OUR NEXT CONTINENT & COUNTRY:
SOUTH AMERICA & CHILE
OUR NEXT FILM: No (2012)
Written by Pedro Peirano, directed by Pablo Larrain
Watch our Zoom discussion for this week here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/_sxwKuz-3WxJQM_i6h7wS4kbDKfuaaa8h3BN_fpczk9ShoSk1LEDjw3MReZlS5ou
Password: 5Q^V?2X$
Our South American film is a politically detailed yet very personal look at the way dictatorships die, the role of compromise in bringing about positive change, and specifically the campaign to oust the Chilean Augusto Pinochet regime from power in 1988. Shot to look like television news footage of the time, and featuring several of the real life figures who embodied extraordinary courage. It’s also a very truthful portrayal of what building a social movement is actually like - with false starts, in-fighting, and the question of how to honor the suffering while also winning elections. I look forward to discussing it together. .
Click to watch the trailer below.
And here’s my introduction:
YOU CAN WATCH “NO” AT ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW
Click here to watch on Amazon for $3.99
Or paste the following link into your browser: https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/amzn1.dv.gti.74a9f74f-6551-d132-f48e-10c6b5b4b285?autoplay=1
Click here to watch on iTunes for $3.99
Or paste the following link into your browser: https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/no/id653468915
Click here to watch on Google Play for $3.99
Or paste the following link into your browser: https://play.google.com/store/movies/details?id=GPvnFcXpfOI
***SPECIAL GIFT FOR WEEK FOUR:
This Taco Truck Kills Fascists ***
A brilliant, funny, and provocative documentary by the Chilean filmmaker and writer Rodrigo Dorfman, being made available by Rodrigo at no charge. I’m delighted to confirm that Rodrigo will join us for our zoom call on Thursday April 30th. Please do watch Rodrigo’s wonderful film - the link is below, after a few words from Rodrigo himself:
New Orleans-based performance activist Jose Torres-Tama has a dream: to create a revolutionary Taco Truck Theatre with a simple message: “No guacamole for immigrant haters”. Inspired by Woody Guthrie’s motto: This machine kills fascists, This Taco Truck Kills Fascists weaves two narratives: the classic “against all odds” story of an immigrant artist of color bringing the voices of radical Black performers and undocumented workers out of the shadows and the story of a father struggling to raise his two boys into political consciousness in the Age of Trump.
Here’s the link to watch This Taco Truck Kills Fascists: Or paste this link into your browser: https://vimeo.com/246180274
FOR FURTHER VIEWING
My reflective essay about No is posted below. In the meantime, as always, we’re limiting ourselves to no more than five films from each country, and we’re not bound to recommend a movie from every country in each continent. That’s a very long-term journey! For now, here are some more wonderful South American films:
Argentina - The Secret in their Eyes, The Official Story
Brazil - City of God, Central Station, Invisible Life, Kiss of the Spider Woman
Chile - Endless Poetry, Neruda, Gloria, Nostalgia for the Light, The Battle of Chile, and a bonus short film - the amazing Bear Story
Colombia - Embrace of the Serpent, Maria full of Grace
REFLECTIONS ON “NO”
It’s hard to tell a story about a social movement in a movie. Given that most movies seem to struggle to tell the story of just one person, or two, this shouldn’t be surprising. Social movements have hundreds - thousands - of stories to tell. And social movements take longer to come to fruition than a rekindled love affair in Casablanca or a search for the lost ark, so aspiring social movement filmmakers have to face the question of compressing sometimes decades into a couple of hours. In South Africa, the anti-apartheid movement began in 1948, and Nelson Mandela was elected President in 1994; the modern US Black civil rights movement began in the early 1950s, and the Selma to Montgomery marches didn’t take place until 1965; the coup that brought General Pinochet to dictatorial power happened in 1973, and the plebiscite that removed him from office was fifteen years later.
Along with the multiplicity of voices and the long-term duration of social movements, there’s the often unquestioned assumption that progress is linear and travels in one direction, when reality is far more complicated. It’s not just a matter of two steps forward, and one step back, but sometimes two feet can be stepping in different directions to begin with. To convey both a sense of historical accuracy, or to at least communicate the headline truths, about the development and outcomes of a social movement is a heady task.
So when a movie comes along that seems to not only have a decent grasp of the key moments in a movement, but gives a rounded sense of life to its characters, credibly conveys the facts of a world that pre-existed the movie’s narrative, and will continue afterwards, let us praise it. When such a movie humanizes not only its heroes, but its villains too - by refusing the easy catharsis of calling “the other side” unthinkingly evil or denying the possibility of any coherent motivation for their actions, and by respecting the courage of movement leaders enough to withhold the projection that they were somehow also magically gifted and without flaw, let us praise it to the high heavens.
I’m thinking of Warren Beatty’s Reds (co-written with Trevor Griffiths), which paints the story of the American Left around the time of the First World War and into the early 1920s revealing the struggles of labor, and the labor pains of birthing a movement to overcome those struggles, while managing to speak meaningfully about the inner lives of artists with egos and broken hearts, who liked to party as well as to protest.
I’m thinking of Pride (directed by Matthew Warchus and written by Stephen Beresford), which delights in the joy of LGBTQ+ people rising up in solidarity with striking coalminers, recognizing that while their “own” cause isn’t getting anywhere yet, that’s not an excuse to withhold compassion and collaboration from others who are suffering, because, after all, any cause that cares about the common good is our cause.
I’m thinking about Selma, which honors the memory of Dr Martin Luther King, by not claiming that he was the Black Civil Rights movement, by letting him be powerful and vulnerable at the same time, by respecting Coretta Scott King enough to make her more than an appendage to her husband, but a key agent of change, a courageous peaceful warrior.
And today, I’m so grateful that Dreaming the World has given me the opportunity to re-watch No, which along with the three films I’ve just named, belongs in the pantheon of extraordinary craft married to humane concern for the common good, an attempt at telling the truth, which means doing more than just relating “the facts” on the surface, but exploring both behind the scenes of the movement, and beneath the words of the protagonists.
How brilliant a choice of director Pablo Larrain to use the same technology as television news of the time - U-matic tape, thus creating a palpable atmosphere of being right there, in the momentous period leading up to the plebiscite; and blessing seamlessly footage of the time. How complex to portray the lead character, in a gorgeously nuanced performance by Gael García Bernal, as outraged by the Pinochet regime, conflicted by his work for a marketing firm, and both shamed and broken-hearted by his sense of failure as a partner to a woman who has suffered more than he. How moving to see the first post-Pinochet President of Chile Patricio Aylwin, the courageous anti-Pinochet footballers Carlos Caszely, the effectively blacklisted journalist Patricio Bañados, and the humanist politician Raúl Florcita Alarcón Rojas play themselves - creating the extraordinary effect of seeing them “grow up” instantly before our eyes. And how honest to end the film not on a note of triumph, but the bittersweet affirmation that the aftermath of Pinochet’s dictatorship has not fully evolved. That Chile faces the same battle between self-oriented superficiality and beloved community that most of us know all too well.
But most important of all, I love No because, despite whatever flaws would be noted by someone more familiar with the situation on the ground, it gives me a way to imagine how I, too, might find my place in shaping a better world. I won’t be President, or Pope, or Person of the Year, but I can do something. And not only that, I can step into a piece of magic that meets me in one of my most cherished beliefs. Richard Rohr teaches that oppositional energy always recreates itself, so the best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better. I don’t like saying No. I much prefer to think about what we might do instead of merely denouncing the thing that isn’t working. But in the story of these conflicted and flawed, brave and imaginative people, or at least in the way Pablo Larrain and Pedro Peirano tell it, sometimes the most effective way to say Yes begins with the most creative way of saying No!
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PS: THIS WEEK WE HAVE A SPECIAL GIFT FOR YOU
My dear friend the Chilean filmmaker, writer and activist Rodrigo Dorfman will join our discussion call this Thursday night. He has kindly offered his wonderful recent film This Taco Truck Kills Fascists for us to watch before the call. You can watch it for free at this link: https://vimeo.com/246180274
Here’s a description of the film:
New Orleans-based performance activist Jose Torres-Tama has a dream: to create a revolutionary Taco Truck Theatre with a simple message: “No guacamole for immigrant haters”. Inspired by Woody Guthrie’s motto: this machine kills fascists, This Taco Truck Kills Fascists weaves two narratives: the classic “against all odds” story of an immigrant artist of color bringing the voices of radical Black performers and undocumented workers out of the shadows and the story of a father struggling to raise his two boys into political consciousness in the Age of Trump.
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And here are some bonus thoughts from Rodrigo on No.
The “NO" campaign was the first time the opposition was allowed to freely express itself without fear of violent repercussions since 1973. It brought together many of the brightest artistic minds in Chile, in the fields of acting, designing, directing, music and marketing. (However it did not include the marginal gay/punk/non commercial world of artists). It was the creation of the established mainstream of the opposition.
The early conversations between "political propagandists" and the new “marketing" voices is crucial to understand the limits of the coming Democracy. And in many ways what happened not just in Chile but all over the world as politics and marketing fused.
It's a fascinating moment in history. In order to win the "hearts and minds" of Chileans, the NO campaign had to adopt the language of the coming Neo-liberal paradigm. There was no other choice. And yet the language itself also contained the betrayal of the socialists ideals of the Allende revolution. Chile's transition to democracy and the "NO" campaign is a beautiful (and some believe tragic) example of what happens when your dreams and "reality" have to be negotiated.
For Spanish speakers here is one episode from the real NO programming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbRzQoaDBpg
On another note: the director filmed it in U-MATIC format, not only because he wanted to pay with illusion and reality (seamlessly integrate doc footage into the fictionalized narrative) but also because he hates High Definition. He told me that HD is the perfect example of how the world has been flattened by conformity and global capitalism. With FILM, the aesthetics were "local" Every country or region used different stock and processed the film in different way.
Thoughts on THIS TACO TRUCK KILLS FASCISTS
This a "Latin American" film, made in the USA. It uses many Brechtian-like, Augusto Boal techniques of intervention, rupture, disruption that were used by artists in Chile during the Allende years and the Dictatorship. Techniques the NO campaign had to tip-toe around. It's film that deconstructs the act of "witnessing" and asks: what does it mean to be a "witness"? What is your responsibility?
It’s a film about our children, and we talk to our children about the world and allow them to dream their own answers while "guiding" them.
ALSO: Here’s an article about Rodrigo and being a documentary filmmaker during the coronavirus pandemic: https://tinyurl.com/RodrigoDorfman