Altiplano

Altiplano (2009) is a American-Belgian drama film directed by Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth. The movie recounts the realities of different people around the world (Europe, Middle East, and South America), but that redemption from their tragic lives at the small Quechua village called Turubamba of the Andean plateau. With dialogues in five languages (French, English, Persian and Quechua), Altiplano shows us a world divided, but that connects through feelings and travels with images.

The film begins with a devastating event that gives us to understand that the plot was based on the suspense and mixed feelings that arise from equally bittersweet moments. Grace (Jasmin Tabatabai) is a photographer who travels to Iraq where her guide and friend is murdered in front of her eyes and she is forced to photograph the scene. Despite the advice of his family to publish the photograph so that the world knows the story, the trauma caused by that death eats away at his conscience and leaves him in a state of desolation. Her partner travels to Turubamba on a medical mission but she remains in Belgium, unable to continue with the art of capturing painful realities in photographs.

Parallel to the situation of Grace, the young indigenous Saturnina (Magaly Solier) introduces us to know the small town called Turubamba (the location is fictional for this movie, but the name belongs to a village in Ecuador) and their own tragedies. Saturnina plans to get married, but a mercury spill from the gold mines around the area has left most of Turubamba's people blind or close to death which compromises Saturina's plans. Her story and the struggles of the Turubamba village are presented as the main plot of the movie. In a somewhat surreal and lyrical way, Brosens and Woodworth show us a Latin America in which the indigenous traditions and beliefs are blended with Catholicism creating a unique culture. For example, Saturnina is the guard of the figure of the Virgin Mary and like her, all the people from the village attend to church and worship the saints. But simultaneously to the traditions acquired during the colonial period, they continue adoring the Sun, the Moon, Mother Nature, having rituals with corn, and speaking their own language, Quechua.

Saturnina's fiancee dies due to mercury poisoning. This event is a breakdown not only for Saturnina but for everyone concerned with Turubamba such as the mining companies and the doctors of the mission. The problem of the mining spills becomes sounder and people start protesting. Max (Oliver Gourmet), Grace's husband who was trying to investigate the causes of the poisoning with the rest of the medical crew dies accidentally during one of those protests. Overwhelmed with both casualties (her friend in Iraq and her partner in Turubamba), Grace travels to understand the situation in which Max died which was not recorded or reported anywhere. She finds Max's camera which contained a video of Saturnina's suicide. In the video, Saturnina leaves messages explaining her decision and the situation of her village. "Without images, there is no history" and "the mother Earth will never forgive our deed" are some of the shocking phrases that will remain in Grace's mind to help her find redemption.

Towards the end of the movie, the scenes are presented in black and white accompanied with sad music and shots of the faces of the indigenous killed by the contamination and their grieving families as a way to emphasize their feelings. The change in colour makes those moments more dramatic than the rest of the movie. The story does not go on relating the result of the protests for the mining or missions around, indeed, by the end of the movie those factors disappear completely leaving us only the images that reflect the feelings, the tragedy, and the fantasy of indigenous beliefs. Again like in other movies depicting Latin America, ecological problems and the struggles faced by minority groups seem to be the least important matter in the film. They are part of the movie just to propose plots that appeal to the audience for its realism.

Like in Gibson's "Apocalypto", Elliot's "The Debt", or even in the Zorro movies, the Latin American "real" drama is called to the screen with elements such as the language (Spanish or a native tongue), exploitation or the memories of it (resentments from colonization), and the combination of these with actual history of the region or of its people, especially of indigenous people.

Touching the Void

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.

Secret of the Andes

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

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 Bridge of San Luis Rey

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.

Secret of the Incas

Perhaps precisely because it is portrayed as a place to get rich quick, Latin America is also often seen to be a place to get old slowly. Like a frontier town after a gold rush, it is full both of enthusiastic youth looking to make their fortune, and also old timers who linger on, waiting for the moment when their luck, too, will change. The old and the young show two faces of desperation; it is just that the young do not yet know how desperate they really are.

Such is Cuzco in Secret of the Incas. Charlton Heston plays Harry Steele, the young buck, an American ex-World War Two pilot who is in the Andes to work as a guide earning good tips by charming the lady tourists of a certain age, whether they are accompanied by their husbands or not. He's a hustler, with fingers in many pies and an uneasy friendship with his much older compatriot Ed Morgan. What unites the dashing Steele with the disheveled Morgan, however, is their shared quest for Inca gold. Specifically, both are on the trail of a dazzling but long-lost treasure, a sculpture of the sun encrusted with diamonds.

Steele has in his possession a stone marked with one half of a map that apparently reveals the location of this hidden wonder; he matches it up with the missing half while guiding a group of visitors around the local archaeological museum. On the same tour he also meets up with a flame-haired young woman with a mysterious past: Elena Antonescu, a Romanian refugee who is circuitously trying to make her way to the USA where she hopes to find freedom and fortune. Alas, the Romanian consul is hot on her trail, and Steele refuses to help her out as she only has $50 to her name and money is all that really interests him.

Upon hearing, however, that the Eastern European diplomat has his own plane with which to pursue his prey, Steele senses an opportunity. He lures the man to Cuzco where he and Elena steal the aircraft and fly out of the city. Elena thinks they are headed north, to Ecuador at least, but first Steele wants to make a stop at Machu Picchu: he's not about to leave the country without the artifact of his dreams.

At the Inca citadel, the outlaw duo discover that archaeologists have just uncovered the tomb of the last Inca. Thousands of indigenous people, including Yma Sumac with her rather bizarre multi-octave singing style, have converged on the site in anticipation of the exhumation. Morgan also arrives on the scene, seeking to join forces with Steele and gain a fifty per cent cut of the proceeds of the treasure. Everything is set for a final showdown.

Yet things take a turn as the elderly archaeologist supervising the dig falls for Elena. His love for her, moreover, is untainted by any desire for financial or social advantage. She, in response, begins to rethink her priorities, and accuses Steele of being a money-grubber who will end up no better than the miserable and untrustworthy Morgan. (Note that later this dichotomy between good-hearted archaeologist and dashing young buck will be resolved by making them one and the same person: Indiana Jones, whose sartorial style is clearly drawn directly from Heston's in this film.)

As mirrors start to figure prominently in the plot (the golden sun's location is revealed by light that bounces around the burial chamber), the young man realizes that his older colleague-cum-rival is simply a reflection of his own barren future. So even though he does eventually get hold of the Inca treasure, while Morgan plunges off the mountain to his death, gravity getting him in the end, Steele decides that the true prize is human, not financial. He hands over the golden disk and heads off into the future with his girl by his side.

Within this complex pattern of mirror images that finally decides the movie's outcome, Peru itself becomes the site where our handsome hero first loses sight of himself and then spends some quality time in self-reflection. As so often, Latin America becomes the place to ask "What kind of man am I?"

And though the film starts off by making fun of the Americans who come to the Andes to gawp and be seduced by both the scenery and their guides, eventually Steele decides that he too should only be passing through, to avoid Morgan's fate of perishing so far from home. So for all its initial cynicism, it's no surprise that the film (shot on location in Technicolor) should have famously boosted Peru's tourism industry. Tourism--visiting but not staying--is depicted as a truly educational enterprise, a way to learn more about yourself and to rise above a fixation on the material.


Link: a labor-of-love website devoted to the film.

Tycoon

When Hollywood sends its stars down to Latin America, they typically have to face one or other of two challenges: cultural difference or natural indifference. In Tycoon, megastar John Wayne has to face both, albeit only one at a time.

Wayne plays Johnny Munroe, an engineer leading the effort to blast a tunnel through an Andean mountain so that a railroad can reach the mines owned by local tycoon Frederick Alexander. For the first half of the movie, we see Johnny as a happy-go-lucky guy, who likes a drink and a night out on the local town with the other ex-pat Americans who make up his team. During one such bacchanal, hungover or still drunk on the Sunday morning, he notices a beautiful young woman on her way to church, and follows along. It turns out that he's chasing the tycoon's daughter, Maura, and Johnny's forced to learn the complex rules for courting such a high-class Latin gal.

Unsurprisingly, our carousing hero breaks these rules as often as not, and the courtship is brought to a rather abrupt end when he and Maura are discovered to have spent the night at a local Inca ruin, having got lost in the jungle en route back to town. Local tradition, it seems, demands that a couple caught in such a compromising position have immediately to enter into a shotgun wedding. So Maura goes off to live with her new husband at the engineer's camp high in the mountains, but her father's dislike of the set-up follows her there and determines the shift in the film's tone and theme.

The second half of the movie is a study in stubbornness. Johnny and his father-in-law are solidly set against each other: Alexander determines to turn down all his engineer's requests, and to make his work increasingly difficult; the son-in-law in turn refuses ever to back down. But stubbornest of all is the mountain through which the railroad is to run. For all the rhythmic sequence of blasts that punctuate the action, and the ever-present labor that goes on night and day, rockfalls and finally a fatality mean that the tunnel is abandoned. "You can't drive through this crazy mountain." But the alternative, taking the line around a pass and building a bridge across a narrow gorge, is equally risky, especially at the breakneck pace that Munroe insists on keeping.

Under increasing pressure, Johnny throws himself into his work, abandons his young wife, turns on his former friends, and becomes an increasingly tyrannical and insensitive overseer. Repulsed by this cruel and indifferent and utterly masculine world ("What's wrong with this place?" "I hate it." "That's because you are a woman"), Maura returns to her father, who feels that his original displeasure towards her husband is proved right, according to the adage that Latin America's stubborn nature, indifferent to human attempts to change it, reveals the truth of human personality: "Put a man in the jungle and you will discover what his real nature is. The veneer wears pretty thin."

So Tycoon brings together two rather contrasting versions of Latin America: cultural adornment on the one hand, and unadorned nature on the other. The film's failure (it was a box office disappointment given that it was studio RKO's most expensive movie to date) perhaps stems from its inability to resolve that tension, or even really to acknowledge it. In the end, Johnny proves himself with his personal courage in the face of impending natural disaster as a storm surge threatens to topple the half-completed bridge, and he and Maura reconcile though it's not entirely clear or convincing why.

For most of the film, Wayne's character is shadowed by a young double, a local boy called "chico" who tells his friends to call him Johnny Munroe, and that he too is an engineer driving a railroad across the cordillera. But this conceit fades away as it becomes clear that chico has little or nothing to imitate: the irony is that Hollywood's leading man, John Wayne the archetypal male action hero, is here purely reactive, simply a function of the challenges he is posed. There's no consistency to his character; he is as hollow as the mountain is solid, as bland as the culture he faces is complex.