Tlatelolco, Summer of 68 (orig. Tlatelolco, Verano del 68) [2013]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing

Tlatelolco, Summer of 68 (orig. Tlatelolco, Verano del 68) [2013] (directed by Carlos Bolado, script by Carolina Rivera along with Luis Felipe Ybarra and Carlos Bolado) is an well written/crafted and certainly significant Mexican historical drama surrounding the events surrounding the 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre [Wkpd-ESP]* of at least 300 possibly thousands of Mexican students in Mexico City, just 10 days prior to the opening of the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games.  The film played recently to repeatedly sold out audiences at the 29th Chicago Latino Film Festival. 

This tragedy, indeed Tiananmen-style crime, had been quickly buried (the blood quite literally hosed away...) by Mexico's authorities wishing to present a welcoming/peaceful (and above all "in control") face to the 1968 Summer Games even as the rest of the world (from the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr and Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy in the United States, to street protests against the U.S.-led War in Vietnam across the United States and Western Europe, to the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia) seemed to be in chaos.

This was also an event like the Cristero Rebellion (that finally brought the chaos of the Mexican Revolution to an end) that was both KNOWN BY JUST ABOUT EVERYBODY IN MEXICO but NOT PUBLICLY DISCUSSED (let alone taught in schools...) until after the year 2000 (more than 30 years later...) when Vicente Fox became the first non-PRI candidate to be elected President of Mexico since the end of the Mexican Revolution in the 1920s. 

I first heard of the Tlatelolco Massacre [Wkpd-ESP]* from my teacher when I was in Guadalajara to learn Spanish back in the late 1990s.  She presented it to me as precisely a Tienanmen-style massacre that no one outside of Mexico knew about and no one inside Mexico was allowed to openly discuss.  Her parents were students, in Guadalajara, at the time... The lack of opportunity, indeed "permission" to discuss this event in decades past, help explain the sold-out crowds when the film was shown at the Latino Film Festival here in Chicago (Chicago having the largest Mexican-American population in the United States, second only to Los Angeles).  This was first film of its kind (other than a documentary made only a few years previous) about the massacre. 

The film makers for their part did IMHO a very good job in presenting the human complexities/tragedy of this story.  Thankfully they felt no need to further propagandize the story to promote any particular current agenda, as the tragedy of the story told itself:  Those who were massacred were students.  Hence, even though they were to some extent "elite," they also came from a broad base of society.  Mixed among those students protesting (and later being shot...) were sons and daughters of both those in power AND those who (like the world over) were the first ones from their families who've made it to college.

Indeed the two central protagonists in the film were (1) Maria Elena (played by Cassandra Ciangherotti) who was portrayed as coming from a rich family and the daughter of Ernesto (played by Juan Manuel Bernal) portrayed as a significant if still upper-mid-level government official at the Ministry of the Interior and whose grandfather Flavio (played by Juan Carlos Colombo) had been a hero of the Mexican Revolution and (2) Felix (played by Christian Vasquez) who was an architecture student at the Instituto Polytecnico in Mexico City, the first from his family to make it to college and whose older brother Paco (played by Armando Hernández) was a plainclothes policeman in Mexico City.  BOTH Maria Elena's father and especially Felix' brother warned their idealistic kin to avoid/stop participating in the student demonstrations that were growing in Mexico City during the summer of 1968, telling them these demonstrations could only end badly.  Of course they didn't stop participating in the protests, and of course their more informed kin were right ...


It's a real tragedy and those who did die deserve to be remembered.  To be honest (and writing now with the perspective of a 50 year old ... ;-), I'm not sure what the students would have necessarily accomplished if they had succeeded (it's one thing to protest the way things are, it's another to actually know how to fix it...).

On the other hand, for the sake of a "calm" Olympics, Mexico's authorities decided to have them as "tranquil as a cemetery ..." and what would it have really mattered if they had just let the students protest?  Mexico would have been "just like every other place (free) at the time."  Instead, Mexico's authorities showed themselves, at least for that generation, as "unable to bend."  And one wonders what contributions to Mexico's society (and indeed to the world) were lost among all those students (300 to as many as 3000) who were shot dead... so that the 1968 Olympics could be "calm" (even as the world's athletes themselves made protests against both superpowers anyway...). 


* Immediate machine translation of foreign (in this case Spanish) language links are generally best viewed using Google's Chrome browser.


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Florbela [2012]

MPAA (UR would R)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing

Florbela [2012] (written and directed by Vicente Alves do Ó) is an award winning biopic about Florbela Espanca [PT]* (played in the film by Dalila Carmo) an early 20th century Portuguese proto-feminist poet with a typical for artists of the time difficult/troubled life.  The film played recently at the 29th Chicago Latino Film Festival.

The film begins in 1925 with the beginning of her marriage (her third at still only 30) to Mário Lage (played in the film by Albano Jerónimo), the reason for the dissolution of her first marriage unclear but the second being because her husband beat her.

Needless to say to have been married three times in the 1920s in a traditionally Catholic country like Portugal would have exposed her to a great deal of social criticism.  Yet, from the beginning, her life was a tormented mess.  She was the daughter of a maid-servant and though adopted by the family for whom her mother worked, her actual paternity remained unclear until after her death.  

Mário Lage's estate was in the countryside by the sea.  She would have been largely sheltered from the social criticism that she faced if she stayed there.  However, she was close to her adoptive brother Apeles Espanca (played in the film by Ivo Canelas) and thus returned back to Lisbon to be with him after the tragic death of Apeles' fiancee.  It also allowed her to go back to some of writing, even though, as a tormented introvert, she didn't allow most of her work to be published while she was still alive.

After Apeles died tragically in a plane crash (was it suicide? no one ever really knew for sure) she returned back to her father João Espanca (played in the film by António Fonseca) where she twice apparently tried committing suicide as well (in the film, one attempt is shown as she tries jumping down a well).  Eventually she died, on Dec 8, 1930 (the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and also her 36th birthday), officially of tristeza (sadness).

Yet today, her works, tormented/sad, are considered some of the most significant Portuguese poetry of her time.  Some of it is available (in Portuguese) online.  Those who read some Spanish or Italian could probably understand some of it.  What I've read is quite lovely, if also very, very sad.

So Florbela's life seemed to have been tormented mess.  And yet, this seems par for the course for many artists and intellectuals of the early 20th century.  The film, a "period piece," certainly shows the sounds and styles of the time exquisitely and even hints at the foreboding nature of the time.  After all, these were the years between the two World Wars and just a few years before the beginning of the Spanish Civil War which took place next door.  Florbela appeared to be completely apolitical but as someone more or less obviously prone to depression certainly had to be effected by the atmosphere around her.

That artists are often very sensitive (and rather sad/tormented) people is an insight that Italian director Paolo Sorrentino recently applied in his film This Must be the Place [2011] to help understand some of the strange and rather depressed behavior of some of the 1960s-80s era Rock Stars: Why did some of these "Rock Gods" write so many lyrics that were so sad?  Well, Sorrentino's insight was that artists throughout the ages were often very sad, sensitive people.  In anycase, Florbela's life appears to be a clear testament to this view.

Now someone who was married three times (and later tried committing suicide at least twice) could not have been at that time particularly religious in the sense of that time.  (Yet, the film indicated that after the death of her brother, she did put herself in front of an altar to Mary offering her a flower).  When considering  someone who's endured so many difficulties in life (and add to that had a sensitive disposition to begin with) it honestly becomes very hard to judge.

In any case, this is a beautiful if often very, very sad film.


* Immediate machine translation of foreign (in this case Portuguese) language links are generally best viewed using Google's Chrome browser.


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Speechless (orig. Sin Palabras) [2012]

MPAA (PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing

Speechless (orig. Sin Palabras) [2012] (written and directed by Ana Sofia Osorio and Diego Fernando Bustamante) is a small yet poignant full-length feature Colombian film that played recently at the 29th Chicago Latino Film Festival.

Raul (played by Javier Ortiz) is a young artist studying at the University in Bogota, Colombia.  To make ends meet, he works at a small store front hardware store.  When business is slow, he draws.  He's also mourning the departure of his girlfriend, who had departed some time earlier (and perhaps with bigger plans) for Germany.

Well one day, after opening-up shop and chitchatting with the owner, who wants to get over said girlfriend and set him up with a niece of hers, Raul notices a young Chinese woman (played by Xuan Liao) about his age (late teens to early 20s) sitting quietly and rather sadly on a bench across the street by a Chinese owned store that was apparently closed for inventory. (At least that's what the placard on the door indicated). 

After some time, noticing that she didn't seem to be going anywhere, he asks his boss' permission and goes over to her to see if anything is wrong.  She doesn't speak any Spanish, and he doesn't speak any Chinese.  By signs, however, he asks her if she's hungry  -- she indicates no -- and introduces himself as Raul.  She nods acknowledging his gesture but also indicates that she'd like to be left alone.

Well a few more hours pass, it's about lunch time and she's still there.  So Raul goes over to her, smiles and through signs, asks her if she's hungry.  She indicates no, but also responds to him saying "Raul" and then pointing to herself says Lian. 

In the conversation by signs, he convinces her to get-up with him anyway.  So they get up and start walking.  Above all, he thinks of taking her to a Chinese restaurant where he could find somebody to talk to her so that he'd better understand what she needs.  Alas, as we would quickly remember here in the United States as well, the restaurant is run by a Cantonese family (from Southern China) and she's from the north hence speaking Mandarin rather than Cantonese.  However, Raul gets a number from them of who to call to get her some help.  He also is told by one of the family members running the restaurant that Colombia is actually a transit point for Chinese trying to enter into the United States illegally.  (The director Ana Sofia Osorio explained after the movie that a lot of Chinese travel from China to Paris (because France doesn't require a visa for Chinese travellers) and then to Ecuador (because of all of the countries in South America only Ecuador requires no travel visas).  Then the Chinese would sneak into Colombia and then be transported by either boat along the Pacific Coast to California or perhaps by plane/boat across the Caribbean to parts in the Eastern United States).  Raul is told that the men taking this journey are generally put to work in Chinese restaurants across the United States, while the women work either in restaurants, or, often enough, work as prostitutes.

Why was she suddenly on the streets alone?  Well something must have happened.  It becomes, however, clear that Lian really wanted to go to the United States.  As they walk back to the hardware store, they pass by a travel agency.  There's a picture of the Statue of Liberty there.  She stops, points to the statue and smiles.  Then pointing to herself and then to the Statue of Liberty again, she says in Engish: "America ... everybody happy."

But Raul knows that she's probably going end up becoming a prostitute there.  Does she know that?  Does she care?  Is she willing to accept that as the price of going there?  Neither he nor the audience ever really know.

The number that the person at the Chinese restaurant gave him was for a group of Chinese cayote's (smugglers) who'd take her (for the money that she had or would owe) to America.  The question then becomes: Should Raul take her there (to those people)?  And then does Lian really know what awaits her if she rejoins the group (or perhaps another group) to take her to the States?

The rest of the film ensues...

It's a fascinating film and one that I'd recommend to anyone who's been interested in the topic of human traficking.  Finally, after the film I asked the director how/if the film will become available in the United States in the future.  She answered that sometime in May 2013 it should become available through iTunes.

Again, this is a very simple film but with a very clear message.  Good job! ;-)

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Did You Score? (orig. E Ai... Comeu?) [2012]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13/R)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
Adorocinema.com (AdC)* listing

Did You Score? (orig. E Ai... Comeu?) [2012] [AdC]*(directed by Felipe Joffily [AdC]* screenplay by Marcelo Rubens Paiva [wiki-pt]* and Lusa Silvestre based on the stage play by Marcelo Rubens Paiva [wiki-pt]*) is a well-written/well-crafted, often very funny, popular Brazilian comedy and one that (North) American viewers (still my primary readership) would immediately understand as it is centered around three 30-something friends Fernando (played by Bruno Mazzeo [AdC]*), Honório (played by Marcos Palmiera [AdC]*) and Afozinho (played by Emílio Orciollo Neto [AdC]*) who get together in the evenings at a small open air neighborhood bar (somewhere in Rio de Janeiro) called "Bar Harmonia" (Harmony's) whose name even basically means Cheers [IMDb].  While clearly different from the North American sitcom (and the current film is based on a Brazilian stage play), it should also be clear that if one sets a story around three young men regularly getting together at a bar anywhere in the world the potential for comedy is almost endless.  And indeed the film-makers (story-tellers) here do not disappoint ;-).

So it doesn't surprise me that the film, which played recently at the 29th Chicago Latino Film Festival, recevied much popular acclaim [AdC]* back in Brazil, if interestingly not necessarily particularly high critical acclaim [AdC]*. The film is therefore also a reminder to me that popular comedies are often the most difficult to review, and then especially for someone like me, a Catholic priest after all ;-).

Comedy is in good part about "letting go" about saying things "with a smile" that one may not be able to say without that smile.  In reviewing other "problematic" comedies (No Strings Attached [2011], Friends with Benefits [2011], et al) I've noted that there's often a (to quote the Beach Boys song) "Wouldn't it be Nice?" quality to romantic comedies.  Indeed, this day-dreamy "wouldn't it be nice" quality to romantic comedies has been around since at least Shakespeare's comedies Midsummer Night's Dream, All's Well that Ends Well and Much Ado about Nothing.  So often, romantic comedies go off in a direction that a Church official like myself would not particularly like, but SOMEWHERE in the film, reality would set in, and the plot would return closer back to earth.  The "dream" would come to a close, and "all would be well" at the end.

A second device that's often used in comedies has been to make the central characters obviously "stupider" (amiable but ... not particularly bright...) than the audience.  The North American Hangover [2009+] films obviously use this second device.   After all, who'd be so stupid as to get so drunk as to pull out one's own tooth (with a set of pliers) somewhere "out on the town" and then not even remember doing so the next day?  No one.  And that's the point.  We're given permission to relax/laugh because those telling us the story are telling us:  WE'RE JUST TELLING YOU A STORY. IT'S NOT REAL.  To be honest, I saw the first Hangover [2009] movie a couple of years before I began my blog and have basically refused to see the others because IMHO they are just too stupid.  Yet, I have to also admit that the Hangover films have been incredibly popular among parishioners at my parish.  And I have to say then that these films clearly speak to them (and tens of millions of others across the U.S.) no matter what the Church (or other, more high-brow critics) may say.

These two devices are used in all kinds of North American comedies, and are clearly coming to be used across the globe -- one thinks of the wildly popular (in Poland) romcom Letters to Santa (orig. Listy do M.) [2011],  the Czech offbeat but funny "romcom of sorts" (based on an English script) Perfect Days (orig. I ženy mají své dny) [2011], the again wildly popular (in Spain) comedy Cousinhood (orig. Primos) [2011] and now Did You Score? (orig. E Ai... Comeu?) [2012] [AdC]* from Brazil as well.  All these films have proven competitive to North American comedies in their own markets, all clearly borrow from North American scriptwriting techniques and yet all in their final product feel quite native to the applause of local audiences (and to the financial success of local film-makers). 

Okay, the techniques work, but are they good (morally acceptable)?  I haven't beaten-up the films that I've listed above, so I'm not going to beat-up this film either.  I would also note that the alternative would be to create a level of censorship that still produces reasonably good films (one thinks of the excellent, but self-evidently "limited in scope" recent Iranian film Meeting Leila (orig. Ashnaee ba Leila) [2011] about a nice/responsible soon-to-be wife who just wants her lively/smiling soon-to-be husband to "just quit smoking ...").  However after a while such limited subject matter inevitably becomes boring as it is further and further separated from actual lived experience.

So then, what is this current film about?   Well it's about these three friends Fernando (played by Bruno Mazzeo [AdC]*), Honório (played by Marcos Palmiera [AdC]*) and Afozinho (played by Emílio Orciollo Neto [AdC]*).  They are all middle class, indeed arguably at the lower end of upper middle class.

Fernando is a journalist of some sort.  He's married to Leila (played by Dira Paes [AdC]*) who also works outside the home and actually seems to have more regular hours than Fernando.  Together, they have three young daughters.  Perhaps because he's surrounded by all those women during other times of the day, Fernando likes to get out of the house in the evening to go to the bar to meet with his friends.

Honório is an architect who's wife Vitória (played by Tainá Müller [AdC]) just left him for reasons unclear, but perhaps because she found him a bit of a schmuck (boring).  Yes, he carries around boxes (models) and charts all the time, but he works in a small office in a high rise for some larger architectural firm and it's clear that he's probably not going to outshine many others where he's working.

Afozinho is single, a writer, who makes his living writing crossword puzzles, but like any writer, dreams of publishing "his novel."  Indeed, he has about 20 different versions of it in his apartment.  His big problem appears to be that he's been largely writing about life rather than living it.  His book is supposed to be a romance/love story, but ... he himself, sitting a lot in front of the computer, is addicted to cam-sites and (presumably) internet porn.  A potential publisher tells him as much: "Your book is supposed to be a romance, but the romance seems to be far more researched rather than lived."

So when the three get together, all three have steam/frustration to blow.  Fernando, who seems a little bit older and certainly more mature than the other two, would perhaps like to live vicariously through Honório and Afozinho.  But one's getting divorced and the other spends his time looking at internet hookers or perhaps hooking-up with a real one (this is Rio after all...) but doesn't have a clue about how to get a real date (even if the bar's got plenty of women in it, also meeting-up with other women to talk / let off steam.

Fortunately, there's the waiter/bar-tender (played by Seu Jorge [AdC]*) who Fernando hits up each evening to give them some sage advice. Most of the women in the bar, and there are several groups of regulars, who meet up at the place to chat with friends, think that the three, especially the two younger ones, are a bunch of cretinhos (cretins...).

As the story goes on, Honório (the one dumped by his wife) finds that he's caught (actually much to his dismay) the eye of Gabi (played by Laura Nieva [AdC]*) an attractive (but still morally if perhaps not absolutely legally underaged) 17 1/2 year old from his apartment complex.  At one point, he tries to tell her once and for all that she's just too young.  But she argues with him saying that by "state statute number..., article..., section ... ... it'd be okay," adding, "I researched it.  My dad's a judge." (Yes, that's even more wonderful...).

Afozinho in the meantime, trying to take the advice of his publisher (but clearly in the wrong way ...) to "actually live life" tries to meet-up with one of the cam models (from Rio de Janeiro) that he's been talking to (paying for ...) over the internet.  (Yup, that's got a big chance of working ...)

And Fernando, after spending so much time with his two (let's face it, kinda problematic and often inert) buddies starts wondering if his wife's now cheating on him ... ;-)

So there it is.  The film begins with "all" being (more or less) "well."  Then "all's" definitely "not well."  Obviously, by the end, "all's well" again. 

It's not a super comedy.  But honestly, it's not a bad one, reminding a (North) American viewer a lot of Cheers (remember that in that series the Ted Danson character Sam was something of a lech and a lot of the women thought he was an idiot too).  And then, despite often coarse language and various sexual situations, there is actually no nudity in it.  Much more is said, again often with a smile, than shown.  All in all, like comedies are supposed to do ... it gives a good laugh.  And a foreigner would perhaps get a sense of what a bunch of "regular guys" in a "regular bar" in Brazil would sound like.  And I do think that this is kinda cool ;-).  Good job!


* Immediate machine translation of foreign (in this case Portuguese) language links are generally best viewed using Google's Chrome browser.


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A Love (orig. Un Amor) [2011]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Cinenacional.com* listing

A Love (orig. Un Amor) [2011] [CN]* (directed and cowritten by Paula Hernández [CN]* along with Leonel D'Agostino [CN]* based on the short story by Sergio Bizzio [CN]* is a simple, poignant, well-crafted romance from Argentina that played recently at the 29th Chicago Latino Film Festival.  The film won the 2012 Argentinian Academy Award for best adapted screenplay* [IMDb].

The story is about three people, Bruno, Lalo and Lisa who as 15 year-olds back in 1970 had spent summer vacation together in the same town, Victoria (perhaps Victoria Entre Rios), some 3 hours from Buenos Aires.

Lalo (as a 15 year old played by Agustin Pardella [CN]*) and Bruno (as a 15 year old played by Alan Daicz [CN]*) were both locals from Victoria / friends from the same school even if not from the same social classes.  Lalo's father was an auto-mechanic who owned his own garage, Bruno's family appeared to be more white collar.

Into their world entered Lisa (as a 15 year old played by Denise Groesman [CN]*), presumably from Buenos Aires, whose 30-something parents appeared to be genial intellectuals/hippies. (Part of the subtext to the film is the "gathering storm" of what became the notorious Dirty War of the mid-70s).  As such, Lisa simply appeared in Bruno/Lalo's world one summer day in 1970 and then along with her family drove away (in presumed haste) near the end of it (but after having left a lifelong impression on both of them).

Lisa's "big city" / "intellectual" roots played out in the film in a number of ways, though above all through her confidence bordering (to the "provincials" Lalo and Bruno) on being "bossy" (this even though her parents, in as much as one saw them, seemed so "laid back").

Bruno and Lalo experienced Lisa's assertive character differently.  It would seem that Bruno experienced it as being "big city, worldly" (and arguably even somewhat "slutty/loose").  He really always seemed to see Lisa as basically a sexual conquest to be hoped for if not (necessarily) had.  Lalo, in contrast, fell in love.

So much, often poignant/cute (especially when looking back to one's own adolescent years) ensues... until, of course, one day Lisa and her family are gone.  They simply packed-up / left in haste, leaving no means of contacting them in the future.

The story resumes then in the more recent past.  (Mind the reader, that the story actually bounces throughout the film between "the summer of 1970" and the "recent past").

Bruno (played as an adult by Diego Peretti [CN]*) is now married (his wife played by Valeria Lois [CN]*) in Buenos Aires with two young children, a boy and a girl.

Into his life appears once more Lisa (played as an adult by Elena Roger [CN]*) who just shows up one day at the front door to his family's flat.  She, world-traveling (one could say, jet-setting) but never married, worked apparently for one or another international NGO, was in town for a couple of days, and above all ... really wanted to meet Lalo.

Lalo (played as an adult by Luis Ziembrowski [CN]*) remained back in Victoria, never married but with a small boy who he had with a local woman who he never married and had since broken-up with.  And he seemed to have taken over his dad's former garage, working again, as his father had, as an automechanic.

Bruno hasn't been back to Victoria in years.  When first asked by Lisa for Lalo's number, he answered that he didn't know it, but when pressed further, it becomes clear that he still had it memorized.

On the other side of the coin, Bruno's wife, who had previously not even really heard of Lisa, would really like to get this Lisa out of her / her husband's life again.  Bruno, who clearly hadn't thought much about Lalo, Lisa or Victoria much at all during the past years, is now confused.

Things begin to head toward a resolution when Bruno visits Lisa at her hotel room, and just as he's there, Lalo returns Lisa's previous day's phone call.  Since Lisa's in town for just a day or two more, Lisa and Lalo quickly make arrangements to meet, in Victoria, three hours away, the next day.  Bruno who leaves Lisa's room after the phone decides, when he gets home to his family, to go down to Victoria (which he himself hasn't visited in years) the next day as well ... even if it meant skipping a previously scheduled and fairly important event with his wife/family (a bat mitzvah on his wife's side of the family...).

Much, obviously, still ensues ...

I found the movie to be very nice.  I do think the film-makers were a bit crueler at times with Bruno's character than they had to be, even if at the end he comes out reasonably okay as well.  But above all, the film's about "A Love" that may have happened when one was 15 but clearly lasted a lifetime.  It's a very nice and (generally) gentle film.   Good job ;-)

* Immediate machine translation of foreign (in this case Spanish) language links are generally best viewed using Google's Chrome browser.


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Apaporis: In Search of One River (orig. Apaporis: En Busca del Río) [2010]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing

Apaporis: In Search of One River (orig. Apaporis: En Busca del Río) [2010] (written and directed by José Antonio Dorado) is a Colombian documentary that follows the famed cultural anthrologist/ethnobotanist Wade Davis (most famous his book The Serpent and the Rainbow [IMDb] about the phenomenon of zombification in Haiti) retrace the footsteps of his mentor Richard Evans Schultes who explored the northwest reaches of the Amazon rainforest (found in southern Colombia) during the war years of the early 1940s.  The film played recently at the 29th Chicago Latino Film Festival.

As the documentary notes, the exploration of the outer reaches of the Amazon rainforest, primarily in Brazil but also apparently in Colombia, was driven by the Allied wartime need for rubber.  (After the fall of Malaysia in the war in the Pacific 90% of the world's rubber supply was suddenly in the hands of Japanese forces).  Following the war, the desperate need for alternate supplies of rubber crashed once more.  However, new problems arose...

My own Religious Order, the Friar Servants of Mary, has a connection to this story as they have been responsible for the Catholic Church's Mission in Acre, Brazil, which became a center for the harvesting of rubber from naturally occurring rubber trees in that part of the Amazonian rainforest.  The struggles of the rubber harvesters (seringheiros), often simply poor Brazilians from Brazil's north-eastern coastal regions who were simply shipped out by the Brazilian army to the edges of the country during the war years to harvest the rubber, along with the struggles of the indigenous population of Acre became a cause celebre of the Servite Order on an international level by the 1970s and has continued to this day.  The publication of a book in Portuguese and Italian called The Amazon That We Do Not Know (2006) -- I myself have worked on the English translation of the book, provided here --- seeks to talk about / acquaint readers to the various groups of quiet simple people (both indigenous and simply poor/marginalized) who largely inhabit the Amazon region, people who in Brazil are being largely trampled over by timber and agribusiness concerns. 

In Colombia, the threat to its Amazon region and its indigenous populations hasn't come from the military seeking to define/solidify its country's borders or from greedy cattle ranchers seeking to increase their grazing lands (at the expense of tragically incalculably valuable forest flora/fauna), but (as this documentary notes) primarily from narco-traffickers and then the decades long civil war that has raged in Colombia's hinterlands, the two becoming interrelated as the various guerrilla groups / paramilitaries (the left-wing FARC being the most prominent) have used the cocaine trade (the growing of the coca leaves, harvesting them and then extracting/purifying their active ingredient - cocaine - out of them) to finance their conflicts.

So the concern of Wade Davis along with the documentary maker was whether or not the various indigenous communities that Richard Evans Schultes had found in Colombia's Amazon rain forest would have survived the ravages of the decades-long Drug / Civil War.  Indeed, the town from which documentary film crew embarked on their voyage (I wish I remembered its name...) had been over-run by FARC some years back before being recaptured by government forces in more recent years.

So this documentary is about 'wild country' in more ways than one.  To the relief of all those involved in the documentary, the various indigenous communities appear to have survived.

The film then shows some absolutely beautiful scenery of jungle still largely untouched and indigenous communties, which, while often enough Christianized (by one or another Church or denomination), have also been able to largely preserve their ways.  It is a remarkable film for all those interested in this part of the world and its native inhabitants.  (But I'd like then, honestly, to also take the opportunity again, to plug my own Order's efforts (and others like it) in neighboring Brazil where the problems are, perhaps surprisingly - after all there have been no real wars in Brazil - even more urgent).  Great documentary folks, great job!


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The Company You Keep [2011]

MPAA (R)  R. Roeper (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (3  Stars w. Expl.)

IMDb listing
RogerEbert.com (R. Roeper) review
AV Club (N. Rabin) review

Whatever the original intent of the book / movie, The Company You Keep [2011] (costarring and directed by Robert Redford, screenplay by Lem Dobbs based on the novel by the same name by Neil Gordon [IMDb]) may have been, its clear to me that events since -- notably the Boston Marathon bombing this year (which killed 3 including an 8 year old boy and a 22 year old foreign exchange student, and wound another 170 all of whom were just regular people) to say nothing of 9/11 (which killed over 3,000) -- make it very hard to attempt to rehabilitate Vietnam War era radical groups like the Weather Underground that also have innocent blood on their hands (notably that of regular beat cops and security guards who were leading regular lives with families and kids that loved them ...). 

To the book/film;s credit, several of the characters presented as former members of the Weather Underground notably Sharon Solarz (played by Susan Sarandon) and Jim Grant / Nick Sloan (played by Robert Redford) are presented as having regrets for their past actions.  In jail after being arrested after deciding to turn herself in after 30 years of hiding, Sharon Solarz explains to a young reporter, Ben Shephard (played by Shia LaBeouf) that age, having kids, having older parents that one loves, all serve to change one's outlook.  But she also then explained that the situation existing in the late 60s made her (and her group) desperate.  She and her group were seeing tens of thousands of young Americans and then millions of Vietnamese being slaughtered.  She and her group had agitated against the War, done their sit-ins with the Students for a Democratic Society and the War (with its attendant mass killing) was still going on.  So she and her group of friends that became the Weather Underground made the decision to go beyond the law (to seek ultimately the violent overthrow of the government that they came to see as Evil).

Now honestly, exactly the same logic drives the most radical opponents to abortion to seek to do exactly the same thing (or at least to stop abortion by "any means necessary") for exactly the same reasons:  "We followed the rules.  We tried every conceivable means of protesting peacefully (and even means that just barely "toed the line"), but the daily slaughter goes on ..."

Sigh, what to do when one sees a rampant injustice, indeed an ongoing slaughter, and all legal recourse has been exhausted?  That's the dilemma that that the former members of the Weather Underground had placed themselves in.  And again I say that the most radical opponents to abortion place themselves in a similar dilemma.  Finally, I would submit that even some of the Islamic radicals place themselves in a similar dilemma. Good Muslims, after all, are supposed to Pray (submit to God) and Give Alms to the Poor.  Yet all kinds of governments in Muslim majority countries all around the world are led by stupendously rich people who don't particularly pray and don't particularly give a damn about the poor with many of these regimes supported by the U.S. / Secular West (terrified of the Islamic radicals...). 

Sigh once more ... Honestly in the words of Rodney King:  "Can we just try to get along?"  Seek to see "The Other" as not someone "in the way" or "needing to be eliminated" but someone who is, (like we are ourselves) a "child of God" or "Created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them being Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness."

In any case, this film about some of the former Weather Underground radicals seeking to "come clean" and "face the music" for their past actions does give the viewer much to think about.

I would also say that currently it is not an easy movie to watch.


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