I don’t think I’ve seen a film by the Chilean director Andrés Wood before and I wasn’t familiar with the work of the subject of this film Violeta Parra (1917-67). Wood’s 2004 film Machuca has been on my waiting list for films to watch on DVD for some time so I jumped at the chance to see this new film which was the Chilean entry for the 2013 Foreign Language Oscar.
Violeta turns out to be an unusual form of biopic. Music (or more generally ‘artist’) biopics have tended to replace the 1930s and 1940s fascination with politicians and national heroes. Conventional films of this genre feature familiar aspects of the artist’s life – discovery, first success, fame, struggles with integrity, decline etc. Wood offers something very different, ‘layering’ snatches of Violeta’s career one on top of another, out of chronological order, in such a way that we build up an impression of passionate and proud artist, not prepared to put up with audiences or commissioners who don’t appreciate her work. We keep returning to an interview on television in 1962 in which she responds to a particularly unpleasant interviewer. She came from a poor background and she attempted to keep alive aspects of Chilean folk culture in her music and her painting. She performed in Poland and painted in Paris and she fought the conservative establishment in Chile. She died before the dictatorship of Pinochet attacked many of her fellow artists. No hagiography this, it shows Violeta as a woman with desire, anger and demons whose relationships with her children were not straightforward – the script is based on writings by her son. The film looks good with cinematographer Miguel Ioann Littin Menz finding ways to represent the dusty plains and Andes trails of Chile as well as Paris and other locations.
Violeta Parra was a major figure in Chilean culture, I have discovered. She led performers into a New Chilean Song movement of folk-based socially committed music which spread throughout Latin America and throughout Iberian culture generally from the 1960s. I’ve no idea whether or not Francisca Gavilán’s portrayal is ‘authentic’ but it certainly worked for me and her performance of many of Violeta’s songs was stunning – I was especially taken by the songs delivered in a powerful voice of thudding drum beats which were quite mesmerising. But perhaps the most dramatic song in the film is about the Sparrowhawk and the Hen – a song with metaphorical meaning for Violeta. Cornerhouse Cinema 2 was packed for the screening but I don’t know if there is a distributor prepared to release a title like this in the UK. Unlike the Frida Kahlo biopic Frida (US 2002) there are no star names known in Europe and North America. Violeta se fue a los cielos is showing again in Viva at 20.40 on Saturday evening and it is well worth a visit. I should see it again.
March means !Viva¡, Manchester’s annual festival of Spanish and Latin American film which this year runs from Friday 8th March until Sunday 24th March at Cornerhouse cinema and visual arts centre. This year’s programme promises the familiar mix of features and documentaries, education events and visiting filmmakers plus a complementary gallery programme featuring the work of Yoshua Okón in ‘Octopus’. The artist will be appearing in a Q&A session on Saturday 9 March with clips of his video work.
We’ll be making two visits to the festival and reporting on parts of the film programme. There are ten UK premieres and we are particularly excited by the range of work from Latin America this year with films from Ecuador, Uruguay, Nicaragua, Chile and Colombia alongside Mexican and Argentina. There are several new Spanish titles including genre films. Lobos de Arga (Game of Werewolves) is a ‘werewolf comedy’ that will be introduced by Andy Willis in a ’1 hour intro’ on 12th March. Other highlights include this year’s Oscar contender from Uruguay, La demora. This is a family drama by the Mexican director Rodrigo Plá whose earlier La zona was a hit at !Viva¡ in 2008.
!Viva¡ is a friendly festival with tickets at standard prices. The festival is spread out with two or three films on most days. Several of the films play twice. Why not visit Manchester for the day? You can download the festival programme from its homepage. Our first report will come later next week.
Chile / USA / France / Mexico 2011, Director Pablo Larrain. Screenplay adapted Pedro Peirano from the play Referendum by Antonio Skarmeta.
Like the Chilean director’s earlier films, No is set during the military dictatorship presided over by General Pinochet. We are right at the end when the Junta bowed to international pressure and organised a Referendum. To the surprise of the military, observers and many Chileans it lost this plebiscite. An important factor was the campaign, fronted by fifteen minutes daily on national television, to vote ‘No’. The campaign relied to a large degree on professional public relations experts. It is that campaign that is the central focus of this film.
It is a film definitely worth seeing. At times humorous, at time dramatic, it had an excellent cast headed by Gael García Bernal. The film includes footage showing the coup and the brutal repression of the Chilean working class and their organisations and parties. It also uses the actual television material from both right and left in the Referendum campaign: at times impressive, at times banal, and at time almost surreal.
The film was shot on a 1983 U-matic video camera, which gives a fairly uniform appearance to both the filmed footage and the archive material. The whole film has a sharp, tawdry look due to this. In fact, Pablo Larrain’s earlier Tony Manero had a low-budget tawdry feel which also matched its subject matter.
My major reservation was a rather lightweight political stance. This seems to follow on from the approach that was adopted in the actual television campaign in 1988. And there are clearly strands of irony in the presentation. But there is not a developed sense of the politics of the different class fractions and factions involved. Terms like ‘communist’, ‘socialist’ and ‘fascist’ recur frequently. However both the left and the right at this moment were somewhat disparate coalitions of differing social forces, and this the film misses out on illuminating this. Certainly other films from Chile have managed to deal effectively with the political landscape under the dictatorship. I also felt that the film subscribes to a view that probably over-emphasises the contribution of the television adverts: but the absence of other factors in its plotting also contributes to this lack of overall illumination.
My other reservation was technical and may only apply to the UK release. The U-matic video format gives an aspect ratio of 1.33:1: the ratio that preceded sound film, when the addition of an optical track produced 1.37:1. In the UK (and presumably in most territories) the film is distributed as a Digital Cinema Package. This comes (I think I am right) in a standard 1.85:1, with other ratios printed within the standard format. For 1.33 or 1.37 you get the central image bordered by black framing. On 35mm the projectionist could adjust the framing to the ratio: on DCP it comes ‘baked in’. Good quality cinema presentation involved bringing the black masking to frame the appropriate ratio. This is what usually happens at the Hyde Park Picture House where I viewed this film. They also continue the honourable tradition of opening the curtains at the start of the screening. Not so with No. For some odd reason the subtitles (in yellow) have been printed so that they frequently extend beyond the 1.33 ratio into the black borders. This means the black masking is unusable. Why, I don’t know, though it did seem that the font of the subtitles was larger than usual. I found this very distracting. I can usually flick my eyes up and down to accommodate both the image and the titles: with this film I had to flick to left and right to read all of the titles. I actually missed a few. The film is distributed by Network Releasing, but I could not see an end credit for titling, so I am not sure who is responsible.
So I feel it is a bit of a problematic movie, certainly in the UK. But it is still worth seeing. It is a distinctive film with a distinctive subject matter.
Graciela, Ana and Rodolfo en famille in Rodolfo’s car
Uruguay is the richest country in South America, but it also has the smallest population. No surprise then that this film is a co-production. For a country with such a small population (under 4 million), Uruguay produces some major talents in football and cinema and this film is a worthy addition to the national output.
I thought at first that this was going to be a drama. I was surprised by the ending but on reflection it all makes sense. Perhaps a ‘comedy family melodrama’ is the best description? Director and co–writer, Pablo Stoll, has previously made dry comedies such as the international hit Whisky (2004) with collaborator Juan Pablo Rebella. 3 is his second solo film and it was screened in the Directors Fortnight at Cannes in 2012.
Rodolfo and Graciela are divorced. Rodolfo is in a second marriage, but that too is failing and his contact with his teenage daughter Ana remains important and brings him back to Graciela’s apartment, now sadly neglected. Rodolfo is a roly-poly dentist with an obsession for order, a love for his collection of houseplants and a passion for football which he still plays quite well, despite his weight. As one marriage deteriorates he finds himself increasingly trying to patch up his old one — literally in terms of falling plaster and damp on the walls and, in human terms, with his daughter.
Graciela is introduced as a harassed mother and single woman who nightly visits the hospital where her spinster aunt is gravely ill. At the hospital she meets a younger man who is similarly visiting as a ‘carer’. The two hospital patients are never seen, joining Rodolfo’s second wife, whose recent presence is signalled by ashtrays full of cigarette butts (everyone smokes with a passion), as unseen but narratively important characters.
Ana is a typical adolescent, first introduced as the bright girl being cautioned by a tutor because her lateness and frequent truancy are likely to see her repeating the year. She is also sporty, playing on the school handball team and taking after her father in a way. Ana discovers boys, alcohol and other means of spending her time. She is well-played by Anaclara Ferreyra Palfy, who at 20 manages to look 15 most of the time – although the traditional school uniform doesn’t help. She also bears some resemblance to Sara Bassio as her mother, so the casting works well.
3 has excellent music, some good laughs, terrific performances and overall offers decent entertainment. It should do well on the international market, though at 115 mins it is perhaps a tad too long. If I was being hyper-critical, I’d suggest that the narrative favours Rodolfo just a little too much. I liked him as a character but I’d have liked to know more about Graciela. There is a useful ‘official website‘ (in Spanish and English).
También la Lluvia/Even the Rain didn’t get much of a UK release which is a pity because it is a very powerful and multi-faceted film. It is a highly political film which draws clear parallels between Spanish colonialism five centuries ago and modern globalised imperialism. It also raises questions about filming on location in poor countries, linking it to colonial exploitation. The film examines the contradictions encountered by even idealistic artists when forced to compromise with corporate sponsors in order to gain funding for their work and this limits their capacity to challenge the systems of power they attempt to portray.
The film portrays the efforts of a director and producer to make a historical film about Columbus, highlighting the genocidal rapaciousness involved in the conquest of the New World. It is dedicated to the memory of the late radical American historian Howard Zinn, which is fitting given the way the film sees history not simply as a reflection the past but also an attempt to better understand the present in order to influence the future.
It is set in 2000 in, and in the jungle around, Bolivia’s third largest city, Cochamba, and what makes this particular film different from other films with ‘Third World’ settings and low-cost local casts is the dramatic intrusion of external events. 2000 marks the high point of a massive protest in Cochabamba involving the local Quechua population struggling against the Bolivian government’s attempt to enforce water privatisation in which they sold the country’s water rights to a private multinational consortium. (The title, También la Lluvia/Even the Rain, refers to the notion that catching rainwater would be illegal). The film shows how the Bolivian state starts to enforce the company’s monopoly by getting the local police to padlock the people’s wells.
The film segues effectively between its two strands. The Columbus film is shown partly in rehearsal, partly in the viewing room and partly as viewers would see the finished film. The conflicting goals of the Columbus film and the revolt against water privatisation provide the film’s dramatic tension and one of the most interesting aspects of the film is the way the characters express their emotions as ‘themselves’ and simultaneously as characters in the Columbus film.
The film references several other films and genres. As a film-within-a–film, it recalls Truffaut’s La Nuit Americaine/Day for Night (1973) though it is less interested in the technical details of filmmaking, with few shots of cameras, lighting equipment etc. I also thought of Dennis Hopper’s crazy chaotic 1971 film, The Last Movie, shot in the nearby Peru. An early shot of a giant crucifix dangling from a helicopter seems like a hommage to Fellini’s 8½ while the attempts to put the crucifix in place in the middle of the jungle brings to mind Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo (1982) (though I’ve heard of no reports of the star attempting to shoot the director!) These references are perhaps misleading as it is very much in the realist tradition. The director, Icíar Bollaín, has written a book about Ken Loach; indeed, as an actor, she was in Loach’s Land and Freedom (1995) and the script is by Paul Laverty, Loach’s regular collaborator.
Iciar Bollain
The (main) film revolves around three central characters: Costa, the parsimonious producer (Luis Tosar), Sebastián, the director (Gael García Bernal) and Daniel (Juan Carlos Aduviri), the leader of the anti-privatisation campaign who is taken on to play a leading role in the film. Costa has chosen the area as a cheap location standing for Hispaniola, not realising they would be in the middle of a populist uprising against the government’s betrayal.
Costa’s cynicism contrasted to director Sebastián’s apparent idealism is a rerun of the perennial ‘art-versus-commerce’ theme (the film flirts with but ultimately avoids cliché) but in the end the roles are to some extent reversed as Otero turns out to have more idealism than the “film-is- everything” attitude of the director. Bernal’s role is much smaller than Tosar’s, suggesting he was there to tentpole the modestly-budgeted project out of political sympathy (he is an anti-globalisation campaigner and was a Zapatista sympathiser in his youth) http://www.timeout.com/film/news/1097/gael-garc-a-bernal-interview.html
The opening scene foreshadows what is to come as local people respond to the director’s “open casting” invitation by arriving in their hundreds and queuing up, in some cases for hours. When the filmmakers, having selected the people they need, try and dismiss the rest of the crowd, trouble breaks out. One in particular, Daniel, who was there as his daughter Belén (Milena Soliz) is keen to get a tryout for the film, insists angrily that they all must get their chance. Despite the producer’s fears that they will have a troublemaker on their hands, Sebastian overcomes Costa’s objections because he feels Daniel is so right for the film and casts him as Atuey, a key leader in the failed Tainos revolt against Columbus and Spanish rule, and Belén as Atuey’s daughter Panuca.
They do not initially realise that Daniel is a prominent leader of the Cochabamba protests and his role in the struggle will interfere with the making of the film. Costa has to bribe the police chief to get him out of jail for a vital scene, keeping from Daniel the fact that he has to go back once the scene is shot. The dramatic highpoint occurs when, in the Columbus film, the Spanish soldiers burn Atuey and two other Tainos at the stake. Bartolomé de Las Casas(Carlos Santos), a 16th century Catholic Bishop and historian, tries to persuade them not to go through with it as it will make it more difficult to win the people to Christianity and make a martyr of Atuey. However, the limitations of pious appeals are shown in the modern story when the police arrive to re-arrest Daniel and the Quechu actors get down from the cross and take direct action to free Daniel from the police car. There is another important character, Anton (Karra Elejalde) who plays Columbus. He is an idealist led to cynicism and drink perhaps by his disappointment. He ridicules the idea that Las Casas should be the conscience of the Columbus film, pointing out that he had supported the idea of importing slaves from Africa to spare the indigenous population.
Daniel addresses the demonstrators
The two strands of the film – the film and the film-within-the-film – might have been difficult to integrate but También la Lluvia manages this successfully, the conflicting goals of the Columbus film and the revolt against water privatisation providing the film’ s dramatic tension, and one of the most interesting aspects of the film is the way the characters express their emotions as ‘themselves’ and simultaneously as characters in the Columbus film.
The final sequence of the film shows the rise in tension as the dispute escalates, with fighting on the street, barricades and bullets, leading to the film crew having to abandon the film and head for the airport. It is at this point that the film develops into a political thriller as the producer Costa drives through the streets, with army check-points and protesters’ barricades, dodging army bullets on the way, to get the seriously-wounded Belén to hospital.
Costa’s personal transformation, under the influence of his friendship with Belén, could be seen as unconvincing and there only to set up an exciting climax in the form of a traditional chase scene. However, this view underestimates the capacity of individuals to reassess their actions as their own values are challenged and begin to change. Moreover, in his discussion with Sebastian, It is strongly hinted that Costa was not always interested only in the bottom line, that he has retained the core of idealism which brought him originally into filmmaking.
Costa and Sebastian – art or life
This is a very complex, intelligent and powerful film that works on several levels. As a piece of drama, with a compelling musical soundtrack, it captures and holds the audience’s attention and says something important about the inspiring challenges around the world to the global corporate order in South America.
Here is the trailer:
If you are of a cynical disposition and wonder if Tambien la Lluvia fell into the same situation with regard to exploitation of local labour, have a look at a long interview with Iciar Bollain on Youtube:
It was entirely appropriate that the UK première of this film should take place at WFA Media and Cultural Centre in Manchester. For thirty years and more WFA has been the leading community film and video centre in the North West of the UK, hosting cultural events with visitors from Africa, Asia and Latin America as well as producing and distributing all kinds of radical film material in the UK. The second reason why so many turned out for this screening is that the filmmakers, writer-director Ana Lucía Cuevas and cinematographer-soundman Fred Coker are based in Greater Manchester and both have worked at WFA.
The venue was as full as it could be with around 150 people and the doors closed to meet fire regulations. When the film began the audience quietened noticeably and well they might. This is a powerful and deeply moving film – not least because it combines a personal story and an important analysis of the political struggle in a Central American country.
The packed screening at WFA
Background
When I was a child I heard the term ‘banana republic’ and accepted it as a comical remark. It was a few years later before I understood what it meant in the politics of the Americas. The American writer O. Henry coined the term at the beginning of the 20th century in reference to his time in Honduras, but the term also refers to that country’s neighbour Guatemala. These two countries in particular developed a political economy in which a middle-class élite of military and business leaders colluded with American agrarian exploiters to grow bananas cheap and pay as little as possible to the workers. The principal company involved in Guatemala was the United Fruit Company which from the 1940s gradually began to masquerade behind the brandname ‘Chiquita’. United Fruit controlled the railways in Guatemala from the start of the 20th century as well as major land concessions for banana plantations. When workers attempted to unionise and the democratic government (a brief respite from military dictatorship in 1944-54) sought to take back some of United Fruit banana land to give to landless peasants, the business/military élite in Guatemala appealed to the US to halt the spread of socialism/communism. Throughout the twentieth century, American troops and later the CIA have interfered in virtually every country in Latin America. (This timeline on the United Fruit Historical Society website is an excellent resource that will surprise even the most cynical reader.)
The CIA engineered a coup to topple the ‘socialist’ President Arbanz in 1954 and a succession of Army Generals became President in what was effectively a CIA puppet state. Guerrilla groups began to form in opposition and a Civil War began in Guatemala which lasted off and on until 1996. In the midst of the war the Guatemalan security forces – army and police – refined a number of terror tactics which ‘disappeared’ some 45,000 people. In 1984 Lucía Cuevas was a university student in Guatemala and like the rest of her family she had joined one of the major opposition groups in the country. She felt that her situation was so bad that she had to leave the country. A few months after her departure, her older brother Carlos, a student activist who was married and had a young son, was ‘disappeared’ by the security forces. Carlos was Lucía’s soul mate. Lucía came to Europe to complete her studies and she eventually settled in Manchester. With her friends and her surviving family she spent the next 25 years finding and trying to piece together evidence about what had happened – while at the same time struggling with the dilemma over remembering or trying to forget in order to be able to live your life. A few years ago when she was checking online for news from Guatemala she came across a report about newly discovered archives of material relating to the systematic ‘disappearances’ during the 1980s and 90s. She then resolved to go back to Guatemala to see if she could find more material evidence about what happened to Carlos. The film is a documentary record of her search – the title, from a poem, places her personal experience in the context of the many families who have experienced the pain of unexplained loss.
The film
The film narrative details Lucía’s research and is presented via new interviews and footage of her journey intercut with an impressive range of archive material. It is technically an ‘authored’ documentary, but unlike the filmmakers who ‘perform’ for their own camera, Lucía remains a remarkably composed interviewer and commentator – despite the shocking revelations she is witness to. The narrative is more or less chronological though some material is shifted back or forward to strengthen the engagement of the viewer. Lucía’s commentary stitches the material together elegantly. There is an unobtrusive and careful use of music and overall the film is beautifully photographed and edited. I’m not completely convinced by the decision to use fades to black at the end of each short sequence, but in his review Keith suggests that this allows the audience a moment to reflect on the import of what they have seen (and heard).
Lucía interviews Noam Chomsky
The pre-credits sequence introduces a woman who acts as a witness to the horrendous treatment of the indigenous peoples of Guatemala, the rural population subject to the tactics of genocide as a means of terror. We then see Lucia in Guatemala arriving at a newly opened mass grave with forensic archaeology in progress. The first sequences of the film proper feature Lucia’s visit to meet Noam Chomsky and to get access to materials held by the National Security Archive Project in New York. In these sequences the documentary uses archive material alongside the interviews to explain how the American state supported the Guatemalan regime in every way possible including the collection and collation of surveillance data gathered through US Embassies in Central America. Chomsky explains that the Eisenhower administration in the 1950s described any form of local social reform in Central America as ‘communism’.
The rest of the film is mainly concerned with Lucía’s investigations in Guatemala. What she finds is shocking and heartbreaking – particularly in relation to the fate of her brother’s wife Rosario and her baby son. Rosario and another of the young wives of the disappeared had formed a group to campaign for information about their loved ones but they were brutally dealt with by the authorities. Aspects of the history of terror are so horrible that the facts seem surreal. If I understood correctly the chroniclers of systemic terrorism kept meticulous accounts and didn’t destroy them after the 1996 Peace Accords because they assumed they had ‘impunity’. In 1995 an archive of a million documents was discovered!
One of the most impressive aspects of the film is the number of resolute women, the relatives of the disappeared, who Lucía is able to interview. She concludes that for them, and for herself, the long investigations have two purposes. They must find answers to what happened to the disappeared because only then can they grieve properly (the terror of not knowing is the intended long-term consequence deliberately used by the security forces). But second, they must carry on the process of prosecuting the guilty parties in court. That process has produced only a small number of convictions so far, but it’s a start. Meanwhile, however, the ‘intellectual authors’ of the terrorism, the military commanders, are now politicians – members of parliament and presidential candidates.
Discussion after the screening
Fred Coker responds to a question about the film
Most of the audience stayed for a discussion with Lucía and Fred. We were told that the film had been screened in Egypt and very much appreciated in a country where similar terror tactics had been used against the population. Someone suggested that it should be shown in Spain where legislation giving rights to those whose relatives were disappeared under Franco was passed only a few years ago. Someone else remarked that the surveillance of the population in the UK was increasing – many connections were being made around the political issues raised by the film. The film itself was praised in terms of filmmaking and the suggestion came that it could inspire younger Latin American filmmakers to explore previous documentary films from the region and help to recover the practice of social documentary. But the most emotional and heartfelt responses came from two Guatemalan women. A younger woman said that she had been shocked by what she had seen and that the film had opened her eyes to the history of her own country. She was very grateful – but urged us all to go to the country and see what a beautiful country it is. The other, older, woman who was part of Lucia’s family said that she felt able to speak about the terrible things that happened for the first time after seeing the film.
This is an important film and must be seen. DVD and Blu-Ray versions of the film are available and we’ll post here how to get hold of them and any other information about screenings. There are some other links on our previous posting here. The main source of information about the film is its Facebook page from where we have borrowed the first three images above, the fourth is from us.
Thanks to WFA, Lucía and Fred for an inspiring evening.
This important event in Manchester on Saturday 19th May features the UK premiere of The Echo of Pain of the Many – the story of how filmmaker Ana Lucía Cuevas learned the shocking truth about what happened to her brother, one of the ‘Disappeared’ of Guatemala in 1984.
Lucía is based in Manchester and she will introduce the film on Saturday after presenting it in Washington earlier this month. We’ll be attending the Manchester event and a full report will appear here next week. For details of how to get to WFA, download the leaflet here.
Juan (with the oar), his daughter Camilla, Vladi (with the baseball bat) and Lazaro
Is it possible to develop a sophisticated political discourse as part of a hugely funny and very gory zomcom? You bet! – and Juan of the Dead provides the evidence. I never expected to see a Cuban movie in a multiplex but now I have and with Metrodome handling UK distribution (it opens on 4th May) you’ll get the chance too (although only in ‘Key Cities’ as the current distribution jargon has it).
Inspired by both George Romero and Edgar Wright, director Alejandro Brugués offers us two middle-aged ‘jack the lads’, first spotted on their fishing raft a few hundred metres from the Malecón, Havana’s famous promenade. As Juan and Lazaro begin to despatch zombies in a matter of fact way, they see television announcements which refer to ‘dissidents’ who are causing trouble in the city. ‘Dissidents’ can only mean a yanqui plot as all Cubans know. The basic premise of the film is that in Cuba, there are three possible responses to any new problem for ordinary Cubans. First, consider opening a business, second, just ignore the problem and carry on stoically and third, steal a boat or build a raft and leave the country. Our heroes are going to consider all three and Juan is confident that he will make it since he has already survived the Mariel boatlift, war in Angola and the Special Period (after the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cuban economy went into meltdown). Zombies offer just an opportunity to make some extra money but along the way Juan will have to consider what friendship and family mean to him.
This is a truly Cuban movie with a catalogue of jokes and sight gags with a distinctly Cuban flavour. When a car won’t start, it’s because it’s a Russian Lada. The characters who aid Juan include a very camp character and his hugely-muscled partner (with one fatal weakness) – sport and gay culture being concerns in various Cuban films. The only way to find the limited funds – a $1.6 million budget – to make the film was through a co-production with Spain which means that Juan’s daughter is played by a Spanish actress and the plot requires that her mother has not only left Juan but Cuba as well. There may be some audiences who recognise that the whole film is an allegory of the failings in Cuban society (the director jokes, rather like Simon Pegg, that the Cuban population often appear like zombies) and who wonder why the authorities allow this. But there is a long tradition of satire in Cuban Cinema, most famously in the work of Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabio. The Cuban state film agency ICAIC was involved in the production and I’m sure they will be pleased by the success I feel sure that the film will find in international markets. Having said that there is a rather po-faced put-down of the film on IMDb, arguing that the film fails to offer the correct political message and thus is not a worthy successor to Romero’s Night of the Living Dead.
Of course you don’t need to know anything about Cuban cinema to enjoy the film as a romp through cleverly re-imagined tropes of the zombie movie. The cast is very good, especially Alexis Diaz de Villegas as Juan. The special effects are endearingly naff but work very well – and do stay through the credits which feature Sid Vicious and some very nice graphics. I hope the film does excellent business and raises the profile of Cuban cinema.
I don’t think I’ve seen a film by the Chilean director Andrés Wood before and I wasn’t familiar with the work of the subject of this film Violeta Parra (1917-67). Wood’s 2004 film Machuca has been on my waiting list for films to watch on DVD for some time so I jumped at the chance to see this new film which was the Chilean entry for the 2013 Foreign Language Oscar.
