“Our Brand is Crisis” was quite an intriguing movie directed by Rachel Boynton.  It quickly details the story of how the political marketing firm of Greenberg Carville Shrum, tried to help sway the election in favor of Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. They were successful in getting him elected, and then they stayed to try to help him lead the country through its political and financial crisis through the uses of poll data and focus groups. Ultimately they were unsuccessful in keeping him in power, as he was deposed just a short while after.

What is so interesting about this movie is that in a strange way, it closely parallels some of the movies that we watched earlier in the year. We saw how revolutions in Cuba, and political unrest was caused in large part by the American businessmen trying to export the American way of doing business and causing problems in the first place. The problems back then were created by Americans just not caring enough who was hurt or what people were run over in the process of making a profit. Here we have a little bit different story with the same principle.

In the wake of the failings of many of the Communist influence in Latin America, there was now an opening for a more democratic way of running the government.  John Chasteen notes in “Born in Blood and Fire” that, “Boosted by its association with the one remaining superpower, the United States, liberalism has returned to fill the vacuum.” (Chasteen p. 311) The group under James Carville was more or less on assignment from the White House, to come help the spread of this new liberalism in Latin America.

 The Americans came down try to help Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada become reelected, and then help him maintain his power by staying popular. They ultimately failed, because they didn’t really understand, or comprehend what the Bolivian people really wanted. The American’s came to Bolivia with the understanding of the American system of doing government. In the United States, the everyday citizen’s addition to the political system was to elect its officials, whether state or national, and then to sit back and let the officials run the country. This is a Democratic Republic. That is not how the average Bolivian wants it government to run. They see themselves as being part of the political process, specifically as part of the decision making process. Gonzalo was probably trying in earnest to make things in Boliva better, but as James Cypher in “The Slow Death of the Washington consensus, “in Latin America, “Increasing poverty, stagnant or fallin wages, and a further and steady widening of the distribution of income in virtually every nation has also become the omnipresent and largely ignored social context of the neoliberal era.”(Cypher p. 47) It didn’t matter if he had been able to get every person in Bolivia involved; they were not going to accept the measures it would take the country to get back on course. Ultimately, Gonzalo and the Americans were doomed to fail, because Latin America is not the United States, and trying to export an exact copy of our politics will likely succeed as much as trying to export our economic policy.

La virgen de los sicariosh

The film “La virgen de los sicarios” or “Our Lady of the Assassins” tells an interesting and somewhat convoluted story about cities in Columbia, and how they are trying to get along in the post-Pablo Escobar and drug cartel world that they find themselves in. The drug trade is very much still alive and active, but Barbet Schroder is showing the cities as they are struggling with the leftover violence that Escobar’s regime had inflicted on Columbia. This movie is somewhat unique from the last couple of films we have seen, though it is probably most closely related to the film “The City of God.” Very quickly in “Our Lady of Assassins” we are quickly clued into the depths to which Columbia has sunk. Thousand s of people are being killed routinely, bystanders are robbed at gunpoint, and as we see part of the way though, some are killed just for trying to resist having their property stolen. Human life has no more value to the members of the criminal element. What is shocking is how the people are portrayed as all being guilty or in some way deserving of the death that is handed out on such are careless and regular basis. The young man Alexis is guilty of this loss of value for life on many occasions. He showed that he would just as quickly “off” someone as he would any menial task in his life. Revenge for something as little as having been disrespected is seen as worthy enough of a reason to take someone’s life. In the writing of Ricardo Vargas, “State, Esprit Mafioso, and Armed Conflict in Columbia” he wrote that, “The esprit Mafioso is growing and is permeating Columbian society as a whole. Values such as vengeance and the violent settling of scores are an increasing part of everyday life.” (page 123)

The moral of the movie, by the end, seemed to be that no one in any of Columbia could be considered as innocent.  Fernando even indicated as much when the woman was horrified at the man being killed right in front of them, and he said there are no innocents here. Later it is even more striking when the dog is killed and Alexis is sad because he didn’t think that there was any reason for the dog to have to die. More value for a common dog than for a human being, that is how far Columbia had sunk and how bad an influence the mafia had had on the Columbian people. Forrest Hylton wrote in his book that, “In 1987-88 homicide had already become the leading cause of death among males” but that, “Social movements staged massive marches in the cities and the countryside.” (page 75) So while things were really bad in Columbia, the people were realizing the issues that they were facing and were finally trying to do something to return their country to having the basic level of respect for life, and finally putting all the mafia and gang fighting to rest.

Bus 174 was an unbelievably piercing documentary created by Jose Padilha and Felipe Lacerda. It details the story of a young man named Sandro do Nascimento who, on June 12^th of 2000, captured and held hostage a bus full of people. Part of what made this movie interesting is how it correlates to the film “The city of God” of last week. In that film, we saw how the murders and other crimes increased as the drug uses were increasing. The criminals occasionally committed crimes and murders for random reason, but mostly it was to either gain power or to gain more money. Bus 174 tells the story, in a way, from the other side of the drug war. What is portrayed, is a young man who is more or less broken. People look at what he did and judge him for the horrible actions that he committed. What Bus 174 does, is give an explanation for why he was who he was, and why he did what he did. Drugs had ruined what had once been the life of a promising young boy. He had people who were interested in investing in him, but his addiction to glue and later to stronger drugs ruined his future. While he was responsible for his actions and choices, the way that city life in Latin America had transformed, put pressures on young impressionable kids like him. Big impersonal cities with slums where drugs are rampant and families were torn apart by poverty preyed on young promising kids like himself. In Mark D. Szuchman’s work, “The city as Vision-The Development of Urban Culture in Latin America” he wrote that cities had shattered families, traditions, and small communities, which, in turn, have had to be reconstituted in the face of considerable odds and in an incomparably more impersonal environment.” (Page 25) Add to it the fact that he saw his own mother being murdered, then later witnessed the needless murdering of many of his friends, a picture begins to form of a young man who has been abused by his surroundings. True to the form of the rising cities, he was then mistreated in the prison system that was supposed to be for rehabilitation of guys like him. Instead he was the victim of yet another injustice. Szuchman addressed the public system when he wrote that, “It is one of the supreme ironies that urban areas with concentrations of poverty stricken folk and people of color are today effectively forbidden to public safety officers, the elites’ instrument of power and authority.”(Page 25) The people who were supposed to help a young Sandro were the same ones who were later responsible for having made the whole standoff last longer than it should have, and end it a much worse way that it had to. At the end of the day the movie is a great representation of the system that most Latin American countries deal with. There is a self-perpetuating system of breakdown, that continually creates stories like Sandros.

Cidade De Dues

The movie Cidade De Dues, or The City of God was a really great movie directed by Fernando Meirelles. The imagery of the slums in the city, the power of the killings that took place over and over again, mixed with the shock of seeing young kids, some no older that what appeared to be 8-10 years old, created a movie that was difficult to watch and yet difficult to look away from. Part of what made the movie so riveting, was the directors generous use of flashbacks, that constantly kept the viewer on the edge of their seats trying to figure out exactly what order the events were taking place in. In his review, Stephen M. Hart, wrote that, “One other point ought to be made about the flashbacks and this concerns the point at which they re-connect with the narrative proper which, as it were, had halted in order for the past sequence to be ‘remembered’ by the film’s consciousness.”(Cidade De Deus 209) By constantly going from the past to the present and vice versa, Meirelles created a movie that told a complete story that tied what seemed to be a number of loose elements into a one clear storyline.

Within that story, Meirelles addressed many of the issues that were facing the Latin American countries around the time of the seventies. One can see the rise in a sort of sub-culture that the Brazilians were experiencing, by the groups that the different young people were dividing themselves into. Most notably the young group of “Groovies” that the young Rocket found himself a part of. The movie depicts, around the midpoint of the movie, the hard times that the younger generations found themselves struggling in. A good example, since the movie is seen through the eyes of Rocket, is how he hated his job at the supermarket, but that he refused to quit and wanted to be laid off so he could collect his severance. Because of these tough times, the drug use in the ghettos continued to climb, which paved the way for a huge increase in drug trafficking. Likewise, it made the buying and selling of drugs way more lucrative of a business for guys like lil dice and Carrot. All that the movie depicted about the rise of the drug use and the increasing wealth and power of the drug dealers themselves is well documented in the history of South America. Likewise, a maybe more importantly, the movie correctly portrays the police force as either being incapable of really keeping a handle on the drugs and the violence, or unconcerned because they were being paid off. The interesting angle is how the media seems to be the one entity that is interested in the story, and the one creates the most interest in the drug wars of the City of God.

The last thing to note is the rise of the group known as the runts. Kids who are drug users, who rob their own people, and who by the end of the movie are committing murders and planning on committing more. This seems to be the most striking image of the movie, since it is a depiction of how the corruption has seeped down through society to the point where it was affecting the children in the City of God. However, it can be viewed semi-symbolic move on the part of Meirelles, as it might be seen as the youth are taking over their futures and thus the futures of the Latin American countries will be decided by the growing youth movements.

Che Part 1

Che Part 1, which was directed by Steven Soderbergh, was an extremely well made movie about the later revolutionary part of Ernesto “Che”  Guevara.   This was more or less a direct continuation of the “Motorcycle Diaries” which told the story about how he had come to be a revolutionary thinker in the first place. The film bounces around on the timeline of his life, in one moment showing him with his soldiers, the next he might be addressing the U.N., and the next he would be in the ongoing interview with Lisa Howard. Most importantly, while the film gives insight into how he commanded his soldiers, the brilliant tactician that he was, as well as the incredible orator that he showed himself to be, the movie also shows the Cuban Revolution from a sort of inside out perspective.

Che is shown to be a good commander who commands the respect and attention of his men. Likewise he shows his skill as a commander by leading assaults on the Cuban military, and coming away with substantial victories on many occasions, the most important of which was the victory in The Battle of Santa Clara. More importantly though, the film goes out of its way to show the compassionate side of Che, and how this added to his mystique and strength as one of Fidel Castro’s most trusted subordinates. On at least two occasions, when the fighting had slowed to the point where he was able to, Che gave his men the opportunity to end their part in the fight and go home. He also showed that he wouldn’t hold with having weak men in his column when, in another part he was recruiting new soldiers he refused to allow to young student fight with his men because he thought they couldn’t handle it. However, later he praised the two young men when they stayed loyal when others were choosing to end their part in the fight.

The main focus of the movie, is on the guerilla tactics that the Cubans used, and it showed how effective a strategy it was. The resistance managed to fight a much larger force, by rarely attacking when the enemy was stronger, always using the element of surprise, and specifically picking targets that, when they were destroyed, the propaganda machine in Havana couldn’t explain away. What Che realized was that they desperately need the support of the common farmers. He even wrote that, “Warfare is a people's warfare; an attempt to carry out this type of war without the population's support is a prelude to inevitable disaster.” (Guerilla Warfare: A method) This is why the movie took the time to show him meeting with village leaders trying to get them to join and trying to allay their fears about the revolution being closely related with the Soviet Union. It was the widespread support he gathered that ultimately led to their victory.

The last big emphasis was on Che the speaker. Multiple times in the movie he is shown to be giving inspirational speeches, as well as being sent by Castro to negotiations because of his political savvy. He believed strongly in what he was doing and it came out in his speeches. Most notably in speech to the Tricontinental when he said, “Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome, provided that this, our battle cry, may have reached some receptive ear.” (Message to the Tricontinental) It was speeches like that, that made him so popular, made him so valuable to Castro, and the film does a fantastic job of showing just how irreplaceable he was to the resistance. 

Soy Cuba

Soy Cuba was a pretty good representation of the revolution in Cuba. The thing that made it stand out the best is how it contrasted with the previous movie, Que Viva Mexico. Where Eisenstein was unable to complete his movie and had to rely on the early imagery and deeper meaning in Mexican culture, Kalatozov was able to make a film that was complete from beginning to end. Soy Cuba was able to draw on the evocative individual experiences of four different Cuban nationals. The movie was broken up into four distinct chapters. The first and second were arguably the most important, the first having show the hard life of a Cuban girl who was forced to prostitute herself, and the second told the story of an old farmer who scratched to get by and just when his crops were harvestable, his land was sold to an American company. These two were key in creating empathy for the Cuban people who were suffering in the new and more modernized Cuba which seemed to suffer from a large American presence. Susan Eckstein noted that by the time of the revolution Cuba was the recipient of, “The second largest amount of American investment.” (Eckstein 503) The American influence and money was having a decidedly bad effect on the Cubans and was visibly aiding in the poverty and degradation of society. The three Americans in the bar seemed to be intentionally portrayed as immoral and detestable characters. A young bride to be is forced by society to turn herself into a prostitute that is violated by the Americans.

Likewise the sympathetic figure of the old farmer having his rented land sold out from under him, continued the growth of the oppressed tableau that was Cuban society. American money was being poured into Cuba, buying up properties and companies at a rapid rate. The Americans were profiting while Cubans were just trying to make a living. Even worse, John Chasteen noted that the way in which the Americans were running the Cuban economy was on occasion intentionally designed to be inefficient so that the Cuban couldn’t compete with American companies and that, “this kind of industrialization only reinforced the economic subordination of Latin America. (Chasteen 258)

The first two chapters successfully showed how the Cubans were ripe for political unrest and their choice for the topic of the next two chapters were particularly striking. Kalatozov chose to focus on the young students in the Cuban schools as being the source for the idealism behind revolution. The girl and the farmer provided the outrage for the revolution, but the young students who were questioning the government and rising up outright against the unfairness of Batista’s government provided the passion and young idealism that really spurred on the revolution. Likewise the farmer Mariano showed how average Cubans, who weren’t caught up in the outrage of the oppressed or the idealism of the young , revolutionaries, were forced to finally choose a side and stand with the revolutionaries in order to obtain a safer Cuba for their families.

All in all, Soy Cuba did a fantastic job of telling the story of the Cuban Revolution. Kalatozov was able to weave story with the social, political, and emotional nuance required of a movie of this sort. At the same time though, he was able to go further that Eisenstein and actually show the complete transformation of Cuban society to passionate and untied revolutionaries who were fighting for the poor brides to be, the old farmers, the young students, and average people who weren’t interested in the political struggle but who wanted a secure Cuba in which to raise their families.

Qué viva México

¡Qué viva México! by Sergei Eisenstein was an ambitious film that was attempting to show the way in which the Mexican people were trying to gain their freedom, or a least a greater amount of Democracy in their country. Many of the scenes he shot were vivid and memorable and the film from a nuanced standpoint succeeded in telling his story when it is broken down and viewed with each scene having an historical harkening to Mexican tradition. One of the most important displays of this imagery was found in the very opening of the film with the displays of the people standing like statues around the Mayan ruins. Originally it appears to be a few random shots of the Mexican people, but then his point in starting there becomes more apparent. It seems that he was trying to take people back to the early beginnings of Mexico, and the conquest of the Mexican people by the European invaders. His intent was to show that the people of Mexico have really been having to fight for their freedom for more than just there time in their current struggle. They are a proud group of people who, from the very discovery of their society by the European invaders, have been willing to fight and die to gain and sustain their freedom, and their current fight against the wealthy landowners is yet another struggle on their path to freedom.

Continuing through the film, Eisenstein showed through the people of Tehuantepec, how the people of Mexico were people who held firmly on to their traditions. He showed the young lady Concepcion who is working hard to complete the traditions of making her golden necklace before to present to her new husband as a dowry. In that story viewers are even allowed a view into how traditional the Mexicans are by showing how matriarchal their society continued to be. Moving into the next chapter Eisenstein entertains the viewers with the bull fights that the people so enjoyed. With the excitement and passion of the wedding from the previous chapter and the violence and thrills the people took in from the fights in that chapter, Eisenstein is painting a picture for the viewer of just how alive and vibrant Mexican society was. Even in the depths of their oppression at the hands of the wealthy landowners, the people spirit and their love of their traditions is what made them who they were and that, the landowners could never take away.

It is in the late middle and towards the end of the film that Eisenstein really begins to show the true plight of the people starting with the Maguey Cactus scene and the hard work that the men performed for small amounts of pay. Then to introduce the most amount of pathos to that point, Eisenstein quickly introduces and resolves the struggle against the landowners through the plight of the young couple. The young girl is taken by the owner and the men fight back, but are quickly defeated and killed in the most brutal of fashions. There was no inference or deeper meaning in this chapter; Eisenstein was clearly showing the uphill battle that the people had before them. However, he ends the movie on a lighter note by foreshadowing the success that the people were hoping for in their celebration of the Day of the Dead.  In the end the old way is depicted as being dead, and the new young Mexico as being triumphant in creating a brighter future for Mexice