That little black and white film is in a way fascinating because it is not for us, its western audience, attached to Mexico only but to any south American country where the presence of Indians is important and where these Indians are systematically victimized and pressurized by the conservative if not reactionary governments and their armed forces. This film may explain why so many of these countries have lately voted for popular candidates against their establishments. Yet the film is in a way very passé, and even irritating. We have seen and heard too much about these brutalities. They exist but what is the film trying to do ? To make us feel guilty and cry, and then open our purses and give ? Probably. But time has passed and too many of these gifts of ours have ended who knows where, but not on the table of the poor. Time has also ripened and finally, at least through ballots and ballot-boxes, these people have decided to recapture their destinies and to repossess their riches that had been confiscated, maybe with a commercial contract signed by a powerless insect in front of the all-powerful business vultures coming from the West. Finally these people seem to have decided to do what they have to do to be free and then to make the profit of their work stay in their country and help their people, their children. Salvador Allende has finally resurrected from his quasi-execution by Pinochet. El Pueblo Unido Jamas Sera Vencido. The film though shows how tricky things may be. The grandfather thinks he is getting the mickey out of the officer with his violin and his cornfield. In fact the officer is playing cat and mouse with him, as revealed when the violin disappears from the grandfather's ammunitions hole in the cornfield and reappears in the hands of that officer. Then the grandfather understands he has to face this situation, confront it and hence to die, since anyway all the leaders of the revolutionary armed group is was part of are prisoners and will soon be dead. This reveals that the guard who gave the grandfather a weapon twice pretending it was a taco for the road must have had an equivalent spy on the other side since the military forces knew every intention of the revolutionary forces. The real sad note is the end, with the grandson playing his father's guitar but this time not to cover up some plotting, but only to survive and feed himself. In other words military action is never the right solution because it creates human suffering and it changes nothing : it seems that military action always leads to the victory of the most conservative and reactionary.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris Dauphine & University of Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris Dauphine & University of Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne