as the sexual tension in the scene is at its climax, James suddenly appears in the room and glares at Emily as he throws down the Brazilian. Emily chases James out of the hotel and he rides away on his motorcycle to ponder his actions. He then, in an act of reconciliation sends to Emily the deeds to the old hotel, which saves the misrepresented deal just in time. That night, James again appears mysteriously in Emily’s hotel room with orchids and she attempts to coerce him to touch her, but he continually refuses. Finally, as she turns away from him in disbelief, he grabs her body and the two of them finally both feel the hunger for each other. As they make love, they finally understand the passion that permeates the city of Rio.

Wild Orchid displays striking similarities to Blame it on Rio. In both films, the characters discover sexual impulses which they never would have dreamed of before coming to the fervent city of Rio. The theme of facades is etched into the plot of Wild Orchid as the wealthy foreigners constantly don masks, literally and figuratively, in order to release their pent-up passions. These tycoons may be enjoying Carnival, but it is their living of double lives which is the true masquerade. Rio de Janeiro is seen as a constant party of music and dance which always leads to sex. It’s as if this formula is threaded into the culture and the foreigners yearn for that liberation. Ultimately, Rio stands for a place of distraction which escorts its revelers to happiness by means of sexual arousal.

Lone Star

2009-03-18T07:03:00.000-07:00

Lone Star (1996) follows Sam Deeds, a cynical Texas sheriff, as the discovery of a forty year-old skeleton in the desert prompts him to unravel the complex histories of his community. The film goes beyond the typical crime drama in that its plot serves as a vehicle to explore contemporary multiculturalism and the politics of history.

Lone Star begins with two men searching for old bullets in a Rio County desert, once used as a military firing range, when one stumbles upon a half-buried skeleton with a sheriff’s badge and Masonic ring. They call Sheriff Sam Deeds (played by Chris Cooper) who takes an immediate personal interest. Subsequent scenes highlight the racial dynamics of Rio County; the coexistence of Latino, Black, Native-American and White communities is tense due to historical strife, current inequalities and racial prejudice. Sam arrives in the midst of three old men reminiscing about his father Buddy Deeds. Even though Sam is clearly pained to be living in his father’s shadow, a man with legendary status, he asks that mayor Hollis Pogue retell his story. Back in 1958, Hollis and Buddy were deputies for Sheriff Charlie Wade, infamous for his corruption and ruthlessness. In a flashback, Buddy threatens Wade to leave town because folks are sick of living under his thumb, and the next day Wade disappears with $10,000 of county money. The rest of the film will be concerned with uncovering the many facets of this legendary character.

Meanwhile, another legend is being discussed. Pilar Cruz (played by Elizabeth Peña) debates with fellow teachers about how the Battle of the Alamo ought to be taught; every opinion is hot-headedly voiced from the staunchly orthodox to radically revisionist. Pilar and Sam were high-school sweethearts but their parents forbade the relationship so they parted ways; they exchange only a few terse conversations after the passage of many years. Sam is certain that the skeleton belongs to Charlie Wade, and resolves to determine whether it was his father who killed him. Sam attempts to pry into the memories of the older generation for clues, but finds that characters such as Hollis and Otis Payne, owner of the only bar where African-Americans feel welcome, have great affection for Buddy and are reluctant to share details of the night that Wade disappeared. However, he discovers that Buddy had an ambivalent sense of morality. Unlike his scoundrel of a predecessor, Buddy is remembered as being benevolent and just, however he would overlook minor infractions in return for favours. Only one individual speaks negatively of him, telling Sam about how he had a Mexican community removed from where he thereafter bought cheap lakeside property. Sam is motivated by the search for truth, but he is also resentful of the universal admiration for his father; if Buddy was a murderer Sam wants the world to know.

The director intermittently turns his lens to the lives of sub-characters, whose storylines portray experiences with racism and generational differences in social attitudes. Notable among these characters is Pilar’s mother, who is merciless with the illegal immigrants she employs and calls the border patrol when she spots new arrivals from her back porch. Meanwhile, Sam fills in more pieces of the puzzle. The bullet collectors from the beginning find a Colt 45 pistol shell amongst the customary M1 rifle shells; this was the type of gun Buddy used. Sam also goes down to Mexico to hear the story of how Wade killed a man named Eliano Cruz point-blank for transporting illegals, told by a survivor of this incident. The final piece falls into place when an acquaintance drops the fact that Buddy had a mistress, prompting Sam to search his father’s belongings until he finds a love letter from none other than Pilar’s mother. When he confronts Hollis and Otis about this, they spill the entire story; Wade found young Otis running after-hours gambling and was about to kill him when Buddy burst into the bar, in the moment when Hollis shot Wade in horror. The three buried Wade, taking money from the safe to make his disappearance seem realistic and gave it to Cruz’s widow, who Buddy later conceived Pilar with. Sam, who in the course of his journey mended his relationship with Pilar, reveals this history to her, but despite their blood relationship they decide to be together. Her words which close the movie offer an apt maxim for generations striving to overcome historical prejudice: “Forget the Alamo.”

Lone Star is a meditation on how a multicultural community, in which each racial group differently experienced the traumas of war, displacement and slavery, strives to write an all-encompassing political history and overcome prejudice to peacefully coexist. The investigation Sam undertakes to determine how Wade died is a metaphor for the process of writing political history; not only is it difficult to recover the exact deals, but history is influenced by the subjective viewpoints of its authours. In the end he settles with the hybrid of truth and myth that is palatable to most people.

Lone Star has a well-developed narrative on the U.S.-Mexico border which spans from the deeply conservative fear of loosing a clear demarcation between superior and inferior “civilizations,” to the liberal opinion that borders are “invisible lines” imposed by governments to the detriment of fundamentally equal human beings. The border is portrayed as porous, but only one way; Sam takes it for granted that he can spend the afternoon in Mexico, while Mexicans risk their lives to cross the border. The relationship between Sam and Pilar is a metaphor for that between the U.S. and Mexico; the two were always bound together by blood and experienced eras of alienation from each other. The fact that the pair wish to forget history and embark on an incestuous relationship certainly indicates the director’s optimism about future U.S.-Mexico relations.

Big Jake

2009-03-18T04:32:00.000-07:00

Big Jake (1971) stars John Wayne as Jacob McCandles, a rough-and-ready cowboy who heads down to Mexico to retrieve his kidnapped grandson from the villainous John Fain. The film opens with an odd photographic sequence comparing the East coast versus the West coast at the turn of the century; while life in the East is comfortable and civilized, it is still wild and rugged in the West, with settlers battling the Native Americans and struggling against the elements. Yet another threat to frontier life is made clear when John Fain and his band of cutthroats descend on the McCandles ranch and kill practically everyone present. They kidnap youngest of the McCandles clan and thrust a ransom note at Martha McCandles, the stoic matriarch of the family. Martha receives offers of assistance from the army and the Rangers, but instead sends a message to her ex-husband Jacob, requesting his return to the ranch. Jacob left a decade ago, turned out by Martha for his womanizing ways, but he is not in the least perturbed by having missed his three boys grow into men. He is a straightforward, freedom-loving man who roams the country buying and selling livestock, solitary except for his uninventively named dog, Dog.

McCandles returns to the ranch, awkwardly reunites with his sons and plans to deliver the million dollar ransom to the location shown on the note. In what is perhaps a self-referential moment recognizing the obsolescence of traditional Westerns, Jacob, who stubbornly insists on riding horseback, is ignobly relegated to act as backup for the younger men who speed off in then-modern automobiles to save the boy. However, Jacob comes out on top when the men are ambushed by the Fain gang and suffer casualties, and only he presses on with his Native-American ally Sam, his two sons James and Michael, and the trusty Dog. Much time is spent depicting their voyage into Mexico, near the end of which Fain informs them to bring the ransom to a town called Escondero.

When they arrive at Escondero, they sense that the place is crawling with Fain’s men, so they create an elaborate ambush to kill them. Fain responds by sending for Jacob, warning that if anything is amiss when they collect the ransom the boy will be shot by a hidden sniper. At this time the sons find out that there is nothing but newspaper cuttings in the trunk, which at first outrages them, then they realize heroism inherent to the fact that Jacob refuses to negotiate with outlaws. It does not take long after they ride into Fain’s hideout for Jacob to initiate a shootout. This ends in the bloody death of Fain and his gang and victory for Jacob who recovers his grandson. In fact, the film ends with a sort of grotesque optimism. In the freeze frame of a beaming Jacob embracing his kin after delivering the classic line “Let’s go home,” there are two conspicuous absentees; these are Jacob’s long-time Native-American friend Sam and his loyal beast Dog, both of whom were hacked to death by machete and disturbingly forgotten by the celebratory heroes.

Big Jake fits squarely into a history of racial iconography that associates white individuals with mastery over nature through science and technology and other races with being “in touch” with nature, or existing in a “primitive” relation to it. The film highlights how the white characters are at the technological forefront of 1909; they compress time and distance with automobiles, make the seasons irrelevant with canned food, hunt with more advanced firearms and exploit natural resources with oil wells. In contrast, the Mexicans by and large blend into the landscape, such as women perpetually washing clothes by the riverside, as does the Native-American character, who materializes out of nowhere and is uncannily attuned to his surroundings.

However, despite the dearth of Mexican characters, Mexico is projected as a respected foreign power. The army general who offers to help Martha McCandles takes pains to describe how he has been granted permission by the Mexican government to make an incursion in its territory. Mexico and the U.S. are shown to be observant of border-crossing protocol, much to the dismay of the criminals, one of whom wrongly announces “There ain’t nothing they can do to us here” upon entering Mexico. The film also makes a point of holding a mirror to American racial prejudices by showing the more extreme prejudices supposedly held in Mexico. When the heroes check into a hotel in Escondero the clerk frankly states that dogs are allowed, but not Indians, and then a Chinese man is shown exiting a room. This ridiculous racial, and even species, hierarchy may shock audiences, but it is no more arbitrary than the hierarchy at the McCandles hacienda amongst the black and Mexican servants. Just as territoriality indicates sameness between Mexico and the United States, as both countries have strong state apparatus to maintain borders, so too does prejudice in that both countries have a self-entitled dominant race.

Secret of the Andes

2009-03-17T20:13:00.000-07:00

Secret of the Andes (1999) is a children's movie, which is probably why the director made no effort to make the plot coherent, continuous, or believable. Its unbelievable cheesiness is, alas, not saved by the colourful scenes of Peruvian/Bolivian culture, which are in fact filmed in Argentina. The film begins with a legend being told to a 10-year old girl by an old Andean man. It is about an Inca man who climbed to the top of a mountain and was given a golden disc by God. When this man returned to civilization with the disc, he was made a king. But when the Spaniards came God was angered and split the disc into two. Now, one half of the disc is in a New York City museum, and the other half is being searched for by American archaeologist Brooks Willings in the Andes. Brooks' mischievous daughter Diana and her mother Brenda are living in New York, where Diana is having trouble at school; Diana's psychiatrist Dr. Goldfisch advises Brenda to send Diana to a special boarding school. This "crisis" leads Brenda to call her husband and demand that he return from his excavation but somehow results in Brenda and Diana taking the next flight down to the unspecified Andean country where Brooks' excavation is taking place. Arriving to the town of Jucaitambo, where Brooks is staying with Catholic priest Father Claver, the religious patriarch of the town. Ever since Brooks has arrived, a mysterious plague has been killing all of the townspeople's livestock, which has led him to be extremely unpopular. To fight the plague, the townspeople are participating in nighttime cult meetings led by the town's sorcerer, an evil-looking long-haired man who performs animal sacrifices and is undermining their belief in the Church much to Father Claver's concern.

When Diana and Brenda arrive to Jucaitambo, they visit the excavation site, where Brooks has been largely unsuccessful in finding anything, let alone the half of the golden disc. The excavation's sponsors are threatening to pull the funding for the dig, and the villagers who provide the labour are not showing up because they think Brooks brings evil to their town. Diana's adventurous spirit is highly stimulated in the colourful Andean village, where she makes friends with an alpaca named Bolivia (a hint to where the movie actually takes place?) and Mama Lola, Claver's benevolent housekeeper who plies her with coca tea. She also discovers the sculptor's workshop of "Hombre Grande", Don Benito, a shaman who is teaching his apprentices Lucho and Sancho how to make sculptures lifelike. The trick seems to be playing the cana, the flute, which makes the sculptures magically start moving. Don Benito takes to Diana because she apparently has some kind of magical powers of understanding, confirmed by the her nightmares coinciding with the Sorcerer's nighttime sacrifices and her ability to see the magic sparked by Don Benito's flute. Don Benito tells Diana that her father will never find the golden disc, because "Foreigners seek the wrong treasure. The real treasure is everywhere, but they cannot understand it". Things start to go wrong when Diana's alpaca friend Bolivia contracts the animal plague. That afternoon, the procession of the town's patron saint Timothy results in disaster when Brooks takes his turn to carry the saint's statue and in passing it to Sancho to carry causes the statue to fall and shatter. The villagers take this as an ominous sign and start to curse the American. Father Claver is deeply upset because in a few days, when Carnaval is over, the villagers all go to the church to see the statue of St. Timothy unveiled again; if he is not there, they will lose their faith in the Church and go to the Sorcerer. He brings the statue to Lucho to fix, but he does not think he can fix it before Carnaval is over.

One night, Diana is awoken by a flute music and climbs out her window to find its source, which happens to be at Don Benito's house. There, she asks him to help her find the golden disc for her father. Because she apparently has the right intentions, he agrees to help her. The first step is to lie Diana on the ground and make a circle of corn kernels around her while playing the flute and expecting her to be led to the disc by her inner eye. This ceremony is interrupted by the enraged Brenda, who has been looking for her daughter. Brenda has Don Benito arrested despite Diana's protests. Back at Father Claver's house, Brenda insists that she wants to return to the States, and that she's going to send Diana to the boarding school Dr. Goldfisch suggested. Brooks begs her to stay for a few more days, and she reluctantly agrees. That night is the last night of Carnaval, and St. Timothy's statue is to be unveiled. Father Claver is upset because he thinks it is not ready, but in the last moment Sancho runs into the church and unveils a perfectly intact statue, its source unexplained. All the villagers rejoice. Back to the search for the golden disc, Diana manages to get Don Benito out of jail by asking her father for help; Diana, Don Benito, Lucho, and Sancho go on an expedition to find the golden disc without telling Diana's parents. As they are panicking because their daughter is missing, she and the three Andean men are hiking up into the mountains and making circles of corn while playing the flute and summoning the spirit of the condor to lead them to the golden disc. At one point, Don Benito climbs a hill and disappears into the sun. Lucho, Sancho, and Diana continue their search. A flying condor leads them to a well, where a look into the water points them to a cave, where they find the golden disc. They return to the well, where they find the Sorcerer, who has followed them the entire way. He steals the disc from them and throws it into the well, but the disc magically flies out again. When he looks into the well, the image of his face turns into a devil and he proceeds to be sucked into the well and disappears. Triumphant, Diana and the two boys return to Jucaitambo just as Diana's parents are dispatching a military search for them. The happy ending occurs the following day, when Diana plants the golden disc on her father's archaeological site so that he finds it. With his work done, he can return to New York with Diana and Brenda, taking the golden disc with him.

The "secret" of the Andes that gives the film its title is something mystical which is never explained. It is about seeing things "not with the eye, but with the heart", as Don Benito explains. This is the way to find the golden treasure. The foreigners who try to take the heritage of the local people are driven by greed, and they will never discover the secret; but the innocent young Diana, despite being American, is capable of the spiritual depth that allows her to find the disc. The people of Jucaitambo are in on the secret; their simple ways allow them to see with their hearts. However, they are in some ways too simple, easily manipulated by the crusading ideal of Father Claver on one hand and the nighttime cult of the Sorcerer on the other. The depiction of their celebrations during Carnaval makes them appear silly and primitive; it is implied that without Father Claver they fall into backwards beliefs, like those of the Sorcerer. Don Benito is an example of the spiritual wisdom of the townspeople, a contrast to the superstitious simplicity of the others. His magical flute-playing and his mysticism show a culture that is highly connected with nature, and through nature, with a higher power. His disappearance into the sun on the mountain is reminiscent of the Ascension. Diana's youth enables her to be part of the mystical world of the Andes, while her parents are too old and contaminated with American ideals to ever discover its secret.

The colourful and mystical life of the Andes causes interesting reactions in the extremely culturally retarded Americans. When Brenda is offered coca tea by Mama Lola, she is visibly taken aback, and the terrible acting exaggerates the shock. Brenda finds the life in Jucaitambo unsavoury and dangerous for her young daughter. She is extremely distrustful of the local people; a testament to her complete misunderstanding of the culture is the fact that the only local she likes is the evil Sorcerer, whom she finds good-looking. A visit to the market with Diana results in her buying a tiny pair of wooden llamas for $50 dollars after a pathetic bout of bargaining. Father Claver is another interesting character, a white Spanish-speaking priest in the midst of indigenous Andeans. He cares for the local people, but he is not one of them; he is a man trying to create peace and civilization in a town of chaos, and Brooks is not making it easy for him, driving him to swig from his flask of booze and chain-smoke cigars. Finally, there is Brooks, whose obsession with finding the golden disc and other archaeological artifacts is his only concern in the Andes. This is why he cannot find the disc. Only Diana, a little girl from New York with an open mind and an open heart that eagerly takes in all the facets of the unknown culture of the Andes is able to become a part of it and clear the wall between the two cultures. In the end, however, she gives the golden disc to her unworthy father, which is unexplained.

Alive

2009-03-17T17:31:00.000-07:00

Alive is a 1993 film based on the true story of the survivors of the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 on October 13, 1972 in the Andes. The protagonists are the members of the Uruguayan rugby team of Stella Maris College in Montevideo and their friends and family members who have chartered the flight to Santiago, Chile, where the team is to play a match. The film is a flashback being told by John Malkovich, who is character Carlitos Paez. It begins on the airplane, as the jovial young rugby players joke around and tease the flight attendant. Their jokes soon end as the pilots, who have already notified the air controller in Santiago that they are beginning their descent, realize that they have misjudged the time required to cross a mountain pass and are heading straight for a mountain. The airplane clips a peak, losing its wing and tail, then continues sliding down a steep slope until it comes to rest in a snowbank. Of the 45 people on the plane, twelve people die in the crash or shortly thereafter, in a mess of screams, injuries, and blood. Of those still alive and minimally injured, the team's captain Antonio Balbi, medical student Roberto Canessa, and Carlitos seem to take charge, binding limbs and freeing passengers who are stuck under chairs and pieces of fuselage. The fatally injured pilot asks Canessa to find his gun so that he can commit suicide, but Canessa refuses to be a part of it, leaving the pilot to die. The dead are laid outside in the snow. As the night comes, the survivors settle down for the night, sure that the next morning they will be rescued. The first night is freezing, with the cold wind blowing into the fuselage. Despite the fact that they block the back of the fuselage with luggage to maintain heat, another five people die during the night from cold and injuries.

The next day, the survivors are suffering from altitude sickness and hunger. Antonio collects all the food on the plane, which amounts to little more than some chocolate bars and some wine, which he rations out among the remaining 28 passengers. He continues to reassure everyone that they will be found very soon. At one point, they hear a plane fly overhead, but the cloud cover prevents them from being seen. They settle in for another night. In the following days, the survivors continue consuming their rations, starving and sick. A young man who had suffered a head injury in the crash, Nando Parrado (Ethan Hawke), regains consciousness after a few days, only to discover that his mother has died and that his sister Susanna is severely injured. On the fourth night after the crash, as the survivors huddle in the fuselage, Canessa decides to give away the rest of the rations because he is convinced that they will be discovered the following day. The next morning, as Antonio goes to hand out the rations, he is enraged to discover them gone; Canessa and the rest of the team admit to having eaten them. Antonio spends his days listening to a radio that was found in the plane, listening to news of the search. The others organize an expedition to try to find the tail, where the battery for the transmitter radio is; however, they find they are too weak with hunger and altitude sickness and must return to the plane. On the ninth day, Antonio hears on the radio that the search has been called off. Nando hears the news and announces to everyone, "Good news! They've called off the search". The others, devastated, ask him why this is good news, and he replies, "Because it means that we're going to get out of here on our own". The following day, Nando's sister Susanna dies. The survivors are eating nothing and get weaker every day. Nando proposes that a team of men travel west into Chile, which must be quite near, to try to find help. When asked how he will achieve this without food, he replies that he will eat the flesh from one of the pilot's bodies. This is initially received as a joke, but as the survivors get hungrier, Nando proposes it to everyone. Some are shocked and indignant, calling it a sin against God; others argue that if at death the soul leaves the body, God will want them to eat the flesh in order to stay alive. The following day, they agree to eat the frozen flesh of the dead bodies.

A few nights later, the fuselage is hit by an avalanche, killing eight passengers, including Antonio, and burying the plane. Nando manages to dig a hole to the surface, allowing the survivors to breathe. For three days a blizzard blows, trapping them inside the plane; on the fourth, they emerge, digging out the plane and clearing it of snow and dead bodies. One of the victims is Liliana Methol, who had just decided with her husband Javier to have another child. The next day a young man whose broken legs were infected dies as well. At this point, the survivors are devoid of hope and very downhearted about their prospects of survival. Carlitos, however, has a spiritual experience, where he realizes that God is all around them, helping them; he is instrumental in raising everyone's spirits and giving them hope. Nando continues pushing for an expedition West, but Canessa insists that an expedition must wait until the spring, when it is warmer and chances of survival are much higher. Nando, Canessa, and some others do a minor expedition to try to find the plane's tail, which is successful; however, their discovery of batteries for the transmitter radio is useless because they are unable to hook the radio up. On the way back from the expedition, they are caught in a blizzard. Two more young rugby players die. Finally, on December 12, two months after the crash, Canessa, Nando, and Antonio "Tintin" Vizintin, who have been building their strength and eating much, set off on their expedition West, taking with them a pack of meat and a warm sleeping bag they have sewed together from quilts of insulation from the plane's tail which is big enough for the three of them to weather the freezing nights. Carlitos tells them at their parting that he has dreamt of the green valleys of Chile, where they are headed. The three young men trek for three days, thinking that they must be very close, but upon climbing a peak they see only mountains for what seems like forever, far from the green valleys of Chile that they expect. Devoid of hope, Canessa proposes they return to the plane, but Nando is convinced that if they send Tintin back to the plane and take his rations, they can make it to a small "Y" in the mountains which he hopes is the way out. Nando and Canessa continue for several more days and do indeed reach green valleys with lakes of unfrozen water. The final scene shows the survivors emerging from the plane upon hearing helicopters and seeing a rescue team coming their way with Nando directing them. 29 passengers have died, and 16 remain.

Several of the actors in the film are Uruguayans of European descent, but all of the main characters are American actors. The dialogue is quite North American, complete with Superman references, and the rapport between the young men appeals to that very team-oriented sports culture that Americans love. However, the magnitude of the story makes these details fade into the background. One cannot help but imagine oneself in the extreme situation faced by the survivors of the crash; the fact that they are Uruguayan becomes an irrelevant detail in the face of such a powerful feat. The plight of the team becomes a universal plight against nature which crosses all cultural and geographic boundaries; the film is a testimony to the transcendence of survival stories which make nationality dissolve and humanity the most important classification. The Andes could be any hostile, majestic mountain range, not necessarily the defining geological formations of South America.

A strongest Latin American cultural element of the film is the undeniable influence of Roman Catholicism in the plot and dialogue. In the beginning, John Malkovich's Carlitos tells of his closeness to God in the solitude, of the spiritual plane that one reaches through bodily suffering. During the freezing nights, Carlitos leads the team in praying the Rosary, which gives them hope in their most downhearted moments. Only one of the 27 survivors refuses to pray; this is Fito, who claims to be an agnostic. After the avalanche, however, he too joins the nightly prayers. Often the characters' survival is attributed to God, a God that takes care of them in the most hostile of environments. The discussion about cannibalism is essentially a discussion about whether eating a dead man is violating God's law; the consensus is that the benevolent and understanding God would want them to eat the flesh in order to glorify life by fighting for survival. The references to the Eucharist in the discussion of eating the flesh of a body are undeniable. When a young man whose legs are broken is dying from the infection, he begins to weep because of the beauty of being "so close to God". Everywhere in those blinding white peaks is the presence of God, who gives them the tools to survive, the hope to continue, and the good leadership which saves them.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

2009-03-16T22:54:00.000-07:00

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) is the final installment of director Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy, following A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and For a Few Dollars More (1965). The film centers on the mutually distrustful partnership between bounty-hunter Blondie (Clint Eastwood) and Mexican outlaw Tuco (Eli Wallach) as they compete against the mercenary Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef) to find a buried fortune in Confederate gold.

Angel Eyes is fully deserving of his moniker “the Bad” for his ruthless efficiency in mercenary killings and his penchant for torture. The film opens with Angel Eyes interrogating a former soldier for the alias of a man named Jackson. Upon finding out that the name is Bill Carson, he shoots the man and his son. Angel Eyes is later told that a Confederate unit escorting a box of gold coins was ambushed by Yankees and though three men were saved the box was not; Jackson was among them and disappeared after the hearing, reenlisting in the Confederate army as Bill Carson and living with a prostitute named Maria. Angel Eyes locates Maria and smacks her until she informs him that Jackson recently left with his cavalry unit for Santa Fe.

Meanwhile, we are introduced to the slit-eyed, cigar-chewing Blondie (a.ka. the Good) and the loud-mouthed, hot-tempered Tuco (a.k.a the Ugly). They set up a scam to repeatedly collect the bounty on Tuco’s head by having Blondie turn Tuco in, and then shoot him from the noose at his public hanging. However, Tuco’s agitation from a near-death experience and Blondie’s realization that Tuco’s worth is capped at $3000 prompts Blondie to terminate the partnership, which he unwisely does by abandoning his ex-partner seventy miles from town in the blazing hot desert. Tuco survives this and becomes hell-bent on revenge, tracking down Blondie and forcing him to endure a similar ordeal. Suddenly, in the middle of the desert, Tuco discovers a runaway carriage filled with dead Confederate soldiers and a barely alive Jackson who croaks that $200,000 in gold coins is stashed in Sand Hill Cemetery. While Tuco, with a greedy gleam in his eyes, dashes to get water for Jackson, Blondie hears the exact grave where the coins are buried before Jackson dies. Because Tuco has only half of the necessary information, he disguises himself and Blondie, who has lost consciousness from severe sunstroke, in Confederate garb and takes him to be revived in his estranged brother’s monastery.

After leaving the monastery, they are apprehended by a Union cavalry unit and sent to the prisoner-of-war camp where Angel Eyes has claimed de facto leadership. Angel Eyes sadistically orders his henchman torture Tuco to the sound of a patriotic melody played by a military band. Tuco surrenders the cemetery name, but Angel Eyes knows that torturing Blondie will be futile so he leaves with him for Sand Hill. Both men escape from their captors, reconvene in a war-torn town, and win a shootout against men working for Angel Eyes. With Sand Hill just over the horizon, Tuco and Blondie stumble upon a Yankee encampment and pretend to be volunteers. The commanding officer is drunk in a desperate attempt to forget the tragedy of his mission; he must defend an insignificant bridge from the Confederates across the river by sending hundreds of troops to be slaughtered. Blondie wants the Confederates to leave so that he can reach the cemetery, but he is also moved by the pointless loss of life, so in an anarchic act of protest he detonates the bridge. Subsequently, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly arrive at the gold-bearing grave, and Blondie suggests that its ownership be determined by shootout. Blondie secretly unloaded Tuco’s gun the night before, so his attention is undivided when he shoots Angel Eyes dead. The film closes with Blondie hanging Tuco from a tree for old time’s sake and shooting him down when he is at a safe distance with half of the loot, and then rides away with Tuco bellowing curses after him.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is one of the most celebrated Western movies, due in no small part to the profound images it projects of the tragedy of war. This is unexpected for a genre that generally glorifies United States history and justifies violence by the heroes. Taking an explicitly anti-war stance, the film portrays war as a failure by state institutions to work for the common good, creating situations that facilitate extreme cruelty (such as the prisoner-of-war camps) and allowing individuals to be collateral damage for dubious military gain (such as the battle at the bridge). This message, which has endured in importance long after the anti-war 1960s when the film was made, is important to the change in its critical perception. Time magazine critics, for instance, considered The Good, the Bad and the Ugly to be a “hokey” bloodbath flick in 1968, but today consider it among the 100 best films.

The development of the Mexican character Tuco is another interesting facet of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Even though he plays the sidekick to Blondie, he does not fit the sidekick archetype in the way that Angel Eyes fits the villain archetype, in that Angel Eyes is purely evil. His character has far more depth than Blondie, the stoic “Man with No Name” who has no relationships or history. Although, typical for a sidekick, Tuco is less intelligent and brave than Blondie and provides comic relief with his rambunctious behaviour, he is also far more accessible to the audience than the hero. Tuco is the only character with a personal life the audience can glimpse into (when Tuco argues with his brother at the monastery) and understand what motivated his criminal behaviour (out of dire financial need). As The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a European film imitating an American genre, there is certainly more room for the reinterpretation of cinematic conventions, including imbuing the crude-talking Mexican sidekick with greater pathos than the noble American hero.

Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals

2009-03-15T20:36:00.000-07:00

The 1977 soft-porn horror flick Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals begins in an American insane asylum with the plot’s heroine Emanuelle (Laura Gemser), a star journalist posing as a crazy woman on the female ward in order to get the exclusive story about the young, white cannibal girl from the Amazon who had just arrived. The first scene’s slow survey of the ward’s inhabitants is abruptly interrupted by a nurse, half-dressed, running down the hall screaming. The bloody stump that was her right breast is shown quite graphically as the orderlies blatantly explain that such a vicious act was the work of the new cannibal patient, whom they try to restrain with a straight jacket as she munches on a chunk of flesh in the corner of the room. That night, Emanuelle sneaks into the cannibal’s room and attempts to ask her some questions. When the girl becomes frightened, Emanuelle displays her unusual methods of journalism by reaching under the girl’s skirt and pleasuring her to calm her down. While doing this, Emanuelle notices a tribal tattoo on the girl’s midriff and proceeds to snap a photo of this “white child raised by a wild tribe of the Amazon” to bring back to her editor. The next day, Emanuelle is sent by her editor to Professor Mark Lester (Gabriele Tinti), a leading expert on cannibalistic tribes. The pair watch documentaries on tribal customs, plan an expedition to the Amazon to study the girl’s near-extinct tribe of Apiaca cannibals, and then indulge in a session of wild sex (which was obviously well-deserved after such difficult research).

The following day, despite warnings from co-workers of the dangers they may encounter, Emanuelle and Mark jet off to the Amazon. They meet with Mark’s old friends, who are part of a religious organization, and decide to bring Sister Angela and an acquaintance named Isabel on their journey to the organization’s Mission, located deep in the jungle. The night before the group departs, Isabel spies Emanuelle and Mark having sex and as a result proceeds to touch herself. The next day she tells Emanuelle that she had seen them and the three then begin exchanging sly sexual glances while traveling up the Amazon River in a motorboat. When the expedition stops to make camp, Emanuelle has a close-encounter with a snake, but is saved by avid hunter Donald McKenzie who miraculously appears without a moment to spare. He advises that the group join his camp set-up, with his wife Maggie, native assistant Salvador, and several others, because the cannibals had massacred everyone at the Mission. It is soon realized that Maggie is not completely faithful to Donald as she sneaks off with Salvador into the jungle. Donald secretly spies them together, but when he confronts Maggie as a tramp, she calls him impotent and the fight apparently dissolves. Mark gets nervous about being out in the jungle with the cannibals and Donald steadfastly refuses to go back to civilization with them, up until a half-eaten body is found on the beach by their boat. He then whispers to Maggie that they’ll travel with the group to safety and then continue the search. What they are searching for remains a mystery.

Their escape route proves dangerous when Angela ventures into the bush to relieve herself and is captured by the cannibals. Her naked body is then ripped apart as her search party can only listen to the blood-curdling screams. The next day when Donald is supposed to be keeping watch, he and Maggie slip off into the jungle to finally find the site of a small plane crash, the one which they had been searching for. They uncover a case with two small, leather pouches full of diamonds. Donald then apparently overcomes his impotency as they immediately have celebratory sex on the jungle floor. The cannibals take this chance to wound Donald and carry Maggie away. The rest of the group then comes to Donald’s rescue, salvages a blow-up boat and some flares from the plane crash, and sets off towards the cannibals’ island. The rescue mission splits into two groups and soon Emanuelle and Mark look on from the trees as Salvador is killed and Isabel and Donald are taken hostage. The final scene takes a turn for the worst as the nauseating cannibalism continues. Isabel is quickly drugged, while Maggie is gouged in the genitalia and the cannibals ravenously pull out her insides. Donald, who is already faint with what he has witnessed, is then sliced in half by the pulling of a taut rope around his waist. Watching from the trees, Mark quietly explains to Emanuelle that what they are witnessing is probably the annual Feast of Fertility on the full moon, and the tribe will use Isabel as their pregnant sacrifice to the Goddess of the Waters. Just as Emanuelle interjects that Isabel isn’t pregnant, the first of the cannibals has his way with Isabel’s drugged body. Unable to watch the succession of rape, Emanuelle and Mark sneak away to the river where Emanuelle gets the idea to paint the tribe’s tattoo on her belly and then rise naked from the water just as the cannibals are about to sacrifice Isabel on the sacrificial stone at the water’s edge. The plan works perfectly and Emanuelle ushers Isabel to the safety of the water in front of the astonished cannibals. But as the women begin to swim hurriedly away, the tribe becomes wise and chases after them in canoes. Tension mounts as Mark tries in vain to start the motorboat and the cannibals paddle closer, but the motor soon roars to life and the three foreigners speed away. Now out of harm's way, Emanuelle takes a moment to ponder the events and the carnage of the last few days, and realizes with dismay that a journalist will do almost anything for a story.

Stemming from the fact that this genre of film is a blemish on the face of the movie industry, Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals certainly doesn’t do much in terms of promoting the Amazon as a tourist destination. From quicksand to cannibals to poisonous animals, the characters encounter at every turn the dangers which they’ve been warned about. The film portrays the all-male tribe as mindless and flesh-obsessed, and gives them the erroneous title of ‘the last cannibals’. Emanuelle’s editor continues this inaccuracy by classifying the cannibals’ traditional tattoo as Aztec; even though the Aztec Empire was located in Central America, not Brazil. It is also left hanging as to why the blonde, white woman from the first scene would have been raised in the care of such flesh-eating men. Such blunders make the statement: “True story as reported by Jennifer O’Sullivan”, which appears in the beginning credits, laughable. Perhaps Miss O’Sullivan had been actively indulging in opana, the same narcotic that allegedly triggered the tribe’s cannibalistic nature, when she reported such an account.

The Mission

2009-03-14T13:01:00.000-07:00

The period piece The Mission (1986) is set in the 18th century of what is now southern Brazil, when the struggle for territory surged between the Portuguese and Spanish colonists and an even greater war was waged between Jesuit missionaries and slave traders over the lives of the indigenous people populating the area.

The death of a priest at the hands of the Guarani, an indigenous tribe, is the first event to set in motion the main plot of the film. Due to the guilt of sending the previous priest there to encounter his death, Father Gabriel (Jeremy Irons) treks to the Guarani village above the majestic, but treacherous, waterfalls, deep in the heart of the jungle. There Father Gabriel meets the Gaurani and at first is accepted as an oddity as he quietly plays his flute by a stream and the tribe’s hunters silently surround him to listen. The Guarani then accept him as one of their own as he teaches them about Christianity and begins to build a mission. Alas, this realm of harmony does not last. While out in the jungle, several Guarani hunters are captured by the slave hunter Captain Rodrigo Mendoza (Robert De Niro) and brought to the settlement of Asunción to be traded to the Portuguese. This troubles Father Gabriel because these slave hunters have never before ventured above the falls. Back in Asunción, Rodrigo’s life slowly spirals out of control as finds out that his girlfriend, Carlotta, has fallen in love with Rodrigo’s brother, Felipe, during Rodrigo’s absence. Rodrigo’s jealous rage leads him to slay his brother in a duel. Seeing as the law can not touch him because the death occurred in a consensual duel, Rodrigo retreats to a cell-like room of the church to seek the penance of being his brother’s killer, a penance which he can not achieve through civil law. It is here that Gabriel comes across him and agrees to bring him back to the Guarani village to help him overcome his grief. Rodrigo physically carries the burden of his brother’s death in the form of a sack of metal armour which he laboriously lugs up the mountain. He has now taken upon himself the role of that which he once hunted: a slave. Upon reaching the village, the Guarani hold a knife to the throat of this known slave-trader, but when Gabriel motions for them to let him live, they instead cut the rope to the sack of armour which attached Rodrigo physically and metaphorically to his shame. This act of compassion brings Rodrigo to tears as the tribesman, the priests, and Rodrigo all embrace and join in a bout of joyous laughter.

The power of the indigenous people’s kindness soon permeates Rodrigo and he commits his life to being a Jesuit priest. The priests work side-by-side with the Guarani as they construct the San Carlos Mission, learn the indigenous language, and convert many to Christianity. But again this harmony does not last as His Eminency, Altamirano (Ray McNally) of the European Papacy, arrives in Asunción to try to decide through the power of the Church what is to be done with these indigenous people, causing all the priests in the Guarani village to return to the colony. There they lobby against the transfer of Guarani territory to Portugal as this would invite the Portuguese to enlist all the Guarani people as slaves. The Spanish support this land transfer as, unbeknownst to the Church, they secretly take part in the slave trade. The decision rests with Altamirano and so he decides to visit several of the surrounding Jesuit missions to see how the conversion to Christianity is progressing. His findings are impressive: indigenous people living on the morals of the church and discovering their own unique talents via the arts and music. Yet, the tremendous pressure from greedy Spanish and Portuguese colonists, who desire the Guarani territory and its inhabitants, still weighs heavy on Altamirano, and so Gabriel invites him to journey to the San Carlos Mission to help him clear his head. Here, Altamirano is overwhelmed with the spiritual and cultural ‘advancement’ of the Guarani but, much to Gabriel’s dismay, he still decides to give the territory to Portugal though the historic Treaty of Madrid (1750), which would cast the Guarani out of the protection of the Church. His Eminency asks the Guarani to retreat from the mission back into the jungle, but the Guarani accept the mission as their home now and choose to fight instead.

The decision of the Church ignites a fire of hostility in all the priests as they revoke their vows of obedience; all except Gabriel, who chooses, after much deliberation, to fight this decision with love instead of with brute force. The other priests are led by ex-mercenary Rodrigo in a plan that would attack the advancing Portuguese forces from the river and the jungle. Scenes of the brutal and heartless round-up of indigenous slaves in the colonies prophesize the same cruelty about to befall the Guarani. Although the priests lay several clever traps and catch the Portuguese troops by surprise, they still fail to defeat the advancing threat. Several of the priests are killed among the multitude of Guarani during the preliminary fight scenes. At a crucial moment in the battle when Rodrigo is about to blow up a bridge, he instead turns to help two small Guarani children get to safety. This demonstrates his complete transformation of compassion from mercenary to Jesuit priest, but also allows the Portuguese to invade the village. The Guarani women and children, led by Gabriel holding a gold crucifix, walk slowly through the burning village as arrows fly through the air, piercing bodies randomly. Rodrigo is shot and shortly after an arrow kills Gabriel. Rodrigo’s last vision is of Gabriel collapsing to the ground and the Guarani crowd picking up the crucifix to continue their slow march to certain death; an image which shows the moral accomplishment achieved by the priests, but also their epic failure as both versions of the priests’ resistance prove unsuccessful. The film ends with Altamirano questioning the colony leaders about the slaughter of the Guarani, but still knowing that he had ultimately sanctioned the purpose for their deaths. The few Guarani children left alive are then shown rowing a canoe up-river, away from the lives they had known and the carnage that now remains.

The film portrays two feuding sides: first, the mercenaries against the Jesuit priests, followed by the Jesuit priests disputing the colonists and the Church in the name of protecting indigenous rights; and with the Guarani people constantly wedged in the middle of it all. Rodrigo personifies the transition of these two battles as his character finds its vitality and purpose through his connection to the indigenous tribe. But as was seen in the film, this harmony can not be maintained. Even in real life, South America and its indigenous cultures are seen only as a massive chunk of territory ready for the taking by foreigners and South American governments alike. This is displayed most boldly by the fact that the film-makers had attempted to use the actual Guarani people to perform in the movie, but instead decided on the Waunana, a Colombian tribe, when the Guarani proved to be too assimilated and desolate for any use. How ironic that the cultural propagation presented in the film is sent spiraling by the present situation of the Guarani people. The reality that the culture of the Waunana tribe is also nearing the point of extinction presents the question of when this vicious cycle of assimilation will end.

Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights

2009-03-13T14:48:00.000-07:00

Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (2004) is the sequel to 1987’s Dirty Dancing; and while it still maintains the common theme of social-class segregation, where the rich girl discovers her true disposition through dancing with the poor heart-throb, this newer version also introduces the aspect of interracial relationships. It begins with Katey Miller (Romola Garai) reluctantly moving with her family to Havana, Cuba, in her last year of high school because her father was offered a position there through the Ford automobile company. The date is November 1958, and while most girls are thinking about Elvis, Katey is reading Jane Austen and determined to go to college. Katey describes her feelings about coming to Cuba in three thoughts: her high school Spanish will be worthless, Fidel Castro leading a revolution against President Batista, and she doesn’t know anyone. While Katey is an isolated brainiac, her younger sister, Suzie, quickly makes friends with the other displaced American teenagers living in the resort which is their home while in Cuba. James (Jonathon Jackson), the son of Katey’s father’s boss, immediately takes a liking to Katey’s subtle intelligence, but she is constantly ridiculed by the popular socialite Eve. Becoming flustered, Katey accidentally knocks over the tray of a near-by waiter (Diego Luna), spilling all the drinks. Eve mutters, “Stupid spic” loud enough for him to hear as he walks away. Katey is disgusted at this remark, and she quickly looks for the waiter in order to apologize and pay for the drinks. She attempts her shaky Spanish and is met with the defiant response of, “I speak English, and I don’t need your charity.” The next day, Katey misses her bus at school and sees the same Cuban waiter dancing in the street as she walks home, but this time she is drawn to his energy and charm as he dances free-style to the afro-Cuban beats. He soon notices her and, after introducing himself as Javier,offers to walk her home. On the walk, they encounter a street band playing serene music to a crowd of onlookers. Suddenly, Javier attempts to usher a surprised Katey off the street with the explanation that she doesn’t know what the song means, just as dozens of policeman swarm in on the crowd. The two are separated and Katey returns to her resort.

The next day, Katey attempts some of the sexy dance moves she saw Javier use and is mortified when she realizes that he had been watching her the whole time. He invites her to the local club La Rosa Negra, but she reluctantly refuses as she is scheduled instead to be at the country club that night with James. The country club proves to Katey to be a boring replica of American life, minus the striking red dress she borrowed from a hotel maid, and she asks James to take her to La Rosa Negra. In the local club, Katey is spellbound by the thriving mass of flesh before her and chooses to dance the night away with Javier; much to the frustration of James, who is confronted and threathened by Javier’s revolutionary-minded brother, Carlos. James manages to finally steal Katey away and then attempts to make-out with her in his car. Katey slaps James after his sickening attempt to woo her, and dashes back into the club to Javier. The two walk back to the hotel together, unaware that they are being watched by Suzie and Eve. The next day, Javier is fired for ‘mingling with the guests’.

Katey searches for Javier and finds him in a ‘chop shop’ painting stolen cars. In attempts to smooth things over, she suggests that they enter the Amateur Latin Ballroom Dance contest, which Katey had learned about from the resort’s dance instructor (played by Patrick Swayze, the original heart-throb of Dirty Dancing). Javier just laughs because although Katey has dancing background from her parents who used to be professional dancers, she doesn’t exactly have that ‘Latin’ vibe. However, the tempting lure of the $5,000 prize money and a trip to America, which would solve Javier’s family’s economic crisis, gives the pair a reason to start practicing to win. Despite their different dancing styles and frustrations, the two gradually begin to grow closer and attempt to keep their romance a secret from Katey’s parents. Javier divulges to Katey that his father was taken from their home one night by Batista’s police under suspicion of being a revolutionary. Due to all the political unrest in Cuba, Javier proclaims that if they win the contest, he will bring his family to America. The final tweak to their routine comes when the dance teacher informs Katey that she has to connect with her fear of this Latin dancing in order to connect with her partner.

The semi-finals take place at The Palace, a haven of socialites which Carlos refers to as ‘Batista’s Playground’, and Javier and Katey’s romance is revealed to everyone. Although they make it to the finals, Katey’s parents are appalled that she would lie to them. Her mother cannot accept that her daughter is interested in Javier and that she would “kiss a Cuban in front of everyone.” The fight with her mother compels Katey to spend the night at Javier’s where she tells him that she never wants to leave Cuba. The next morning Katey makes amends with her mother and is given the blessing to continue in the contest. Katey and Javier compete last in the finals and are doing a sensational performance, when suddenly Carlos and other revolutionaries, posing as waiters at The Palace, begin shooting guns which creates chaos as everyone runs to the exit. Javier sprints after Carlos and manages to save his brother’s life just as a policeman puts a gun to his head in the deserted kitchen. The two escape and then argue about the morals of the revolution. Their feud is finally dissolved through the compassion of their brotherly bond at the exact moment that a commotion is heard in the streets. The people of Cuba are celebrating that President Batista has fled the country. Javier spends the night with Katey in a beach cabana and in the morning the two of them discuss their future. Katey is disappointed that, due to the revolution, Javier would rather stay in his own country than travel to America. Katey’s family, along with all the other Americans at the resort, decide to leave Cuba for their safety. Katey goes to Javier’s house for a final tearful good-bye. The two proclaim that they will never be without one another in their hearts and begin to sway to a silent beat in Javier’s courtyard. The last scene shows them at the local club with the coveted title of King and Queen of La Rosa Negra.

The blithe plot of this film rides along the spiky ridge of a politically-charged period in Cuban history from November 1958 to January 1959, marking the climax of the Cuban revolution. Katey’s family personifies the many American corporations which took up residence in Cuba while the country was under Batista’s rule. Havana is displayed through their eyes as a foreign playground for the rich; and although Katey is able to dive into the rich Cuban culture, the rest of the ‘gringos’ keep a racial division via their segregated resort. The opposite Cuban image is embodied in Carlos, an active member of the revolution’s uprising. His comments add texture to the motivation behind the common people against Batista. Javier’s life displays a young man striving to sustain his family and culture in a country where there’s “not such a thing as ‘just singing’ anymore”. The plot places America as an architect in Batista’s evil rule, due to the earlier trade relations between the two countries. Albeit that the main characters attempted a mixing of races with their love affair, in the end they do not win the dance competition and they cannot stay together, signifying the separation of relations between Cuba and America post-revolution. The movie may state at its opening that the events are based on a true story, but this is accurate only when viewed on the larger stage of the political dance of that era between the U.S. and Cuba.

Rough Riders’ Round-up

2009-03-11T11:07:00.000-07:00

Rough Riders’ Round-up (1939) is one of the earlier films featuring the suave singing cowboy Roy Rogers and, like so many Westerns set on the Mexico-U.S. border, centers around a retrieval mission for an American outlaw gone south.

The film opens announcing that the Rough Riders have returned from Cuba, which was an actual American military force led by Theodore Roosevelt in the Spanish-American War. The men are sent to assist the border patrol in Arizona, where the gangster Arizona Jack has been raiding ranches and then hiding out in Mexico. The dilemma is that even though the border patrol chief wants to pursue Arizona Jack, a Mexican mayor reminds him that due to the present state of political tension he is unlikely to be given permission to enter Mexico with an army. When the Rough Riders visit a cantina, the chief orders the central characters Roy Rogers, Rusty Coburn, and Tommy Ward to detain a young woman traveling to Mexico and thereafter escort a carriage arriving from Mexico with $60,000 in gold. Unfortunately, a man working for Arizona Jack overhears this conversation and his gang brawls with the Rough Riders to make them miss the carriage. In the confusion, the girl escapes by hopping unknowingly into the carriage, Arizona Jack and his men chase the carriage down, rob its contents and kidnap the girl, and Tommy is fatally shot.

The chief holds Roy responsible for the casualties, the loss of the gold, and Arizona Jack’s escape and so suspends him from the border patrol. This is exactly the outcome Roy wanted, for his suspension means that he is no longer bound by border patrol regulations, and is thus free to bring Arizona Jack to justice. The villain, and his henchmen disguised as Mexicans, are hiding out in a small Mexican town. As soon as Roy and Rusty enter they are ambushed and locked in a room alongside the young woman, whose name is Dorothy Blair. She is fleeing from her father who disapproved of her marrying George Lanning, an employee at his Mexico-based mine. Unbeknown to the trio, Lanning is a crook who has been facilitating Arizona Jack’s robberies for a cut of the gold. Lanning tells Arizona Jack to let Dorothy go, but make it look like an escape so that he cannot be implicated. However, Roy sees through the deception. When Roy and Rusty escape, Roy sends Rusty to bring the other Rough Riders to Mexico, and goes to tell the Blairs that they have been swindled.

Arizona Jack and his men lay siege to the Blair homestead while Roy leads the father and daughter out the back door. Just in the nick of time, Rusty arrives with the Rough Riders and they round up the swiftly surrendering Arizona Jack gang. The final scene shows a fireside meeting with Roy and Rusty, the border patrol chief and the Mexican mayor, and the Blairs. The chief and the mayor, both accountable to the bureaucratic demands of their institutions, establish that they will be vague on the geographic details when reporting on these events so as to not cause strife between their countries. They also tell Roy and Rusty that they are willing to overlook their procedural “irregularities” and the hero receives a modest, yet grateful, handshake from the Blairs. It is fitting that in the film, produced during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, all is finally resolved in a "fireside chat."

For such a simple plot, Rough Riders’ Round-up has an incredibly well-developed geopolitical context. The themes of hegemony, interventionism and national security crop up throughout, themes that were just as important to Americans when the film was set (1900, post Spanish-American War) as when it was made (1939, beginning of World War II). The Spanish-American War was motivated by an American foreign policy that was expansionist and also sought to expel foreign influence from the hemisphere. In Rough Riders’ Round-up, the U.S. secured the Caribbean by replacing Spain as the regional hegemon, and then had to exercise diplomacy with Mexico while at the same time securing its southern border. The result is that the previously open border is sealed off with bureaucratic red tape. For example, Dorothy is surprised to learn that she needs a passport to enter Mexico due to border patrol being tougher these days, and when Roy hears her plan to evade the border patrol he sternly detains her. The military as well as civilians must respect closed border policy; while the countries are in a diplomatically tense period, the border patrol chief cannot take his troops south as he once did. Fortunately for him Roy Rogers exists, a hero who represents an exemption from non-interventionist rules in a time of crisis, and ultimately saves the day.

Rough Riders’ Round-up depicts Mexico as benign, but it does so in an unusual way: by playing with the typical negative cinematic portrayal of Mexicans, it makes a conscious attempt to confront the its viewers' prejudices. Western movie audiences, especially of that era, were accustomed to the villains being Mexican banditos. This iconography is present in Rough Riders’ Round-up, but in the form of the Arizona Jack gang disguising themselves as Mexican banditos. Viewers must adjust their expectations when realizing that the threat comes from Americans, not Mexicans. In contrast, the main Mexican character, the mayor with whom the border patrol chief is perpetually consorting, is represented as having a refined character and being committed to cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico. He rationally dissuades the chief from crossing the border, and then diplomatically handles the fact that Roy crosses it anyway. When Roy and Rusty are locked-up next to a melodramatically behaving Dorothy, Roy says to her, “Trouble with you is you’ve been reading the wrong kind of novels” and Rusty adds, “and this happens to be a true story.” In this scene, the film makes a self-referential jab at the exaggeration typical of the Western genre, positing itself as the truthful projection of the Old West and its southern neighbour.

The Motorcycle Diaries

2009-03-10T15:42:00.000-07:00

The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) is a biopic based on the memoir of 23-year old Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, who would becomethe iconic Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara. The film recounts his journey across South America, mainly by motorbike, with his friend Alberto Granado. The screenplay is based on Guevara's travelogue Diarios de motocicleta and Granado's book Back on the Road: A Journey Through Latin America. The pair travelled 14,000 kilometres across Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Colombia to Venezuela. Ernesto Guevara is played by Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal, and Granado is played by Argentine Rodrigo de la Serna, who is actually Che's second cousin.

The journey begins in January 1952, a semester before Ernesto "Fuser" Guevara is due to complete his medical degree, with a specialization in leprosy. He and his 29-year old friend Alberto Granado, a biochemist, leave Buenos Aires to travel the South American continent in search of adventure. They want to cover 8,000 miles in just four months, hoping to reach Venezuela in time for Alberto's 30th birthday, on April 2. Their mode of transport is Alberto's ancient 1939 Norton 500 motorcycle, christened "La Poderosa" ("The Mighty One"). Leaving behind their families in Buenos Aires, they head first to Miramar, where Ernesto's girlfriend Chichina lives with her extremely wealthy family. After spending six days at her mansion, Ernesto bids her a heartbroken goodbye, and she gives him fifteen dollars to buy her a bathing suit in case they get to America. They continue on their way, relying on the generosity of their countrymen for food and shelter, getting to know people in each place. As they cross the border into Chile, it begins to snow. They reach Temuco, Chile, where La Poderosa breaks down. Looking to get the bike repaired for free, Ernesto goes to the local newspaper and invents a big story about their being important doctors. The story convinces a mechanic to fix their bike for nothing. That night, at a dance at the Temuco city hall, the mechanic's wife gets very close to Ernesto, and the mechanic and his buddies chase Ernesto and Alberto out of town on their newly fixed bike. A few days later, however, they crash into a cow and the motorcycle is finally rendered useless. They catch a ride on the back of a truck to Valparaiso, Chile, where Ernesto receives a letter from Chichina breaking up with him. From there they embark on a hike across the hostile wasteland of the Atacama desert. They come across a pair of indigenous Communists who have been persecuted for their beliefs and wander the country searching for work, this time at the dangerous mines of Chuquicamata. When they reach the mines, Ernesto is enraged at the exploitation of the workers by the mining company.

They cross the border into Peru and stop at Cuzco, where they learn about the expropriation of the Quechua people's age-old lands, and the suffering caused by the lack of money and work in the region. Ernesto and Alberto trek the Inca trail to Machu Picchu, where Alberto is inspired by the idea of a peaceful indigenous revolution, to which Ernesto responds, "A revolution without guns? It will never work." They continue to Lima, where Dr. Hugo Pesce, a leading leprosy expert, houses and clothes them for some time. He also takes them to visit his hospital, teaches them about the history of the South American Indian, and gives them books to read about revolution. He takes them inland and puts them on a ship up the Amazon river with the destination of the San Pablo Leper Colony. The ride up the river is a slow one. Alberto falls in love with the ship's prostitute, Luz, but he has no money to pay her. He desperately asks Ernesto for his $15, but Ernesto reveals that he gave the money to the mining couple in the Atacama desert. In the end, Alberto manages to win enough at blackjack to spend the night with the lovely Luz.

Five days later, on June 8, the two Argentines reach the San Pablo Leper Colony, where they will volunteer for three weeks. The river divides the leper colony in two: one bank is inhabited by the lepers, while the other is inhabited by the healthy nuns, doctors, and volunteers that care for them. Here, Ernesto sees both physically and metaphorically the division of society between the suffering masses and the healthy ruling class. He refuses to wear rubber gloves when he visits the lepers, shaking bare hands with them despite the nuns' rules. In the following weeks, he and Alberto spend all their time with the lepers, in leisure and in helping to treat their illness. On their final night at the colony, Guevara confirms his nascent egalitarian beliefs with a birthday toast which is his first political speech. In it he evokes a pan-Latin American identity that transcends the arbitrary boundaries of nation and race. Ernesto's encounters with social injustice have transformed the way his sees the world, and by implication have motivated his later political activities as a revolutionary. Ernesto makes his symbolic final journey that night, despite his debilitating asthma, when he swims across the river to the leper's side because he would like to celebrate his birthday with them, showing his rejection of the wealth and aristocracy of his birth and foreshadowing his future struggle for the human dignity in which he believes. The two men are given a raft by the colony's doctors and embark down the Amazon on the final leg of their journey into Colombia. They finish in Caracas, Venezuela, where Alberto Granado is offered a job in the Cabo Blanco hospital there. Ernesto hitches a ride on a cargo plane back to Argentina. As they part, Ernesto tells Alberto that this voyage has given him much to think about, that "Wandering around our America has changed me more than I thought. I am not me any more. At least I'm not the same me I was." At the film's end, the viewer is informed that it will be eight years until they meet again, in Havana, where Ernesto "Che" Guevara will have led the Cuban Revolution and Granado will open a hospital. Then, the real Alberto Granado, who is 82 years old, makes a cameo appearance, in a sequence interspersed with images of the indigenous people Ernesto and Alberto have encountered on their journey.

As Ernesto and Alberto cross of thousands of miles of South America, from one country to another, the borders between each country dissolve and the continent itself emerges as whole, one entity united in its people. The sweeping landscape scenes show an immense geographical diversity, from dense forests to snowy mountains to arid deserts to thick jungle, from the wild to the rural to the urban. Yet in each place the two Argentines feel that they are connected to the people, to the land, and its history. The injustices and suffering of poor Latin Americans are not confined by borders; they characterize of the continent as a whole. History has drawn a sharp line between the small number of wealthy people and the vast impoverished masses they exploit, expropriate, and ignore. How can it be that a place as mystical and intelligent as Machu Picchu has been replaced by the sprawling, ugly Lima as a centre of civilization? Something in Latin America has gone wrong, and something needs to be fixed. The testimonies of the many downtrodden South Americans that he encounters inspire Ernesto to begin his search for this solution.

The Latin America of The Motorcycle Diaries is sad, beautiful, and timeless. The vivid scenes could have taken place in the 1950s or today; they would appear the same. Although Che Guevara dedicated his life to the fight for equality of Latin Americans, it seems that the inspiration for his cause remains the same. The film's focus on the issues of indigenous rights, poverty, land rights, and alienation highlight their relevance in today's Latin America, and seek to inspire the idealistic and socially conscious core of today's generations.

The Alamo

2009-03-09T19:03:00.000-07:00

The Alamo (1960), directed by and starring John Wayne, shares the same narrative elements of other films in its genre, but with the difference that it goes to surprising lengths to humanize the enemy Mexican army and show positive relationships between Mexicans and Anglo-Americans. The majority of this epic feature is not dedicated to the battle itself, which after all was a devastating American loss, but instead to the drama preceding it, which shows how American heroism lead to the creation of the Republic of Texas.

The film opens with a conversation between General Sam Huston and Colonel Travis that gives the viewer the key facts of the incipient tale. Huston has command over Texan armies trying to repel the forces of Mexican president Santa Anna, who is advancing northward to quell dissent among American settlers in Mexican-owned Texas. The problem is that these armies hardly exist, so he charges Colonel Travis with buying him time until he can assemble and train his men. San Antonio is located about two days ride from where Huston is encamped. This is where Travis and his twenty-seven soldiers are to hold off Santa Anna, who is rumoured to be marching with 7,000 battle-hardened troops. Soon Colonel Bowie arrives with 100 volunteers. Tension between the men is immediately apparent. Bowie missed the meeting with Huston due to a hangover and is incredulous that they are to protect the broken-down mission with their meager forces against the daunting Mexican army. More assistance arrives with Davy Crockett (played by John Wayne) and his band of twenty-three coonskin-capped Tennesseans.

Subsequent events serve to illustrate the characters of three leading men. Bowie is a rugged individual who is constantly rubbed the wrong way by Travis's upper-class airs and military formalities. Crockett is multi-faceted, able to play the eloquent ex-congressman when not performing his folksy attitude amongst the Tennesseans, and becomes the intermediary between the other two. While the Mexican army masses outside the Alamo's walls, an argument occurs between the men as to boost morale Travis wants to exaggerate the number of troops that one General Fannon is bringing to their aid, while Bowie detests lying to his men and wants to retreat. Arguments worsen when Bowie and Crockett takes matters into their own hands by leading the men to sabotage a militarily strategic Mexican cannon; the plan works out but Travis is infuriated and threatens to have Bowie arrested. However, the men learn to work together, coordinating to steal Mexican beef cattle, and despite having little hope of crushing Santa Anna and their jarring personality differences, each man decides to stay and fight for the Alamo.

On the first morning of battle, Santa Anna makes a surprising show of gallantry by informing those in the Alamo that they have one hour to evacuate women and children, and that they will be provided with transportation to a destination of their choice. The non-combatants leave, with the exception of Captain Dickinson's brave wife, after which the battle commences. Though a third of the American garrison is lost to casualties, morale is still high at the end of the day. However, the leaders know that Santa Anna underestimated them and will redouble his efforts tomorrow, and they receive the devastating news that General Fannon’s reinforcement army has been ambushed. Interestingly, Travis does not, as Alamo legend suggests, deliver a rousing speech about liberty and draw a line in the sand for loyal men to cross, but instead opens the gates and gives them honorable leave. Despite this, the men follow Bowie in standing by Travis, signifying their allegiance. The next day the battle takes place, a grim spectacle that claims the life of every American man. The film closes as the Mexican army find a terrified Mrs. Dickinson hiding with her daughter and a Mexican boy, but then stand to attention as she walks through them, over the horizon towards General Huston.

The Alamo fleshes out the personalities of the familiar American heroes, patriotically displays American heroism and commitment to individual freedom, and idealizes race relations. The latter point is carried through to a surprising degree. Unlike other Alamo adaptations which vilify Mexicans, this film both posits harmonious relations between Mexicans and Anglo-Americans, as well as uniquely humanizes its enemy. Bowie angrily jumps to the defense of the Mexican mayor when Travis treats him with racist suspicion when he offers information about Santa Anna. Bowie, who is married to a Mexican woman, speaks highly of Mexicans to Crockett when he says “they’ve got courage, they’ve got dignity, they ain’t afraid to die. And what seems important to me is they ain’t afraid to live. Today’s important to them, not the dollar tomorrow might bring.” Crockett also becomes briefly, but platonically, involved with a Mexican woman who alerts him to a stash of gunpowder and rifles. So the film projects a positive role for Mexicans in the Battle of the Alamo: not only are they friends and family of Americans, but they offer information and arms against Mexico in favour of Texas.

Even the Mexicans who are assaulting the Alamo are portrayed as fighting with the same bravery, dying with the same dignity, and acting upon the same sense of justice as the Americans. The Alamo goes so far as to strain the limits of credibility when, following the stress of battle, two men gaze admiringly down at their enemy and say: “Sure killed many a brave man today” and “Funny, I was proud of them, even while I was killing them, I was proud of them.” Santa Anna is portrayed as noble adversary, but the opening credits call his government “tyrannical” and an affront to the American values of liberty and republicanism. The Alamo still posits a battle between good and evil, with Santa Anna firmly in the latter camp, but not all Mexicans are connected to this figure. In this film Mexicans occupy contradictory positions: they are both friend and foe, foreigner and countryman.

Selena

2009-03-07T17:28:00.001-08:00

The biopic Selena (1997) begins with an excited Selena Quintanilla-Pérez (played by Jennifer Lopez) surrounded by supportive family and friends and getting prepared to sing in the Houston Astrodome, February 26, 1995, to what reporters say is the arena’s largest crowd ever. But how did she get here? What’s the story behind Selena’s rise to fame? And so the movie gives a flashback to Corpus Christi, Texas, 1961, with Selena’s father, Abraham (Edward James Olmos), singing 50s love songs in a Mexican barbershop trio.

This talented trio is called The Dinos, and they are continually turned down by owners of white clubs because they are Mexican, and also refused by Mexican clubs because the group only knows "gringo music." Caught between two competing worlds, Abraham is haunted by memories of rejection until 1981, in Lake Jackson, Texas, when his nine-year-old daughter Selena takes an interest in her father’s hobby of singing his old tunes. Her interest sparks an idea in Abraham to start a family band, although "family" means only his son and two daughters, not himself. He forces the children to practice the music and even opens up a Mexican restaurant (for all those gringos that like Mexican food) so that he can showcase "Selena y Los Dinos" playing songs like “Blue Moon” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” His wife fears that he is becoming obsessed with music again and living vicariously through his children, but Abraham insists that Selena has the talent to make it big and he continues to get publicity for the children, even after the restaurant goes broke due to "Reaganomics" and they have to leave their home. The children become depressed when they realize that their music isn’t as big a hit in the county fairs as it was in the restaurant because the Tejano audience enjoys only male performers. Then one day, in hopes of cheering up Selena, her mother teaches her the Cumbia dance moves of "the washing machine," which Selena uses to liven up the act. From here a star is born.

The film jumps to 1989 in El Paso, Texas, with the family band playing to huge crowds at the county fair and Selena slowly becoming a sensation. Her fame is shown in many amusing situations, such as when the tour bus becomes stuck off the side of the road and two very tough-looking Mexicans with tattoos and goatees almost trip over each other at the chance of helping "Selenas." Her father continues to push for the big time, and although Selena is just as driven as he is, she still finds herself yearning for a normal life, one which offers someone whom she can love. Enter Chris Pérez (Jon Seda), a wild, rebel guitarist with long hair and ripped jeans, brought into the band despite Abraham’s complaints. After the family cleans up Chris's image, sparks begin to fly between him and Selena. On their tour of California, Chris lets his punk friends trash his hotel room and as a result is almost fired by the enraged Abraham. Chris declares to Selena that acts like a punk because she’s too good for him, and she responds that he is simply trying to keep up an image that isn’t him. After this encounter, their love blooms though Abraham becomes suspicious of their romance. The band members also become apprehensive of what this will do to the performances, but everything appears to be going well with their new number one song and a promising tour in Mexico.

Abraham is hesitant to let his daughter perform in Mexico because although her songs are all in Spanish, it is not her native language. Still scarred from his own experiences as a singer, he exclaims that the Mexicans don’t accept Mexican-Americans; in fact, stuck in cultural limbo they constantly have to be more Mexican than the Mexicans and more American than the Americans! But Selena is persistent and shows her star quality when she charms the Mexican press which leads to an incredibly successful Mexican tour. Yet, despite all this good exposure, Abraham still can not tolerate Selena dating Chris and so he fires him, causing the two to take their relationship into hiding. Finally Selena is fed up with the situation and she and Chris marry without her father’s consent. Abraham is at first enraged, but then, when Selena returns home with her new husband, her father realizes that he had pushed her to do it and he is proud that she made the decision on her own. Selena’s family then welcomes Chris with open arms.

After this, success can not seem to stay away from the 20-year-old Selena. She opens clothing boutiques with her own designs, wins a Grammy, and starts to record an English cross-over album. She and Chris even talk about having kids. But Abraham comes to Selena with suspicions that her business and fan club manager, Yolanda Saldavar, has been swindling money and writing odd cheques. Selena is incredulous until they confront Yolanda and her pleas of innocence seem doubtful; yet they still allow Yolanda to work for them as long as she accounts for all the finances. This brings the film back to its beginning with the 1995 performance at the Houston Astrodome, Selena’s shining moment as a cross-over artist. Suddenly, we are confronted with images from a newscast and the reporter stating that the beloved singer Selena has been shot by her employee Yolanda Saldavar after they had met to go over some finances. The finale of the biopic of this admired human being flashes scenes of her family receiving the news of her death in the hospital, a solitary microphone in an empty arena, and thousands of fans, with pictures of the real Selena, holding a candlelight vigil for the untimely death of a star in her prime.

Selena contains compelling plot similarities to La Bamba, another biopic of a Mexican-American star cut down in his prime. Yet these two singers accepted their cultural backgrounds in a different ways, with Ritchie trying to be more white while Selena embraced her Mexican roots (although they were foreign to her) and attempted to cross over to English recordings from there. Her father, who was plagued with ambivalence about his own dual identity, made sure that Selena was able to sing in Spanish from a young age, even teaching her to trill a Spanish ‘r’ at age eight. He insists that as Mexican-Americans they need to speak English perfectly for the whites and they need to speak Spanish perfectly for the Mexicans, and therefore they “gotta be twice as perfect as everybody else!” The film displays the sentiment that in the 1950s, crossing over was simply not possible for either Abraham or Ritchie Valens, but that by the 1990s Selena could prove that such opinions had been changed. Not only did she achieve a cultural cross-over, but she became the top Mexican-American performer of her time, male or female, and ultimately was accepted on both sides of the border for who she was.

The Forbidden Dance is Lambada

2009-03-06T15:12:00.000-08:00

It appears as though the film-makers were confused when naming the The Forbidden Dance is Lambada (1990), as the movie should have been titled simply “So Bad, It Should Be Forbidden”, due to the appalling acting and B-movie storyline. The plot begins deep in the Amazon jungles of Brazil at the village of a small indigenous tribe where the Chief’s daughter Nisa (Laura Herring) is participating in an erotic ritualized dance with the rest of the village which captures the catch-phrase of the film: “If it were any hotter, it wouldn’t be dancing!” Suddenly, the festivities are cut short as a jeep roars into the clearing. A white man introduces himself as Benjamin Maxwell, representative of the Petramco Corporation which now apparently owns the land on which the tribe lives and has invested in burning through the Amazon for resources. The Chief spits on Benjamin, but conflict is prevented when Nisa yells, “Stop!” and tries to reason with the men that this is the tribe’s home. Benjamin is impressed with her English, but refuses to back down, while the jeeps continue to drive through several of the near-by huts, literally destroying the indigenous culture. After a small discussion, the Chief allows Nisa to go to America to facilitate an agreement with Petramco, under the protection and guidance of Joa (Sid Haig), the tribal shaman. The two bring their hope and foreign customs to Los Angeles and Joa is immediately arrested after an impressive pyrotechnics show in the Petramco lobby. Nisa escapes and is rescued in a park by a Mexican maid named Carmen (Ángela Moya) who immediately gets the penniless Nisa a job. Nisa’s employer is a stuck-up, racist snob who descibes her last maid as a “Mexican girl, thick as a brick”. As Nisa gets ready for bed that night, she sensually dances around in her nighty, using the dresser and lace curtains in her room as props, and is spotted by her employer’s son, Jason (Jeff James), who immediately invites her out to the club with him, as his girlfriend couldn’t make it.

At the club, Nisa feels uncomfortable with the foreign eighties, synthesized music, and not to mention the fact that Jason lies to his friends about her being a maid, when the DJ unexpectedly begins playing a Brazilian-esque beat. The dance floor immediately clears, but Nisa pleads with Jason to stay and dance with her as she shows him the sexy moves and gyrating hips of the Lambada. The dance is a hit as everyone joins in, much to the disappointment of Jason’s recently arrived girlfriend, Ashley (Barbra Brighton) who ‘accidentally’ rips the sleeve of Nisa’s dress, which Jason had borrowed from his mother. Upon arriving home, Nisa is immediately fired (much to Jason’s dismay), not only for the dress, but also for fraternizing with Jason. Nisa seeks refuge as a female dancer in the stripper joint The Exotica, where she naively believes she can dance for money, without men touching her. Ashley haughtily informs Jason of Nisa’s whereabouts after his friends mistreat her on The Exotica’s dance floor and he immediately goes to her rescue. At first Nisa is hardened to his assistance, but then begins to tell him the story of her tribe and their fight against Petramco. As Jason attempts to escort her away from The Exotica, the bodyguard jumps him. The fight does not go well for Jason until he is saved by Joa, who had stealthily escaped from police by using his skills as a ventriloquist to create tiger roars (of course). The three race to Jason’s home where they plead with his father to come to Nisa’s aid. His parents steadfastly refuse and disown Jason as he leaves the house. Now he is determined to help Nisa and they devise a plan to get national television via a dance competition for the Kid Creole Show so she can tell her story. Joa, Nisa, and Jason seek sanctuary at Carmen’s house, where the night turns to one of infatuation as Nisa and Jason finally give-in to their passions and Joa and Carmen also find companionship for the night. The next morning, they pool their funds and manage to send Joa home to speak with Nisa’s father about the situation, an act which Nisa fears because as of yet she has done nothing to further their cause.

Jason and Nisa relentlessly practice the Lambada to perfect it before the auditions. Meanwhile, Ashley has covertly contacted Benjamin of Petramco to tell him of Jason’s plan. As she is also trying out for the dance competition, it suits her own purposes to get Jason and Nisa out of the picture. At the auditions Ashley competes well, but the unanimous decision is for Nisa and Jason’s foreign spectacle of sexuality. Upon leaving the successful audition, the valet (and obvious flunky for Benjamin) hits Jason over the head with a champagne bottle and leaves him in his car in the dessert with Nisa nowhere to be found. Jason then tails Benjamin to an abandoned club where he has Nisa on stage. As Jason is breaking in through a side window, Benjamin asks Nisa to dance for him. When she refuses and he cites her family’s interests as collateral, Nisa becomes enraged and begins an exhilarating Lambada which enthralls Benjamin. At this point, Nisa spies Jason in the corner and continues to seduce Benjamin to dance with her so that Jason can come at him from behind. The two then flee, with their captors in hot pursuit. Before reaching the car, Jason falls and twists his ankle. They then arrive late to the national broadcast of the Kid Creole Show, but are unable to dance due to Jason’s ankle. Miraculously, Joa arrives backstage with the Chief and he immediately heals Jason’s ankle by using a live snake (the actual method we are not shown). Jason and Nisa perform perfectly and after the act Nisa tells the tribe’s story with the striking visual of her father beside her in indigenous clothing which sells her point even more. The charismatic Kid Creole immediately rallies the crowd in favor of the tribe and calls for a national boycott of all Petramco merchandise. The movie concludes with a relieved Jason and Nisa surrounded by a throng of crazed Lambada dancers.

Seeing as the film went from pitch to premiere in about three months, there’s a sneaking suspicion that The Forbidden Dance is Lambada was less a promotion of the environmental issues which surround the Brazilian rainforest, and more a movie that capitalizes on the so-called ‘Lambada dance craze’ of the 1980s. Although the plot is centered upon liberating Nisa’s tribe from international predators and is bookended at the beginning with shots of plumes of smoke rising from the Amazon and then ending with the caption: “This film is dedicated to the preservation of the rainforest”, the ignorance presented by the characters’ racist remarks, such as “wetback” and “Chiquita banana girl”, as well as the pigeonholing of Brazilian traits leaves much to be desired in terms of a film which truly supports the environmental and cultural issues which are presented. Brazil is displayed as a country buzzing with sexuality (where every citizen is born a dancer), but more importantly it is portrayed as a country with no political power whatsoever, seeing as Nisa needs to physically go to America in order to initiate any sentiment towards her cause. The white men are told not to fraternize with the Latin immigrants who are given the subordinate jobs of maids or concubines. In fact, the only true union is achieved when Jason and Nisa consummate their passions, but this is comically intertwined with Carmen making a grand show of slipping a condom under their door; a good deed to be sure, but also a symbol of an intolerance towards culture mixing. Above all, this film illustrates the “business is business” attitude which America displays towards the subordinate countries which supply the US with the resources it demands, no matter what the price.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

2009-03-06T12:32:00.000-08:00

Two American outlaws escaping to Bolivia at the turn of the century seems like improbable concept for a movie, but Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is loosely based on the real lives of Robert LeRoy Parker (alias Butch Cassidy) and Harry Longabaugh (alias the Sundance Kid). The history of this notorious duo is an amalgamation of fact, hearsay, journalistic sensationalism and American Old West mythmaking. What director George Roy Hill offers is a portrait of a powerful friendship that stayed true under the stresses of pursuit by lawmen who wanted them dead or alive, love for the same woman, relocation to a foreign continent, and the impossibility of escaping their past.

Early in the film, Cassidy (played by Paul Newman) explains his plan to Sundance (played by Robert Redford) to go prospecting in mineral-rich Bolivia. Cassidy is the brains of the operation while Sundance is a lightning fast gunslinger. When they return to the Hole in the Wall Gang hideout, a member challenges Cassidy for its leadership. Cassidy boots him in the crotch then appropriates the idea of robbing the Union Pacific Flyer twice, for its owners would refill the train with money not expecting a robbery on the return trip. After a successful hold-up, Cassidy and Sundance gloat on a balcony overlooking the mayor, who is ineffectually trying to rally townsfolk to catch the Gang. We meet Etta, who while being the devoted girlfriend of the gruff and reticent Sundance, has a tender relationship with the affable Cassidy. This is illustrated in a dialogue-free interlude where they ride a bike and monkey about in the countryside to the soundtrack of “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.”

The mood becomes darker and strained when, after they are surprised during the second train robbery by cavalry hired by the railway tycoon, they are forced into a lengthy chase sequence. The Hole in the Wall Gang splits in separate directions, but the pursuers follow Cassidy and Sundance. They are betrayed while hiding out at a brothel and denied amnesty by a friendly sheriff, who tells the pair of their inevitable demise. The posse tracks them through the night and the next day with amazing skill and persistence; the pair determines that among them are the expert Indian tracker Lord Baltimore and notoriously tough lawman Joe Lefors. Cassidy and Sundance are pursued over much terrain before being forced to jump from a cliff and be carried away by the rapids far below. They end up back with Etta and learn that E.H. Harriman, the railway tycoon, put together the outfit to stay on their track until they were killed. At this point they decide to go to Bolivia, and Etta states her intent to go with them, but adds ominously that she wants to be absent when they are finally killed.

The journey is illustrated in a series of sepia photographs. When the trio arrive in their Bolivian destination they are dismayed by its rustic appearance, and Sundance curses Cassidy for his harebrained ideas. They resume their criminal life after Etta gives the men Spanish lessons with “specialized vocabulary” for bank hold-ups. A humorous sequence shows the pair blundering through a robbery with a Spanish crib-sheet, and struggling to recite with Etta phrases such as “This is a robbery. Esto es un robo.” Soon their routine is perfected and they are living decadently, with wanted posters for the “Bandidos Yanquis” showing their notoriety. The honeymoon is over, however, when a potential sighting of Joe Lefors scares Cassidy into wanting to go straight. The men are hired as bodyguards for a humble and eccentric American mine owner, which they fail at when Bolivian bandits kill him. Being forced to kill the bandits shakes Cassidy, who has never killed a man, and the pair decide to return to robbery. Etta, perhaps with a premonition of their demise, leaves the next day. In the town of San Vicente, a boy recognizes a stolen mule and alerts the police to the outlaws. The police descend upon them, starting a climactic shoot-out in which Cassidy and Sundance are seriously wounded due to lack of ammunition. While the bloodied men are recovering strength in an abandoned building, poignantly discussing their next destination of Australia, the Bolivian military gathers outside. When the pair unwittingly exits the building, the camera captures them in a sepia-toned freeze frame to the sound of repeated volleys of rifle fire.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid enthralled the American public, evidenced by being amongst the 100 highest grossing films of all time (adjusted for inflation) and multiple Academy Award accolades. The pathos generated by the close male friendship between the outlaws, who are bound to meet with an untimely death, plus their fetching yet vulnerable female counterpart, largely accounts for the film’s appeal. However, the heroes are also partly conceived as Old West Robin Hoods, an archetype with universal appeal. Partly so because they rob from the rich and keep for themselves. In the United States, the noose of capitalism and modernity tightens around Cassidy, an older cowboy who remembers freer and simpler times; he curses the newly impenetrable banks, the immensely rich and powerful railroad barons, and the bicycle, a modern invention that threatens to replace the horse. He rebels against this by blowing up trains and appropriating easily and ill-gotten wealth, but then is forced to escape to Latin America. In doing so, Cassidy steps multiple decades back in time. Bolivia recalls California in the height of the Gold Rush, when humble but hardworking folk could become rich, not just aristocratic sons who inherit railroads. The charmingly outdated Bolivia is the only apt place for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, symbolic of the romantic frontier spirit outmoded by the modern commercial one, to meet with their inevitable death.

Clear and Present Danger

2009-03-05T14:46:00.000-08:00

Clear and Present Danger is a 1994 film directed by Phillip Noyce, based on the book of the same name by Tom Clancy. It stars Harrison Ford as Dr. Jack Ryan, who is appointed the CIA Deputy Director of Intelligence when the existing Director falls ill with pancreatic cancer. The situation Ryan must diffuse begins when a U.S. Coast Guard patrol boat finds that an American businessman and his family have been murdered on their yacht off of the Colombian Coast. The murdered man, Peter Hardin, happens to have been a close friend of the President of the United States. It is discovered that Hardin was murdered because of his ties to the Cali Cartel, having skimmed $650 million for his own use. The President tells his National Security Advisor James Cutter that the Colombian drug cartels present a "clear and present danger" to United States national security, and authorizes him to execute a covert operation taking down the men responsible for his friend's death. Meanwhile, Jack Ryan's first job as Deputy Director is to go before United States Congress requesting $70 million in funding for an ongoing CIA investigation of drug activity in Colombia. The Congress agrees on the condition that no military operations will be conducted in the country. James Cutter must keep the military operation authorized by the President a secret from Ryan, so he turns to CIA Deputy Director of Operations Robert Ritter, who helps him assemble a black-ops team under John Clark (Willem Defoe), a secret field operative. Clark and his team travel to Colombia and begin destroying assets of the Cali Cartel, including safehouses, drug lab facilities, and equipment. Meanwhile, Jack Ryan is sent down to Colombia to establish the connection between Hardin and the Cali Cartel so that the President can seize Hardin's money; but behind Ryan's back, the President has already seized Hardin's assets.

The head of the Cali Cartel, Ernesto Escobedo, is enraged when the United States government seizes the $650 million dollars Hardin stole from him. He asks his main operative Feliz Cortez to take care of the problem. Cortez is a former Cuban intelligence officer who is dating an unwitting secretary at the FBI, Moira Wolfson, as a way to get information. He feigns romantic interest in her to find out that the director of the FBI Emil Jacobs is travelling to Colombia to negotiate with the country's attorney-general concerning the seized funds. Without Escobedo's knowledge, Cortez plans an assassination attempt on Jacobs when he arrives to Colombia. As Jacobs, Jack Ryan and some other U.S. officials travel through Bogota, their motorcade is attacked by men on rooftops with rocket launchers. Everyone is killed except for Jack Ryan and two other officials. It is revealed that Cortez' real motivation is to cause distrust among the leaders of the Cali Cartel including Escobedo, none of whom know who ordered the ambush on the FBI Director. This way he can assume control of the cartel himself after the inevitable gang war he presumes will follow. After this, Cortez travels to Washington, D.C. and kills Moira to tie up the last loose end. Back in the White House, James Cutter orders the aerial bombing of a villa where a meeting between the Cartel bosses will occur in order to retaliate for Jacobs' death. The bombing kills everyone in the house, including women and children; Escobedo and Cortez have not yet arrived, and so they are spared. The media is told it is a car bomb set by a rival gang lord. Both Ryan and Cortez suspect something fishy about the "car bomb", and after some investigation, they independently discover it was a U.S. military operation. Cortez uses this knowledge to broker a deal with James Cutter in Washington. Cortez will agree to assassinate Escobedo and lead the Cartel, allowing the FBI to periodically arrest Cartel members to create the illusion that the US administration is winning the war on drugs; Cutter must shut down all operations in Colombia and allow Cortez to destroy John Clark's black ops. The deal is agreed to, and Ritter is told to destroy all the evidence of the deal, but Jack Ryan has recorded the entire meeting without their knowing. Ryan does some further investigations, hacking into Ritter computer account and discovering the details of Cutter and Ritter's work in Colombia. This leads to a confrontation between Ryan and Ritter, in which Ritter informs Ryan that he and Cutter have written permission from the President to conduct the operations in Colombia, and that Ryan will be the scapegoat who is blamed for it all, since he was the one who unknowingly asked for the funding from Congress which made the military operation possible.

The black-ops team is cut off and left for dead in Colombia, and they are ambushed by Cortez' men, much to John Clark's bewilderment. Jack Ryan travels alone to Colombia to find John Clark and save his men. Cutter and Ritter have told Clark that Ryan was responsible for cutting his men off, but Ryan manages to convince Clark of the truth. Together, they mobilize themselves to save the lost soldiers. They buy an aging helicopter using a CIA company check and fly to where the soldiers were attacked, in the jungle. They find the squad's sniper, Domingo Chavez, who informs them that two of his unit members have been taken prisoner by the Cartel's men, and that the rest are dead. Ryan decides to visit Escobedo and inform him of Cortez' deal with Cutter, using a tape-recorder to play him the conversation. Enraged, Escobedo arranges a meeting with Cortez at the Lindo Coffee Factory, where he confronts him. Escobedo is about to kill Cortez when Cortez' henchman kills Escobedo and his men. Ryan, Clark, and Chavez escape the shootout and rescue the two soldiers who are imprisoned downstairs. The helicopter comes to the coffee factory to pick them up, and as they escape, Chavez kills the pursuing Cortez with his sniper. Back in Washington, Ryan angrily confronts the President, who is responsible for the illegal war in Colombia and the deaths of innocent people there. He tells the President that he intends to blow the whistle at a Congressional Oversight Committee session despite the damage that it could do to his career. He walks out of the Oval Office, and the final scene shows Ryan beginning his testimony to Congress.

Colombia is a lush, green country crawling with wealthy drug lords and soldiers. It is very different from what the American government officials who visit the country are used to. Jack Ryan is shocked to see the number of armed soldiers at the airport in Bogota. In the car on the way from the airport, an FBI man asks Ryan, "How's the food down here?", and Ryan replies, "It's like Mexican food. I hate Mexican food". Ryan proceeds to warn the man, "You shouldn't drink the water; you'll be in the can the entire time you're here". These sober Americans are somewhat uncomfortable in the exotic, dangerous, and hot atmosphere of Colombia; they are used to the gray and organized life of Washington D.C.. Even the "bad guys", the drug lords, are portrayed colourfully. They are fabulously wealthy, with vast colonial-style villas set in green hills, and they are always surrounded by their families, with little girls in bright dresses and little boys playing with toys running around, their wives and mothers in the background, keeping everything under control. One scene showing the birthday party of Escobedo's daughter is reminiscent of party scenes in the Godfather movies, where a lavish celebration takes place under the watchful eye of numerous armed men, the danger present even in the midst of a happy family event. For this reason, there is so much outrage after the aerial bombing kills numerous members of the drug lords' families. Family is an essential element of Colombian life, and is mixed even with dangerous business.

This film also portrays the ever-present association of Colombia and drugs. The "War on Drugs" has been an essential policy issue in the United States since the 1960s, and it has largely attacked the supply side of the drug trade. This film depicts the American sentiment that the drug trade is the fault of the drug-producing countries and organizations. In order to appear that the Americans are winning the War on Drugs, Cortez must allow FBI men to arrest Colombians, because this is what make people believe it. Only Escobedo mentions briefly they massive amount of demand for drugs in America that drives their production and trade in South American countries. Scenes showing bricks upon bricks of cocaine being produced by the Cali Cartel create an image of the exaggerated abundance of the substance in Colombia, and its seemingly uncontrolled production as a threat to U.S. national security.

Assassination Tango

2009-03-05T13:27:00.000-08:00

Robert Duvall writes, directs and stars in 2002's Assassination Tango, a movie about a seasoned hit man who is contracted to do a job in Argentina. John J. is an older man who lives in Atlantic City with his girlfriend and his girlfriend's daughter, Jenny, whom he loves like a father. He is also a contract killer. His agent, a salsa club owner named Frankie, informs him of a three-day job in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which will pay more than the usual hit. John J. agrees with the condition that he return in three days for Jenny's birthday, and flies Varig to Buenos Aires. He is met by a man named Miguel, who takes John J. to his home in the city, where his brother Orlando and his uncle and aunt have prepared a meal. Here, John J. learns that the man he is to kill is General Humberto Rojas, an ex-military leader who committed atrocious human rights crimes in the eighties and remains immune to prosecution. One of the victims of Rojas' crimes is a relative of Miguel and Orlando's family, and they cannot be at peace until he is killed. They have organized a hotel for John J. near Rojas' home, and the assassination is to be done from its rooftop into Rojas' yard, where Rojas takes tea every evening. John J.'s other contact in the city is Tony Manas, an exercise-club owner who will provide John J. with the necessary weapons for the job. While visiting Manas, John J. sees a couple dancing tango in the club. This sparks his fascination for this complex and elegant dance.

The next day, Orlando and Miguel have bad news for John J.: General Rojas has had an accident on his horse and must remain in the hospital for two to three weeks. John J. must stay there until Rojas returns to his house, where he can then kill him. John J. is very angry to be missing Jenny's birthday, but he must remain until the job is done. To kill time as he waits for Rojas' return, John J. wanders around Buenos Aires, taking in the city. He chances upon a tango club, where he is entranced by the dancing of a beautiful woman, Manuela. He watches her dance every evening for the next week, after which he approaches her and asks her to perhaps give him some tango lessons. She agrees. Meanwhile, he has been given a small gun by Tony Manas, but he requires a .22 with a scope if he is to do the assassination properly. He also spends a night with a prostitute, asking her to call him "Papito". He and Manuela spend a lot of time together, talking and dancing tango. He discovers the rich and mysterious world of the Argentine tango, and how much it means to the people of Buenos Aires, who dance it until they are very old. Without him knowing, Miguel and Orlando are watching his every move. But John J. is an experienced man, and has secretly taken an apartment nearby as a potential hiding place if things go wrong.

One morning, General Rojas finally returns home. John J. waits for the evening, when Rojas takes tea in his garden. Instead of sniping him from the hotel rooftop, John J. goes to his gate, kills his security guard, and stalks into the garden holding a bunch of flowers. Pretending to be a bum from the street, he shoots Rojas in the heart and then runs away. He then returns to his apartment and hides. That night, as he waits, safe, in the apartment, police search his hotel room. Miguel and Orlando are arrested, but their interrogation is interrupted by a contact of theirs in the Federal Police, who gets them off the hook. This man is also happy that Rojas is dead. It seems members of the police knew about the assassination from the very beginning, and let it happen; however, it becomes evident that John J. was supposed to have been captured. John J. must get out of Buenos Aires. He realizes that in his hotel room, he has forgotten a pair of riding boots that he bought for his stepdaughter Jenny. Risking his life, he returns to the police-protected hotel room to get the boots. He gets the boots and escapes within an inch of his life, running from police gunshots. The following morning, he takes a ferry to Uruguay, from which he is to fly home. In the airport bathroom, a man approaches him and asks to see his documents. John J. kills him and stuffs him in a stall. Then he boards his flight to Atlantic City, where he is happily reunited with his girlfriend and Jenny.

John J. has had a tough life living in the criminal world of Atlantic City, but he has softened in his old age. His love for his girlfriend and Jenny and the happiness he gets from having a family bring out a kind old man, but he also grapples with getting old and losing his place in the world, and shows an aggressive streak when people comment on his age. In Argentina, John J. comes to terms with this internal battle. Argentinian culture is one which prizes its older citizens and includes them in every aspect of life, unlike America, which is a culture of youth that marginalizes the old. The people he encounters in Argentina teach him that the old have an important place in their society: the hotel-owner cares for and loves his elderly mother; Manuela's elderly aunt and uncle are passionate and energetic people who dance vigorously; tango clubs are filled with elderly people who are often the best dancers in the club. Manuela, who is a beautiful woman in her early thirties, shows romantic interest in John J., despite the fact that he is much older than she is. For Manuela's elderly aunt, "Tango is everything. It is love, it is hate...it is life!". She is right; tango clubs are places where all ages are represented. Children, sexy young women, mysterious pony-tailed men, and older folks dance the tango. Argentina is a place where life is celebrated at every age. Argentina rejuvenates John J..

Not that the film doesn't show some negative aspects of Argentinian culture. Underlying many scenes is the unmistakable military presence characteristic of many Latin American cultures. The military is still very much an important force in Argentina. The atrocities committed by the military governments' wars of subversion in the seventies and eighties are not forgotten, nor have they been reconciled; Rojas is just one example of many military leaders who are known for their crimes but have gone unpunished. The people of Argentina are not free from these dictatorships as long as these men are alive and their "disappeared" family members are still unaccounted for. Another negative aspect shown is the level of corruption that pervades the judicial system. Miguel and Orlando's connections in the Federal Police make them immune to punishment for the crime they've committed. When John J. hears of their connection, he is surprised, but they tell him, "This is Argentina". The juxtaposition of the passionate, warm world of the tango and the hard, sharp-edged world of politics show the complex and multi-faceted nature of Argentinian culture.

The Assassination of Trotsky

2009-03-03T20:27:00.000-08:00

What is known about Trotsky's assassination is shown in 1972's The Assassination of Trotsky, and what isn't known isn't shown. This makes for a film in which the combination of certainties and ambiguities create an eerie, mysterious atmosphere. It begins in May 1940 in Mexico City, where Leon Trotsky, the Russian revolutionary leader exiled from the Soviet Union by Joseph Stalin, lives in a protected compound with his family and close supporters. These include his beloved wife Natasha, his grandson Seva, a few Russian and French Communists, and a handful of American guards. It is May Day, and demonstrations fill the streets of the D.F. Workers' unions hold banners and sing Mexican revolutionary songs, and the Communist Party of Mexico holds Marxist speeches. But there is a division among the pro-communist crowd; some chant in support of Trotsky, while others call him a traitor to Communism. This leads to a number of fights and riots in the busy streets. Among the hustle and bustle is Gita Samuels, with her boyfriend Frank Jacson. Gita is a Communist who works for Trotsky, and Frank is an importer-exporter from Belgium. Frank is a secret, shy man, much to the frustration of Gita. In the next scene, Frank meets with a mysterious Mexican man named Salazar, and it is revealed that Frank is dating Gita to get to Trotsky. Exactly what purpose this has is implicit.

That night will be the first attempt on Trotsky's life. A large chest filled with fake police uniforms and guns arrives at a building where a painter, who turns out to be part of the Mexican Communist Party, paints revolutionary murals on the walls. A large group of Mexican men show up, put on the uniforms, take the guns, and embark in mysterious cars to Trotsky's compound. They are let in silently by a guard named Sheldon, an accomplice who has gained Trotsky's trust, and open fire on Trotsky's bedroom, riddling it with bullets before disappearing into their cars and driving away. As the inhabitants of the compound emerge, bewildered, from their rooms, they find Trotsky and his wife Natasha still alive, having jumped under the bed just in time. He knows that Joseph Stalin is behind it all. After the attempt, new security measures are undertaken and the compound's walls and security system are reinforced. The following day, a scene shows Salazar informing Frank Jacson of the attempt's failure. A few months pass. In these months, Salazar and Frank meet a few times and talk about Frank getting into the compound. A scene shows a police investigation of the Mexican Stalinist mural-painter, who denies his actions in May's assassination attempt. Frank Jacson and Gita go to a bullfight, which deeply upsets Gita and results in a big fight in which she tells Frank she doesn't know who he is. They have numerous other fights because of Frank's introverted ways and his capitalism, but on a good day Frank manages to get an invitation into Trotsky's compound, which he declines. Eventually, he briefly visits Trotsky. Trotsky inquires about Frank's capitalist political leanings, but Frank refuses to discuss politics.

In the following scene, Frank is wandering around a junkyard and finds an ice-pick among the other things, which he takes. The next time he visits Trotsky, Trotsky is sleeping and so Frank sits down to talk with Natasha. In the conversation, it is revealed that Frank lived in Paris at the same time that the Trotskys' son was murdered there. Trotsky wakes up and reads Frank's article. As he critiques it, Frank stands nervously behind Trotsky, trying to get up the nerve to kill him. He is unable to do so, and leaves, disturbed. A few days later, Frank and Gita are in Frank's apartment, and Frank is having one of his bouts of silence, which causes Gita to scream and cry. Frank starts to pack his suitcase, and Gita tells him she will kill himself if he leaves. He tries to reassure her. Frank goes to see Trotsky with the "revised" version of his article. As Trotsky reads it at his desk, Frank stands behind him and takes the ice-pick from his coat. He hits Trotsky on the top of his head, and Trotsky begins to scream, blood pouring down his face. The members of Trotsky's household rush up to the room, yelling. The guards descend upon the stunned Frank Jacson and wrestle him to the ground. Frank begins to scream as well, "My mother....My father...", as he is dragged out by the guards. Trotsky is taken to the hospital, where he dies slowly. Before dying, he insists that Jackson not be killed, because he must reveal who is behind the assassination. The final scene shows Jacson hunched in the corner of a holding cell, being questioned. The interrogator asks him, "Who are you?", and Jacson answers, "I killed Trotsky".

General Lazaro Cardenas's administration was the only government in the world to grant Trotsky asylum in the final years of his life. But the film shows that Mexico is no asylum for Trotsky; Mexican Stalinists funded by the KGB and KGB agents are everywhere, a constant presence. Numerous scenes show unidentified men in the streets, observing, nodding at each other, watching. Trotsky's own guards cannot be trusted. The only safe place is Trotsky's compound. Outside the compound, the sky is shown as gray, the city white, gray and red; inside the compound, the sun shines on the green grass and Trotsky's beautiful pet rabbits. Outside is project housing, empty lots and walls covered with violent murals; inside are visitors and friends drinking tea and engaging in intellectual conversation. The Mexicans in the film are either Stalinists, useless and suspicious policemen, or bystanders with hard faces. When Gita and Frank go to a bullfight, the brutal long-winded killing of the bull is shown in great detail; while Gita is horrified, the huge crowd of Mexicans filling the stands are engrossed with the bull's suffering, grins on their faces. Mexico joins the rest of the world as a hostile environment for Trotsky.

There is pervasive atmosphere of controlled violence in Mexico, like the revolutionary murals of Diego and Crozco which are the backdrop of many scenes. Crowds are ready to lash out at each other at the slightest provocation. The spirit of revolution fills the streets, the tension of Communism combined with the remaining tension of the revolution of 30 years earlier. This violence possesses Frank Jacson, whose long silences and explosive rages epitomize it, a violence that comes to a point at the tip of the ice-pick that kills Trotsky.

La Bamba

2009-03-03T13:43:00.000-08:00

La Bamba (1987) tells the life story of 1950s rock-and-roll phenom, Ritchie Valens, from his underprivileged beginnings to his tragic end. The movie begins with Richie (Lou Diamond Phillips), born Ricardo Valenzuela, and his mother, Connie (Rosana DeSoto) working as fruit pickers in an orange grove in Paicoma, California. Their pay depends on their labour, but everyone in the camp works hard hours and enjoys the family-like atmosphere of Mexican tradition. One day, out of the blue, a motorcycle roars into the camp carrying tough guy Bob Valenzuela (Esai Morales), Richie’s older brother. The two embrace in a brotherly hug and then excitedly find their mother and Rosie, Richie’s love interest. Bob has just gotten out of jail and is eager to bring his family back to a city in southern California; but his mother refuses as she is suspicious that the money that he shows her has been cultivated in dishonest ways. Finally she is convinced, and they leave the next day, but not before Bob, with no concern for Richie’s feelings, takes Rosie’s virginity and brings her with them on his motorcycle. The family moves into a run-down shack while Rosie and Bob reside in the RV beside it. Bob continues his lifestyle of drinking and drugs, while Richie proves to be a clean-cut 16-year-old: going to school and staying out of trouble. The distance between the two brothers widens when Rosie announces she’s pregnant (with a baby that Bob does not care to have), whereas Ritchie joins the rock-and-roll band “The Silhouettes” and starts dating a blonde girl from high school named Donna.

After a few low-key garage gigs, Connie pumps up the band’s exposure and gets them a show at the local Legion Hall. When the lead singer becomes upset about Connie getting gigs for them, the rest of the band sides with Richie and allows him to sing an amazing set at the Legion. Later on that same night, Bob turns up drunk at the show and causes a huge brawl which ruins the evening. Connie yells at him, but Bob shows no remorse as he bellows that the world doesn’t revolve around Richie (albeit Richie joined in on the brawl to protect his drunk brother). However, all is not lost as a music scout named Bob Keene (Joe Pantoliano) had been among the young people in the crowded legion hall and he immediately signs Richie to his modest record label, Del-Fi Records. His rise to fame progresses quickly after that as the new ‘Ritchie Valens’ becomes a household name; but such fame brings a price to his personal life as his relationship with Donna slowly deteriorates on account of her father’s racism. During this time he also divulges that he has dreams of the memory of two planes crashing, falling to the earth, and killing his best friend, which has caused Richie’s fear of flying.

Recording the songs just as Keene envisions them proves to warrant much time and effort, but Richie is whole-heartedly committed to the cause of his music. Then, when brother Bob sees that Richie has written the song ‘For Donna’ in hopes of winning her over again, he takes action by forcing his reluctant brother across the border to Tijuana to get drunk and lose his virginity. Although Richie is distracted by the band onstage playing the folk song “La Bamba”, he still wakes up the next morning in an old Mexican man’s shack, with a hangover, a tattoo, and a talisman to protect him from his dreams of flying; but his virginity is still intact. Not long after, Keen gets Richie to agree to fly to New York in order to be on the popular teenage live-music show “American Bandstand”. This gig sends Richie straight to stardom and allows him to buy his mom the house he’s always wanted to give her, not to mention a flashy new car for himself which helps him to persuade Donna to come back to him. Again, at the sight of Richie’s fame, Bob flounders into drunkenness and Rosie does not even permit him to see his own daughter. Richie then asks Keene if he can try a rock-and-roll version of “La Bamba”. Keene is hesitant at first, but the new version becomes an instant success. Richie returns home from touring to a house full of smiling family and friends, except for Bob who still can’t take his brother’s fame. When Bob and Richie are alone together they begin yelling their true feelings at one another and Bob reveals that he never got over that fact that his father left when he was born and Richie’s father, Steve, was always the father that he had wanted but could never truly belong to. A fist fight ensues, and Bob yells, “I’m gonna kill you!” before accidentally ripping the talisman from Richie’s neck. The two stop and feel the gravity of what has been done. Richie is shaken by the experience, but still leaves his family and loving girlfriend behind to do a tour with several other big name rock-and-roll artists. When their tour bus breaks down and they instead have to fly to Fargo, Richie is hesitant but he is encouraged by the support of his friends as they all fly off into the snowy night.

The plane crashes and kills all the passengers. Ricardo Valenzuela: the affectionate son, the devoted boyfriend, and the phenomenal performer, was only seventeen years old when he died. His family and friends hear the news at the same time as the rest of the country on a national news radio bulletin: Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly, and JB Richardson: all dead due to a tragic plane crash. The film’s heartbreaking ending leaves the audience with visions of those who were closest to Richie in absolute despair over the absence of this light in their life, their star of fame. Then, during the credits, the video of Richie performing La Bamba reminds us that through his beloved music he will live forever.

La Bamba is apparently a biography of Ritchie Valens’ life, but it could be argued that it is as much about his older brother Bob as it is about the star himself. The stark contrasts between the brothers can be seen in more than just their lifestyles, as Bob has held on to his Mexican roots and Richie hasn’t even really been introduced to them. Bob takes Richie to Tijuana and Richie is overwhelmed by the revelry and promiscuity at every turn. While Bob is able to chat-up the different prostitutes around the room, Richie can barely speak, let alone in Spanish. This lack of native culture is especially evident when he is confronted the next morning by the old Mexican man, to whom he says, “Yo no speako español.” What's more, when Richie continues to alter his lyrics while recording, Keen tries to be understanding, saying that he realizes Mexico has a tradition of changing song lyrics but this isn’t Mexico, when Richie interrupts him by saying, “Look man, I haven’t even been to Mexico. My music is my music.” The rich Latin American culture in the film is constantly mixed with the American purpose and resolve to attain that elusive American dream. But Ritchie Valens actually did make it to the top and wrote three #1 hits in his short recording career of eight months; even through an unsettling experience of having his name changed from Richie Valenzuela to Ritchie Valens in order to decrease his Mexican appearance. This is a Latinized, rags-to-riches, American story which analyzes Richie’s sense of self, asserting that although someone may be of Mexican heritage, his background certainly doesn’t dictate his identity, especially when the American dream is at stake.

Martyrs of the Alamo

2009-03-02T22:51:00.000-08:00

For almost a century filmmakers have been mythologizing the Battle of the Alamo, the site where a handful of Anglo-American Texans stood their ground against the Mexican army in events leading to Texan Independence. Martyrs of the Alamo (1915) is the earliest surviving silent film to depict this event. In this rendition, the heroes are fighting against not only a territorial threat, as the Mexicans aim to oust Texan settlers from San Antonio, but also a moral threat, as the Mexicans are depicted as lecherous toward Anglo-American women.

Martyrs of the Alamo gives two reasons behind the Texas Revolution. Antonio López de Santa Anna, President of Mexico, sparked the ire of Texan settlers by introducing an anti-federalist constitution, denying them a state government. On top of this affront to American liberty, the despicable Santa Anna and other Mexicans sexually prey upon the Texan womenfolk. The film takes place in the town of San Antonio, which is overrun by rowdy and obnoxious Mexican soldiers. This grates upon our heroes, including the sharp-witted Silent Smith, noble James Bowie and jovial David Crockett. Prompted by the crack-down on their civil liberties and the moral depravity of the Mexicans, they resolve to band the men together and seize San Antonio while Santa Anna is absent. The Texans overwhelm the Mexican army, and to demonstrate their magnanimity they let the survivors leave San Antonio. The moral order is temporarily restored.

However, their benevolence backfires when Santa Anna hears about this humiliating defeat, and he vows to never rest until Texas is crushed. Meanwhile, Colonel Travis is sent by General Huston, an important Texas Revolution leader, to replace the sick Bowie as garrison leader. Travis delivers his legendary speech in which he demands that the men who will sacrifice their lives for Texas step over a line that he draws in the soil. All men step over, including Bowie being carried on a stretcher. Santa Anna has his troops surround the Alamo and sends a messenger with an ultimatum to surrender. When the messenger returns with a negative response, Santa Anna unleashes the brunt of his army, much superior in terms of soldiers and arms, upon the Alamo. Days of battle ensue in which the Texans show great heroism and sacrifice as they stave off endless waves of Mexican aggressors. Silent Smith exits the Alamo via a secret passageway and rides to General Huston with a plea for reinforcements.

While Huston advances towards the Alamo it is being defeated. Mexicans pour through the cannon-blasted walls, killing everyone in sight including the bed-ridden Bowie. Although the text optimistically states that “before each patriot’s death, many a foe had fallen,” the grim tableaus at the battle’s end show the high Texan casualties. The surviving men are shot (Travis and Crockett are inexplicably absent) and women are sequestered for Santa Anna’s sordid pleasure. As the text tells us, “An inveterate drug fiend, the Dictator of Mexico [is] also famous for his shameful orgies.” The Mexicans let one woman go to inform Huston what happened to the garrison. She finds Huston, tragically close to the Alamo with reinforcements, and he plans to attack the Mexican camp at San Jacinto. Silent Smith infiltrates the camp under the highly implausible guise of a deaf-mute game hunter to observe their activities. Huston launches an attack while the Mexicans are having a siesta and subjugates the camp in less than twenty minutes. Santa Anna, who before the battle began was drugged up in tent-turned-harem of female dancers, is found cowering in the bushes. Huston has Santa Anna, still in a drug-induced stupor, sign a document acknowledging Texas as a free and independent republic.

The Battle of San Jacinto gave birth to the rallying cry “Remember the Alamo!” This phrase, which alludes to a shared memory of grief inflicted by a foreign aggressor and the subsequent triumph of statehood, has become immortalized in American national myth. However, as historian Holly Beachley Brear has noted, the negative role of Mexican-Americans in this myth, projected in numerous Alamo films, makes it highly contestable as a national symbol. For Brear, the Alamo “serves mythologically as a second birthplace for the American,” but as Hispanics are cast as the oppressors, they are excluded from using the Alamo to construct their sense of national pride as other Americans do. The Alamo recalls an extremely violent chapter in Hispanic/Anglo relations as they battled over territory on the frontier. Added to this, Alamo legends often depict this battle as one between two national or racial character types rather than territorial entities.

This is nowhere more apparent than in Martyrs of the Alamo. The primary anxiety in the film is the threat posed to virginal Texan women by rapacious Mexican men. As the audience is informed early on, “Under the dictator’s rule the honor and life of American womanhood was held in contempt.” Women’s bodies often allegorically stand in for territory, and the integrity of both must be protected from invaders. The film continues to depict Mexicans and Americans on the opposite ends of the spectrum morally and temperamentally. For example, the Americans benevolently let enemy soldiers free versus the Mexicans who cruelly shoot their prisoners, or the Americans fight bravely and persistently versus the Mexican troops who are cowardly and dispirited. Myths distill actual events for the relevant elements to tell a good national story, leaving many alternative readings of those events unexplored. The question of how champion of liberty James Bowie can justify owning slaves is just one example of this.

YouTube Link: A brief introduction and the first ten minutes of the film.

The Mosquito Coast

2009-03-01T21:24:00.000-08:00

In The Mosquito Coast (1986), Allie Fox (Harrison Ford) is a devoted husband, father of four, and a genius inventor. Seeing as he dropped out of Harvard to get a ‘real education’, he learns from the world around him, but is also that world’s harshest critic. The fundamental victim of his disparagement is his own country, the United States of America, against which he ignites an opinion of pure cynicism for its stupidity and greed. Allie’s latest invention to date is Fat Boy: a miraculous body of machinery which needs only fire to create ice. When he shares this cooling-system discovery with his neighbour, he is sadly disappointed when it is considered too unbelievable for practical use. Allie then spies the migrant workers attending to his neighbour’s fields and dreams up a second bright idea: to take his wife (Hellen Mirren) and his four children, including Charlie (River Phoenix), through whom the story is narrated, to the paradise of Central America; a geo-thermal hotspot just waiting for Fat Boy to bring civilization in the form of ice. Consequently, the Foxes leave everything in Massachusetts behind and head to the Mosquito Coast, or La Mosquitia, in Honduras. While journeying down by ship, the family is rubbed the wrong way by an evangelistic missionary, Reverend Spellgood (Andre Gregory), who is also on his way to the jungle with his family to bring his own idea of salvation to the locals. When they dock on the Mosquito Coast, Allie promptly buys a plot of cheap land deep in the jungle, home to the village of Geronimo, and ushers his family off into the wilderness. While even the locals don’t understand why he would want to go to a desolate and deserted village like Geronimo, Allie becomes overjoyed at the thought of starting a civilization from scratch. The labour is difficult to build a village to the family’s liking, but soon enough there is laughter reverberating through the jungle and a smile on everyone’s face as they build a new life from the ground up.

Reverend Spellgood arrives unannounced to Geronimo one day and positions himself as the religious antagonist to Allie’s atheistic ways of science and invention. After the visit, Allie devotes himself to building a monolithic version of Fat Boy to facilitate his own miracle: ice. Fat Boy proves worthy and provides ice, cold water, and air conditioning to the community. But Allie grows restless as his miracle is taken for granted and ventures into the jungle in search of a famed indigenous village, untouched by the white man, to bring upon them the wonder of ice. They stumble upon the village a few arduous days into the trip, but by then Allie’s hopes are dashed as the last of the ice has melted. Charlie, also on the venture, suddenly spies white men in the village and Allie, mistaking them for captives, tells the men to follow their trail back to Geronimo. This mistake proves critical when the men arrive in Geronimo with guns and a yearning to stay in the paradise haven. As the majority of the village had been enticed away by the Reverend in Allie’s absence and the option to overtake the men is crushed, Allie immediately reacts with the lie that the entire village is infested with termites and everything must be burned. After this plan fails to relieve the family of the armed men, Allie coaxes them into the bowels of Fat Boy and then attempts to freeze them alive. The idea backfires when the men begin shooting in Fat Boy at the pipes filled with ammonium hydroxide and as a result, send themselves, along with the rest of the village, up in flames. The aftermath is complete devastation and contamination, much like a scene of nuclear war. All their toil seems for naught as the family sets out down the river with their local friend, Mr. Haddy. When they finally reach the ocean, mother and kids are overjoyed at the thought of returning home or to Mr. Haddy’s house down the coast, but Allie refuses as he insists that they live the simple life. He even lies to his children by saying that America doesn’t exist anymore on account of its being blown up. Mrs. Fox is appalled at his impudence, but continues to stand by her husband’s decisions.

The family again sets out to build shelter, but when a storm hits and floods their small plot of beach, the Foxes barely escape. As they head upriver, the family begins to be torn apart due to Allie’s paranoia that everyone is against him; when suddenly they come upon a church on the bank of the river. They hear Reverend Spellgood’s voice and discover that it is coming from a TV inside the church, as Spellgood is absent on a visit to his home in America, and the locals of Geronimo watch quietly from the pews. Allie does nothing as his family pensively returns to its boat, but is visibly infuriated that this man is brainwashing the good people who used to inhabit his perfect community. That night, after the return of the Spellgoods, Charlie and his brother Jerry sneak over to the house to talk to Mr. Spellgood’s daughter who informs them that America is still standing and then gives them the keys to the family’s jeep. The boys race back to the boat and plead with their mother that they escape the insanity which is their father. Mrs. Fox refuses up until the church suddenly bursts into flames and Allie appears holding a gas can, attempting to cast the boat off. When Mrs. Fox questions Allie he pushes her down, losing the one thread of dignity left to him. The family prepares to leave their disheveled father when Rev. Spellgood, also compromising his morals in the face of his nemesis, shoots Allie with a rifle from the bushes. Seeing their father slowly dying, the family once again rushes to his aid in the boat and pushes off again upstream. The film ends with the family forlorn and distressed as Allie mutters some of his last words, stating that all he wanted were right angles and straight lines, but nature is crooked.

Before the trip to the Mosquito Coast, Allie sees America as a third world country on account of its rampant consumerism and extravagant nature. He claims that living the simple life will give the kids a true education, one of survival and the rebuilding of civilization; but the simple life is actually what drives Allie to dementia. Each civilization which he constructs is pursued by downfall. He feels that he is to be the saviour to the locals and becomes aggitated when he realizes that a Christian missionary has already beat him to the cause. But what gives these men such a desire to manifest their vision upon an indifferent society? Perhaps it is simply the fact that they are able to create it, in such locations as the Mosquito Coast, with no obstacles in their way except for the faculty of the opposing architect. Such isolated coastal villages are displayed in the film as blank canvases for inspired Americans to arrive at with the best intentions, and leave in their wake a flurry of destruction and contamination which will drive them mad.

Walker

2009-03-01T21:10:00.000-08:00

Walker (1987) is set in the 1850s, yet a 1980s Mercedes drives through one scene; in another, mercenaries in Nicaragua smoke Marlboro cigarettes and drink Coca-Cola from bottles. The final scene contains a Saigon-style evacuation, complete with helicopter and fatigue-clad soldiers with machine guns. Obviously, these are not simply goofs on the part of director Alex Cox, but deliberate details which contribute to the film’s bizarre, blood-soaked, and chaotic portrayal of Latin America. Their intent becomes clear as the credits roll and a television screen appears showing journalistic footage of Ronald Reagan defending America’s actions in Vietnam, of American soldiers in training camps in Nicaragua and Honduras talking about “helping Nicaragua defend its own country”, of naked bodies of dead Nicaraguans and their weeping relatives. Although not entirely adherent to history, the film is based on the invasion of Nicaragua by American filibuster and adventurer William Walker, who took the “liberation” of the country into his own hands and ruled as president from 1855 to 1857.

The opening scene shows William Walker, played by Ed Harris, and a number of scruffy, tough-looking soldiers fighting a bloody gun-battle in dusty Sonora, Mexico. He and his men suffer heavy losses and just manage to retreat across the border. Back in California, Walker is put on trail for conducting an illegal war in Mexico, but his fervent defense speech, littered with references to the popular notion of Manifest Destiny and the preservation of the American way of life “at any cost”, manages to get him acquitted by the jury in eight minutes. After all the excitement, Walker is ready to settle down with his fiancée Ellen, but soon enough he is summoned by tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, who owns all the infrastructure in the Central American country of Nicaragua, and is asked to invade Nicaragua and establish stability in the country so that Vanderbilt’s business can flourish. Walker declines. Upon returning from his trip to see Vanderbilt, Walker discovers that his fiancée has died of cholera, and so with nothing keeping him in America, he agrees to Vanderbilt’s proposal. With a rough and raggedy group of mercenary soldiers, he travels by sea to Nicaragua, where a civil war between Conservatives and Liberals is wreaking havoc on Vanderbilt’s business opportunities. As he trains his army on the coast, Walker shows his rigid rule as a colonel and his value for a firm hand on the moral conduct of his men. He proclaims the goal of establishing democracy in Nicaragua a righteous cause. He and his men become Nicaraguan citizens.

When the men are armed and trained, the army travels to inland town of Rivas, where they are ambushed by wild gun-wielding Nicaraguan Liberals, who kill many of Walker’s men. As the Nicaraguans shoot at the army from the rooftops and his soldiers are dying by the bucket load, blood splashing everywhere, Walker walks unscathed, expressionless, undeterred, through the carnage until he reaches a safe house. As his remaining men defend the house, shooting Nicaraguans through the windows, Walker plays the piano and sings, as if the combat were not happening. His men are bewildered by his actions, but manage to stop the attack. Despite the huge number of injured men, Walker makes the unpopular decision to escape the town, dragging the injured along to San Juan del Sur, where the men set up camp and try to recover from their losses. A few days later they are found by a large German army, who has just arrived from Rivas and report the retreat of the Liberals and the victory of Walker’s army. Encouraged, Walker and his army march to Granada, the default capital, where they meet with the remaining members of the Nicaraguan government. Walker appoints a President, a Senor Corrales, and appoints himself the Commander-In-Chief of the Nicaraguan Armed Forces. He and his soldiers spend the next while making “reforms”, which include executing any soldier or local who displeases or opposes the Americans and creating violent havoc in the streets regularly. Walker’s taste for power pushes him to accuse Presidente Corrales of treason and have him executed by firing squad, despite the outrage of the leading Nicaraguan aristocrats. Walker claims himself as the new president, claiming he was elected, although no elections are ever held. He begins to act crazy, killing people at will, firing upon his soldiers, doing little or nothing to govern the country. Granada is in chaos, ruled by “crazy gringos”.

Two men from a transportation company rivalling Vanderbilt’s ask Walker to revoke Vanderbilt’s license to do business in Nicaragua and seize all his assets in the country, giving them the monopoly of transport. Walker agrees to do so in the name of the country’s sovereignty, but this leaves him without financial support and supplies from America. Desperate for resources, Walker establishes slavery in Nicaragua. This results in an uprising of a brutally violent nature, to which Walker reacts by decreeing that the town of Granada be burnt to the ground. The ten-minute scene that follows depicts the town, engulfed in flames, as a background to a seemingly anarchic shootout, in which Walker’s men, wearing ridiculous costumes and army outfits, stalk through the streets and shoot randomly at people, blood gushing, people screaming, children crying. Many of Walker’s soldiers are killed by seemingly invisible Nicaraguans, but Walker emerges unscathed, with that same expressionless face and determined walk as before. He appears invincible. He makes his way to the cathedral in Granada, which has been turned into a hospital and torture chamber, with dead and dying people everywhere. Upon the blood-covered altar, one of Walker’s soldiers performs a gruesome torture upon a screaming man. Walker takes part in removing an organ from this man’s body and eating it. Suddenly, a loud sound is heard outside; as the small group of American soldiers walks out of the cathedral’s door and down the body- and blood-covered steps, a military helicopter lands in front of them, full of American soldiers with machine guns. They say they have been instructed to take Walker’s men back to the States, as orchestrated by an outraged Vanderbilt. The helicopter lifts off, leaving a bewildered and wide-eyed Walker standing alone on the front steps of the cathedral. The final scene shows his death by firing squad in Honduras, his body left to be taken away by the waves.

The film is clearly an attack of American interference in other countries, especially of the Iran-Contra affair of a year before its release, in which Reagan illegally financed CIA training of Nicaraguan paramilitaries with money earned from illegal arms sales to Iran. It shows the ruthlessness with which the United States pursues its geopolitical goals in the Western Hemisphere. Latin America - Mexico and Nicaragua, in this case - is just America’s playground, a place for tycoons to monopolize transportation systems and adventure-seeking criminals can go and wreak havoc among innocent local people. Every American in the film, with the single exception of Walker’s wife, is a money- and power- hungry hooligan with a propensity for insanity and destruction. Walker himself, who is portrayed early on as an idealistic man of strong morals and strict discipline, turns out to be the most crazy, the most destructive. The locals are the ones who suffer; most of the Nicaraguans in the film die brutally or are shown already dead, in piles. To the Americans, they have no faces or names, and their lives have no value. The Americans go to Nicaragua to "improve their civilization and their economy"; once they get there, they destroy the civilization and the economy and take the chaos for themselves. It is only when messing around in Nicaragua is no longer profitable that the Americans will leave; as soon as Vanderbilt stops profiting, he convinces the government to remove its American representatives from the region. In the film, Latin America is a place where Americans go to escape the societal norms of their own land and be the destructive immoral animals that they really are inside, all at the cost of the land's seemingly helpless citizens.

Somewhere in Sonora

2009-02-28T10:54:00.000-08:00

Somewhere in Sonora (1933) stars John Wayne who rescues a man caught in the clutches of the Brotherhood of Death, a band of American outlaws operating in Mexico. Wayne plays a cowboy named John Bishop who is framed during a carriage race at the start of the film. A couple of crooks sabotage the wheel of his opponent, so when the wheel flies off mid-race and leaves its drivers injured, Bishop is instantly blamed and tossed in jail. A kindly gentleman named Bob Leadly helps him to escape, and he tells Bishop that his son Burt was also wrongly accused, which forced him to flee to Mexico and join up with the deadly Monty Black and his gang. Even though Bishop’s name is cleared the following day when the real crooks are found, he resolves to test the adage that no one leaves the so-called Brotherhood of Death alive, and gallops southward with his two buffoon sidekicks to retrieve Burt Leadly.

In a Mexican cantina, Bishop encounters Mary Burton and Patsy Ellis, who having been onlookers at the carriage race vehemently reject his company and call him a murderous outlaw. This is significantly overheard by Monty Black. Shortly thereafter, Bishop rescues Burton and Ellis from their runaway carriage, and accompanies them to the town of Paloma, home of Burton’s father the silver miner Mexicali Burton. They clear up the misunderstanding that Bishop sabotaged his opponent, which removes the moral qualms that were keeping Burton from being smitten by the cowboy’s suave advances. Meanwhile, Bishop overhears her father and General Ramirez of the Mexican federal army preparing to vanquish the Monty Black gang which threatens to raid his silver stockpiles. Bishop knows that he has to act fast to save Leadly, otherwise the army will attack the gang while he is still among them.

Bishop rides into where the Brotherhood of Death are hiding out and is approached by Black himself, who thinking that Bishop is an escaped criminal, invites him to join his rag-tag band of American outlaws. Bishop proves himself to be flawless in knife throwing, quick drawing and knife fighting and they allow him to participate in the raid on Paloma. En route Bishop secretly explains to Leadly that he was found to be innocent and that Bishop is here to retrieve him, but the young man reaffirms that no one leaves the Brotherhood of Death alive. As the gang enters Paloma, the filmmakers set in motion the classic save-the-day formula that will be acceptable to John Wayne fans, but preposterous to everyone else. Bishop releases Duke, his highly intelligent white steed, who gallops to the warning bell installed by Mexicali Burton and rings it so that the town is alerted to the infiltrators. Monty Black realizes that he has been double crossed, so Bishop and Leadly flee on horseback with the gang in pursuit. The pair hides in a canyon and a shootout occurs, but they are outmanned and captured by the gang. Black is seconds away from shooting Bishop when Duke leads the sidekicks, Mary Burton and the Mexican federal army to that very spot. This leads into a feel-good ending of justice being served to Black and love triumphing as Bishop and Burton embrace.

Somewhere in Sonora is a true crowd pleaser; it has a dashing hero, comical buffoons, a delightful love sub-plot, exciting action scenes and a noble animal sidekick. However, the film is also an explicit exposé on the merits of Mexico as a place for American investors and holidaymakers. The exposé begins in the cantina. The sidekicks see that the Mexican bartender is too lazy to sell his own liquour, so one hops over the counter and pours outrageous quantities for the cantina’s occupants. Bishop tosses the panicking bartender five bucks, not knowing exactly how much the liquor is worth, which thrills him because he can afford a nice fat cow with the extra money. This scene shows how far the American dollar goes in Mexico; a mere five dollars can buy liquor and livestock. Soon Mexicali Burton is introduced, the poster boy of American investment in Mexico. Burton is profiting from Mexican mineral resources and the Mexican federal army is committed to protecting his investments, even if they need American help to do it. It is noteworthy that the threat in Somewhere in Sonora comes from American outlaws and not Mexican banditos. Mexico is so safe that Burton gets his daughter to drive her own horse-drawn cart down to meet him! As well as being profitable and secure for investment, Mexico is portrayed as pulse-quickening and romantic, with the girls swooning in the moonlight-bathed hacienda to the Spanish guitar. Made in 1933, this film markets Mexico as a place where Americans can do profitable business with a compliant government and have a cheap holiday with abundant liquor and romantic settings, much like how Mexico is marketed today.

One Night in the Tropics

2009-02-27T22:44:00.000-08:00

One Night in the Tropics (1940) is a musical comedy about a topsy-turvy love triangle and is best known as the film debut of radio duo Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, who, although they steal the show with witty dialogues, play only minor roles in the main plot. The movie begins with the klutzy Steve Harper (Robert Cummings), who is unlucky with love in the way that he always has too many women at once. He’s falling head-over-heels (almost literally) for the beautiful Cynthia Merrick (Nancy Kelly) and the two plan to marry within the week; until Steve has several unfortunate run-ins with an elderly lady who ends up being Cynthia’s Aunt Kitty (Mary Boland). She forbids Cynthia to marry such a screw-up and Cynthia finally agrees when Steve inadvertently rips her wedding dress. While Steve tries to win Cynthia back over the phone, Mickey Fitzgerald (Peggy Moran) shows up and declares that no one will marry Steve except for herself. Steve is at odds until his best friend Jim “Lucky” Moore (Allan Jones) arrives with the proposition of offering Steve a million dollar ‘love insurance’ policy against his marrying Cynthia by Saturday. Seeing as Jim is about as lucky as they come for an insurance salesman, Steve accepts with the wisdom that he’ll obviously lose in his love insurance policy and thus marry Cynthia. All appears to be going to plan, as Cynthia has agreed to forgive Steve, until one evening when, while out at a restaurant, Cynthia, Steve, and Jim run into Mickey who sings a swooning love song to Steve. Cynthia becomes suspicious and her fears are soon confirmed after she discovers Mickey cornering a reluctant Steve into a kiss. Jim, who had met Cynthia only that night and immediately was bewitched, becomes fearful that he may owe Steve one million dollars if there’s no marriage that Saturday, not to mention a hefty bet that he laid with the intimidating restaurant manager, Roscoe. Cynthia storms off and is followed by Steve, who is followed by Mickey, who is followed by Jim, who is followed by Abbott and Costello, Roscoe’s unlikely henchmen, who are ordered to make sure Jim seals the deal between Cynthia and Steve.

Cynthia plans to board the S.S. Pan America with her aunt and head for the South American town of San Marcos. She is secretly pursued by Jim, Abbott, and Costello. When Steve fails to arrive at the boarding dock for the scheduled time of departure in order to win back Cynthia, Jim sends Abbott and Costello to investigate. Instead, the two nit wits become absorbed in their famous ‘baseball dialogue’ and when they finally arrive at Steve’s apartment they realize that he was being stalled by the conniving Mickey, who conveniently stole the ‘love insurance’ policy when Steve wasn’t looking. Steve takes the next boat to San Marcos while Mickey, flanked by a watchful Abbott and Costello, also manages her way to the South American city.

Meanwhile, on the steamer, Jim and Cynthia discover that they are interested in one another, but Jim keeps his distance, more to honour the insurance policy than his best friend. Aunt Kitty also takes a liking to Jim and upon arriving in San Marcos she insists that the young pair spend more time together. When night falls, the two lean in for their first moonlit kiss, accompanied by the hotel orchestra, but are interrupted by Steve who bounds up and tries to discreetly tell Jim that Mickey is also at the resort. This is all for naught when Mickey appears in Cynthia’s room that night and divulges the entire story to her. Cynthia joins forces with Mickey in order to beat the boys at their own game, thus making more of a love-square than a love-triangle. Mickey is all for it, as long as she is able to have Steve in the end.

The girls plan comes into action the next day when they attend a bull fight with the men and immediately send them into a state of jealousy with Mickey fawning over Jim to distract Steve, and Cynthia swooning over the bull fighter, Rudolfo, in order to distract Jim. They return to the hotel that night and spend the evening serenading their pretend partners while yearning to be with the ones they love, which leaves everyone pacing their verandas in anticipation of the wedding. The following day, Cynthia arrives at the ceremony to announce that the wedding is off, but is stopped when Roscoe appears and forces the minister to marry Steve and Cynthia so that he can win his bet. Jim spoils Roscoe’s plan by throwing grapes at him and then runs away with Cynthia; leaving Mickey behind who threatens the minister with the dropped gun to marry her and Steve, much to Steve’s delight. In the meantime, Cynthia and Jim race away from Roscoe through a maze of dancers in the square who are performing the country’s national dance, the Farandola, in honour of the wedding ceremony. The pair try to blend in, but to no avail. When Roscoe has them cornered, Cynthia pleads to Roscoe not to hurt Jim. Roscoe begins to laugh and says that the insurance policy has been fulfilled on account of Steve marrying Mickey and no one is going to get hurt. Jim doesn’t even hear this as he’s only focusing on how Cynthia tried to save him. He pulls her in close for a kiss as the final curtain falls.

In New York, the characters are constantly at odds with one another, and while the situation doesn’t appear to improve much after shifting locations to San Marcos, the trip’s intention of ending confusion and liberating love lives eventually transpires. San Marcos, in all its wonderful geographic ambiguity, is a site of escape and a refuge for stressed city-folk. Along with the oddness of its street vendors selling hot dogs under the name of ‘tamales’, even the ‘national dance’ of San Marcos appears out of place as it is actually a dance native to several regions in France. The bullfight brings the characters closer to the culture of Spanish heritage, but the tell-tale ignorance of foreigners in Latin America is flaunted when Aunt Kitty exclaims, “Oh, what a pretty bull!” as the beast appears in the ring, which clearly demonstrates that she is unaware of the expected outcome of a bull fight. The resources of this Latin setting are constantly being utilized to set-up passion for the complicated Americans, from the ever-present orchestra and rich moonlight, to the bullfighter Rudolfo who is used as an object to create jealousy. From the plot’s point of view, one night in the tropics, where “the chief import is love and the chief export is happiness”, is all that is needed to untangle a muddled love-triangle.

Giant

2009-02-25T21:01:00.000-08:00

Giant (1956) is an epic drama that spans three generations of the Benedict family as members of their close-knit Texan community become oil-rich. The film focuses mainly on Jordan “Bick” Benedict Junior, his struggle to maintain a ranching legacy in his family against the dynamic personalities of its members and his life-long contention with ranch-hand turned millionaire Jett Rink. However, there is also a sub-plot that portrays racism against Mexican-Americans by white Texans, a situation which improves incrementally with every new generation.

Bick (played by Rock Hudson) is a Texan rancher who meets socialite Leslie (played by Elizabeth Taylor) when he travels to Maryland to buy her stallion. He is enamored with her, though shocked by her frank and intelligent remarks, and they quickly marry. When the couple leave lush Maryland for dusty Texas, it is clear that Leslie is in a much tougher and cruder world. She must get used to new codes of behavior, most notably in the greater docility expected of her gender and unsympathetic attitude towards Mexicans. Mexicans form the Benedict household and ranch staff but Bick quickly stops Leslie from thanking them or inquiring their names, stating curtly: “Here we don’t make a fuss over those people.” Leslie also meets Bick’s formidable sister Luz and their oddball ranch-hand Jett (played by James Dean), who clearly irks Bick but Luz keeps him at the ranch out of compassion.

Leslie is resolutely dealing with the hardships of married life on a Texas ranch when their home-life is shaken up by Luz’s death. In her will, Luz bestows to Jett a plot of land. Jett lacks direction in life and gives the impression of being simple-minded, but he is astute enough to honour the will instead of taking the $1200 that Bick offers him in lieu of the land, wanting to keep the family ranch intact. The Benedicts have twins, Jordan III and Judy, who temporarily ease their marital strife. However, Bick finds the family structure that the male Benedicts upheld for generations unraveling when Leslie sidesteps his authority to improve the living conditions of the Mexican household and ranch staff, and his young son is terrified by horse-riding. This initiates a sense of failure in him which compounds throughout the film.

To intensify Bick’s resentment, Jett strikes big while prospecting for oil. Bick watches helplessly as trucks drive across his cattle ranch, but even he must concede to building wells with an increased demand for petroleum during WWII. After this point, the film transitions its focus from the couple to their struggle to accept the life choices of their young adult children. Jordan III balks the tradition that he take over the ranch, electing instead to become a doctor and controversially marry a Mexican girl named Juana. Judy and her fiancée also reject ownership of the ranch, favouring to start up their own homestead. Luz Junior, born some years after the twins, has a schoolgirl crush on Jett. Meanwhile, Jett has skyrocketed into fame and fortune, but it proves more than he can handle. The Benedicts travel to one of Jett’s hotels where Texan elites have gathered to see him deliver a national radio address. Jett drinks himself to oblivion, brawls with Jordan III who is incensed about racist policies in the hotel, and publicly passes out on a banquet table. On the way back home, an embittered Bick is redeemed when he fist-fights a diner owner who refuses service to a Mexican family, finally becoming a hero to Leslie. The film closes as they muse about the success and transformation of their family line while watching over their grandchildren, with the camera panning in on two pairs of blue and brown eyes, signaling the hopefulness of the next generation.

Giant (1956) has three interlacing stories: the growth and change of the Benedict family, the rise and fall of oil baron Jett Rink, and the physical and symbolic integration of Mexicans into the United States. As we learn from Jett, generations ago the Benedict family bought their 590,000 acres “from some ignorant Mexicans” at a meager 5¢ per acre. Now, the Mexicans are living in squalid conditions working for an Anglo-American, and targeted by vicious racism. At the beginning, Bick has zero interest in the Mexicans and is exasperated when Leslie enlists Dr. Guerro to review their living conditions, stating: “I’m not the Red Cross, I’m a cow man.” However, one of these racial “others” who he only conceived of as labourers enters his family as a daughter, which causes him to extend his sphere of personal responsibility even to the unknown Mexican family in the diner. By the end of the film, his son shares a practice with the Mexican doctor, and there is a beloved mixed-race child amongst his grandchildren. Mexicans are also portrayed as symbolically becoming part of the United States via their participation in WWII. The first person from the ranch to enlist is Angel Obregón Jr. who dies in action abroad. His funeral is a moving scene in which his flag-draped coffin is surrounded by the Mexican community, and then approached by Bick who solemnly presents Angel Obregón Sr. with the Texas flag. This flag, which to him was previously a symbol of whiteness, is now the property of both cultures.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey

2009-02-25T17:26:00.000-08:00

This 2004 version of Thornton Wilder's novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey is the only one of three versions that remains true to the original novel's shocking ending. The novel and film are loosely based on the life of Peruvian actress Micaela Villegas (1748-1819), known as "La Perichole", a reference to her mixed Spanish and indigenous blood. She was the mistress of the Peruvian Viceroy Manuel Amat y Juniet from 1761 to 1766. The film, however, focusses little on La Perichole and more on the various other characters whose stories intertwine with hers.

The opening scene depicts Franciscan monk Brother Juniper (Gabriel Byrne) being questioned by the Archbishop of Peru (Robert De Niro) before the Peruvian Viceroy and his court. The questioning regards the book Brother Juniper has written about an event which occurred six years earlier, the collapse of the Bridge of San Luis Rey in the Andes, which sent five seemingly unrelated travellers plunging to their deaths in a deep gorge. The Spanish Inquisition is underway, and Brother Juniper's book has been deemed heretical for its questioning of Fate and God's will. In order to defend himself, Brother Juniper must tell the tale of the Bridge of San Luis Rey, which begins the day that he witnesses the tragedy near his mountainside church. Deeply saddened and intrigued by the seemingly arbitrary nature of these five people's deaths, Brother Juniper takes it upon himself to investigate their stories so that he can find some insight into the workings of God's will. The flashback of Brother Juniper's discoveries begins with the Marquesa Maria de Montemayor, the richest woman in all of Peru. She is a lonely old woman, obsessed with a daughter who has abandoned her for a husband in the court of Spain. She manipulates the Viceroy's court in Peru and participates in the most vicious gossip, all for the sake of her daughter's praise, as she sinks deeper into a lonely, alcohol-numbed existence. In order to alleviate her pain, she asks the Archbishop of Peru to find her a companion. He promptly bribes the Abbess of a convent to provide the Marquesa with a young girl, Pepita, who will live with the Marquesa and help her around the house. One of the Marquesa's favourite pastimes is going to the theatre, where the famous actress La Perrichole is the star attraction. La Perrichole is under the tutelage of the theatre's manager, the nefarious but benign Uncle Pio, who has dedicated himself to making her a star. Part of this process has included his encouragement of her affair with the Viceroy, who in return for her attentions provides the theatre with generous patronage. La Perrichole has a secret lover on the side, a handsome matador to whom she sends letters dictated to her scribe Manuel, a silent young man who shares his silence and his identity with his inseparable twin brother Esteban. One day, Manuel and Esteban are unloading a ship at the harbour for a Spanish captain, Alvarado, when Manuel's leg is gravely injured. Despite Esteban's care, Manuel's leg becomes gangrenous and eventually kills him. Esteban's consequent depression leads him to quit his job as La Perrichole's scribe and try to commit suicide. Captain Alvarado arrives just in time to save Esteban from his death, and takes Esteban under his wing, giving him a job on his ship for his next trip to Spain.

We return to La Perrichole's story, in which she and the Viceroy are attending a bullfight together. The matador, her secret lover, publicly pronounces his passion for La Perrichole, causing the Viceroy to be humiliated. That night, at the theatre, the Marquesa angers La Perrichole by acting shamelessly bored in front of all the Royal Court; La Perrichole responds by publicly making fun of the Marquesa. The Viceroy takes this opportunity to avenge himself for his humiliation by ordering La Perrichole to make a public apology to the Marquesa wearing the rags of shame. When she goes to the Marquesa's palace to apologize the following day, La Perrichole is surprised to discover that the Marquesa has had an epiphany, in which she repents from her scheming ways and apologizes to La Perrichole. La Perrichole's relief is fleeting, however, as she soon discovers she is pregnant with the Viceroy's child. The Viceroy arranges for her to live in a villa high up in the Andes until the child is born. Her absence causes Uncle Pio a great deal of sadness; not only has he lost his beloved protegee, but without her his theatre suffers. Once she has had the child, little Don Jaime, Uncle Pio repeatedly visits her and tries to convince her to return, but La Perrichola has accepted her lonely fate away from the public eye. The situation worsens when an outbreak of smallpox infects her and disfigures her loveliness; she escapes the villa and goes to live alone in the mountains with her son, hoping never to see anyone ever again. A few years later, Uncle Pio finds her and convinces her to let him take young Don Jaime back to Lima, where he can be educated and properly cared for by Uncle Pio.

The final and fateful day of the collapse of the Bridge of San Luis Rey arrives as the destinies of all these characters come together. Uncle Pio is returning from La Perrichola's hideout in the Andes with the little child Jaime on his back. The lonely Esteban, who has spent a few days up at Captain Alvarado's house in the mountains, is returning to Lima to embark upon his journey to Spain. La Marquesa is returning from a pilgrimage to Brother Juniper's church in the mountains, where she has travelled to beg God for forgiveness of her past misdeeds, with Pepita in tow. The Marquesa, Pepita, Esteban, Uncle Pio, and little Jaime step onto the bridge, and before Brother Juniper's eyes, plunge to their deaths as the ropes of the bridge break. The flashback ends, bringing us back to the interrogation of Brother Juniper by the Archbishop. The Archbishop denounces his writings as heretical, as the "work of the devil", because Brother Juniper's close search for a historical, mathematical proof of God demonstrates doubt of God. This absurd accusation is supported by all those in the court, including the Viceroy. La Perrichole is brought in to testify for Brother Juniper, but the smallpox that has disfigured her face causes the Viceroy to refuse to acknowledge her identity, making her testimony useless. The Archbishop condemns Brother Juniper to be burned at the stake, with all the copies of his book, "The Bridge of San Luis Rey".

The film was shot on location in Spain, despite its setting being Peru. The focus is on the elaborate power structure of the Spanish colonial system, on the lavish and exaggerated lifestyles of the power-hungry Spanish elites. These elites are portrayed as ridiculous, pompous, and stupid. The Viceroy and his aides are hedonistic and decadent wig-wearing fools, who care little for the proper governance of the colony and more about entertaining themselves. The Marquesa is a fat, desperate and lonely woman who uses her obscene wealth to gain favour in the court. Uncle Pio and La Perrichole, who are lower on the hierarchical ladder of the colony, will do anything to be accepted by these elites, even betray themselves. The costumes in the film, which were praised by critics (the only thing praised by critics) are luxurious and exaggerated, demonstrating the wealth and decadence of the ruling elites. Only Brother Juniper lies outside this struggle for social status; he lives a frugal life among the natives, tending to his church. His good deeds are denounced by the Church, which opposes his education of the natives and his challenge of the Church's corruption. In the colonial system, climbing the social ladder and gaining prestige is of the utmost importance, and goodness is squashed under the quest for power.

It seems that the deaths of the repentant Marquesa, the kind Pepita, the suffering Esteban, the benevolent Uncle Pio, the innocent little Jaime, and the holy Brother Juniper prove that in colonial Peru, goodness can't survive. The good are taken up to heaven, where they are free from the evils of their fellow men. Colonial Peru is a place for wicked men to play their petty games and pay for them with boredom, desperation, and sickness. Brother Juniper's search for God's will reveals that God rewards those who are good, who repent for their sins and help others, by removing them from the cruel world, while leaving the power-hungry to their wicked lives on earth. The manipulation of religious faith by the Archbishop and the Viceroyalty as a means of achieving political power shows their godlessness, a godlessness that permeates the air of colonial Peru.

Old Gringo

2009-02-24T15:50:00.000-08:00

The "old gringo" in the film Old Gringo (1989) is Ambrose Bierce (Gregory Peck) a famous American writer and journalist who has denounced his American life and goes south to fight in the Mexican Revolution in 1913. His fate is intertwined with that of a gringa, sexually repressed schoolteacher Harriet Winslow (Jane Fonda), who has also left her boring American life to be the governess for a wealthy landowning Mexican family, the Mirandas. Both Americans arrive in Chihuahua looking to make something of their lives. What they find is General Tomas Arroyo, a handsome revolutionary leader who will change their destinies, and the destiny of Mexico. Amidst the revolutionary fervour and celebration in Chihuahua, the three characters find each other. Bierce approaches Arroyo and asks to fight in his revolution; a skeptical but curious Arroyo accepts. Without crossing paths with Bierce, Harriet Winslow asks Arroyo to help her get to the hacienda of the Mirandas in the Sierra mountains; Arroyo accepts because he can use her to get into the Miranda house and expropriate the family with his revolutionary forces. And so ensues the adventure: Arroyo and his men escort Ms. Winslow into the mountains, where Arroyo's army awaits, and Mr. Bierce follows far behind on horseback.

Upon arrival at the Miranda hacienda, it becomes clear that the Mirandas have fled in the face of the encroaching revolutionary army. Their hacienda, however, is being defended by los Federales, the federal anti-revolutionary troops. A bloody and violent battle takes place, in which many men on both sides are killed. Bierce becomes the hero of the battle when he orchestrates the collision of a train into the Miranda house, the destruction of which leads to the defeat of the Federales by the revolucionarios. Ms. Winslow manages to emerge unscathed from the carnage, shocked and bewildered. That night, while Arroyo's army and their women and children celebrate the victory, Ms. Winslow and Mr. Bierce meet and a romantic spark is lit between the bitter old man and the lost spinster. In the following days, Ms. Winslow and Mr. Bierce become immersed in the life of the revolutionaries at the hacienda, Ms. Winslow doing chores and talking with the women and children while Mr. Bierce befriends General Arroyo assists him with logistics. The happy and determined Mexican people charm the two Americans and teach them a few lessons about the Revolution, making them feel that they are contributing to a positive cause for the first time in their lives. A romantic triangle is introduced when the young General Arroyo takes an interest in Ms. Winslow, who must choose between the powerful, lustful young general and the older gentleman who is besotted with her. Her sexual liberation comes when she succumbs to the seduction of Arroyo in a luxurious bed of the Miranda hacienda.

But the carefree existence in the hacienda is fleeting, for all characters. It is revealed that Tomas Arroyo is in fact a bastard child of the escaped Don Miranda, who raped Arroyo's mother and impregnated her. This fact haunts Arroyo, who suffered at the hands of the Mirandas his whole life and is now unable to let go of the hacienda he has taken from them. He is obsessed with the deeds to the land, which are to be redistributed among the people, but he cannot read them. When the leader of the Revolution, Pancho Villa, summons Arroyo and his army to fight at the front, Arroyo delays leaving the hacienda until even his colonels begin to question his fitness as a leader. Arroyo begins to execute any men who question him. When Mr. Bierce, in an attempt to free Arroyo from his obsession, burns the land deeds with a candle, Arroyo loses control and shoots Bierce to death. Bierce dies in the arms of Ms. Winslow, who has just found out Bierce's identity as her favourite writer. Ms. Winslow flees the hacienda, disillusioned and afraid of Arroyo's rage.
In Chihuahua, Ms. Winslow arranges to take Bierce's body back to America, so she can bury him properly; he was like a father to her and she would like to repay him for his kindness. The body is in possession of General Pancho Villa himself, the leader of the Revolution. When she is summoned to his military lair, she is surprised to find a chagrined Arroyo there. Villa asks her to sign a witness statement of the death of Mr. Bierce, and, to her bewilderment, the death of Tomas Arroyo. It becomes clear that Arroyo is to be killed by his own men for his lack of judgment as a revolutionary leader and his murder of Bierce. After saying a heartfelt goodbye to his friends and fellow soldiers, Arroyo submits himself to be executed by them. His last words are "Viva la Revolucion!". Following this, a heartbroken but renewed Harriet Winslow leaves Chihuahua for America.

This film is based on the novel "Gringo Viejo" , by Carlos Fuentes. It is a film pervaded by the revolutionary spirit of Mexico, the enthusiastic and heartfelt struggle for the common people and the violence that inevitably comes with it. It portrays the essential process of creative destruction; for a new Mexico to be born, the old Mexico must be destroyed. The revolutionaries are philosophical about this creative destruction. "You gringos are too complicated," a bullet-strapped sombrero-wearing moustached fighter tells Bierce, "Death is just death!". Ms. Winslow calls Mexico a land where "Death is not the end, but the beginning". Arroyo's acceptance of his own death shows his true commitment to the Revolution and his understanding that the Revolution must be pure and unstained by his betrayal. He is, in the end, a Miranda, which is everything the Revolution stands against, and so he must be destroyed. Patriotism has the ultimate value in Mexico, and its people will do anything for their country and their freedom.

For the gringos, Mexico also provides freedom from the chains with which America has imprisoned them. Bierce is in search of the truth, sick of the lies of the American newspapers and his own writing. In Mexico, he seeks a way to "die admirably", to fight a war the way it deserves to be fought. He denounces the dirty imperialist goals of America, especially in the "shameful" war in Cuba in 1898. "To be a gringo in Mexico...aaaah, that is euthanasia", he muses. Mexico is a place where he can die, where he can be free from the difficulties of life and age. In Mexico, death is indeed a beginning, one which Bierce seeks. A death in the Mexican Revolution is a noble one. It is his death which consequently frees Arroyo from his identity crisis and his tortured life; Bierce's death facilitates the death of Arroyo. In being set free from life, Bierce allows Arroyo to be set free as well. Ms. Winslow also finds freedom in Mexico. She is amazed and inspired by the sense of humour and zeal for life of the Mexicans, who are surrounded by violence and suffering. She finds her long-lost sexuality with the help of Bierce and Arroyo. She discovers her strength and her femininity through guidance from the Mexican women. To Arroyo she says, "You made me believe I could live a different kind of life. I'll never be the same". She adopts the Mexican attitude towards death and accepts Bierce and Arroyo's deaths with strength. The Mexican Revolution leads to Mexico's freedom, as well as the freedom of the protagonists.

The Ride Back

2009-02-24T11:15:00.000-08:00

In Western movies, an American gunslinger who rides down to Mexico does so for three reasons: 1) He is a mercenary looking to make some cash 2) He is a lawman retrieving a criminal to be tried in the United States, or 3) He is a troubled soul seeking redemption. The Ride Back (1957) follows the latter two conventions, depicting the journey of Sheriff Chris Hamish who is dead set on retrieving accused murderer Roberto Kallen from his Mexican hideout to stand trail in the United States, and the bond that forms between them while on the journey back up north.

The film comically opens as Hamish tries to get his search warrant for Kallen signed by a Mexican police officer. The border station doubles at the officer’s home, so he is preoccupied by his wailing child and nagging wife, but after Hamish communicates his mission via charades and simplified English, the officer is happy to assist him. When Hamish arrives in Cerralvo, the Mexican town where Kallen is hiding out, he finds the accused criminal deeply rooted there; he has a fiercely loyal girlfriend named Elena and the local men rush to his aid upon hearing that Hamish plans to take him. This acceptance is partly explained by Kallen’s half-Mexican parentage, but more so by his charisma. Hamish is the opposite in this respect; he has no noteworthy characteristics, is unskilled with a gun and is visibly scared. Kallen even asks him: “Why did they send you after me? Man, you don’t look to me like you’re much.” To which Hamish replies: “I’m not.”

Hamish succeeds on getting Kallen on the road, but only because Kallen treats Hamish as a mere nuisance and expects to be back in Cerralvo by sundown. However, Hamish thwarts Kallen’s multiple attempts to escape and succeeds in bringing him to the border, with a love-sick Elena following all the way. The border officer, loyal to Hamish as a fellow lawman, refuses to hear Kallen’s appeals and detains Elena. However, once in the U.S. the duo encounter the Apaches, a Native American tribe portrayed as roving warriors who mercilessly kill and get smashed on looted alcohol. They hide in a small frontier dwelling whose occupants, except for one little girl, have been murdered by the Apaches. Tensions between the men reach a boiling point as Kallen lets loose his searing contempt for Hamish’s cowardice, and Hamish repeats that he’s taking Kallen back to stand trial. When the mood has cooled, Kallen appeals to Hamish, stating that he killed in self-defense and only ran from the crime because he knew that as an outsider he was as good as hung. Hamish promises Kallen a fair trial, but also admits that this mission is not about the law but about him; Hamish has been always been failure, hated by everyone including his wife, and this is his one chance to set things right.

Kallen gains the timid trust of the girl and the three barely escape from the house under fire by the Apaches. The Apaches catch up to them a mere two miles from Scotssville, where Kallen is to stand trail, and severely wound Hamish. After Kallen has killed their aggressors he is confronted with a staggering moral dilemma: to return to life in Mexico or face the American justice system. At first he charges the girl with retrieving help for Hamish, who is delirious with pain, and rides off south. Before long, however, he returns to find that the blank-eyed girl and the semi-unconscious Hamish have not moved, so he loads them onto his horse and nobly heads to Scotssville, where he can only hope that Hamish can keep his promise of a fair trial.

There are two kinds of American outlaws that escape to Mexico in Western movies, those who are essentially bad and are evading the law, and those who are essentially good and are taking refuge from a broken legal system. In The Ride Back, Kallen is of the latter category; throughout the film he is shown to be increasingly tender-hearted and well-intentioned, but would have been hung in the United States by a prejudiced jury. However, the film sends the message that while juries are fallible, the law must nevertheless be abided by.

The Ride Back shows a great degree of partnership and integration between Mexico and the United States, as evidenced by the Mexican police officer’s eagerness to help Hamish exercise the law across the border. However, Mexican law is portrayed as something very different to American law. The Mexican, even though he is the go-to person for signing search warrants, ambles up to Hamish in a sweaty t-shirt, has to deal with a crying baby left carelessly on the sand, and fails to immediately recognize the paper that Hamish holds before him. Though he is ultimately friendly and helpful, the police officer, and the national bureaucracy that he represents, is not efficient, knowledgeable or professional. There is a great degree of Spanish dialogue in the film for which no subtitles are given; for a non-Spanish speaking audience this adds greater confusion to the Mexican police officer hollering to his family members and greater exoticism to the loving words of Elena to Kallen. This distance created by language is at odds with the apparent closeness of Mexico and the United States; throughout the film Hamish repeatedly asks Mexicans if they speak English and vice versa for Spanish. At the end of the day, the two neighbouring cultures are portrayed as worlds apart.