Trip to Timbuktu (orig. Viaje a Tombuctú) [2013]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing

Official Website

Press articles*

Trip to Timbuktu (orig. Viaje a Tombuctú) [2013] (screenplay written and directed by Rossana Díaz Costa, an assistant professor of Communications Sciences at the University of Lima) is a Peruvian film telling the story of two young people Ana and Lucho, who grew-up, middle class, in Lima during the Guerrilla War in Peru of the 1980s-90s between the government and Shining Path and MRTA guerrillas.

The film was shot largely in the seaside Lima neighborhood where Ms Diaz Costa grew-up with most of the actors being her students as well as children from the neighborhood. The film played recently at the 30th Chicago Latino Film Festival. 

The film serves as a very good reminder to viewers of the tens of millions, probably hundreds of millions of people across the planet growing-up in immediately recognizable middle class circumstances -- Both Ana's and Lucho's parents were educated.  Their fathers both worked in offices "downtown." And as both Ana/Lucho matured, they entered University.  However, neither family was "super rich" either: Ana's family did have one, older somewhat beat-up car.  Neither family had "servants." And Ana's grandparents (presumably Ana's father's parents) lived with them in their townhouse home throughout the whole of the story (which spanned Ana's childhood and into her 20s)  -- Yet their circumstances were also _different_ from the experience of most others growing up in such middle class circumstances.  In the case of Ana / Lucho, they grew-up in Peru during the very brutal insurgency war of the 1980s-90s. 

That insurgency did wear on everyone's lives: One simply had to travel everywhere, at all times, "with one's papers."  Curfews came to be imposed and even largely followed out of common sense.  No one in his/her right mind wanted to be "outside on their own" in the countryside or a neighborhood they did not know long after dark.  People learned the difference in sounds between harmless celebratory fireworks and gunshots, explosions and even artillery rounds (There's an excellent and very unnerving scene at the beginning of the film that drives this point home).  Electricity routinely went out across city and countryside depending on what substations and transmission facilities were attacked and when.  Lucho's father was wounded as a result of a car bomb explosion downtown one day...

Yet this is not a "The Communist insurgents were bad ..." sort of a film.  Ana, Lucho and their friends/families, all knew where they lived, where as Lucho put it: "Half the country is dirt poor..."

It's just that IT DIDN'T MATTER what anyone thought or did.  THE BOMBS WENT OFF EVERYDAY -- 1, 2, 5, 10 A DAY -- ANYWAY.  The authorities were AFRAID OF EVERYONE because in the middle of the insurgency EVERYONE FIT _SOME_ "PROFILE" whether being "a poor Communist peasant" or "a rich Communist hippie" or "a rich Communist elitist," or even "the (faux) naive wife/daughter of a rich Communist hippie or elitist" ... The only thing that kept one "safe" at a police/military checkpoint was keeping a smile, keeping one's hands up / visible and "having one's papers in order."  And being pulled out of a bus and "taken to the the station" for NOT "having one's papers in order" was a LIFE-CHANGING EXPERIENCE for all.

In response to this constant pressure of truly "living in a war zone," what many Peruvians who had the means did (and many others who did not have the means at least imagined) was to leave Peru for destinations "far away" (hence the film's title ...)

So this is a pretty gut-wrenching film.   Yet it is quite soberly done, and could give millions of 30-40 year old Peruvians living across the world a way of explaining to their non-Peruvian friends (and their own children...) what it was like to live and grow-up in Peru in the 1980s-90s.

Honestly, an excellent film!


* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser.  

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Stoker of Delirium (orig. Fogonero del Delirium) [2011]

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

IMDb listing
FICG.mx listing

Official Site

Alejandro Colunga: Stoker of Delirium (orig. Alejandro Colunga: Fogonero del Delirium) [2011] (directed and cowritten by Gustavo Domínguez along with Jorge de la Cueva based on the original script of Dante Medina) is a feature length (90 min) documentary piece from Mexico that played recently at the 30th Chicago Latino Film Festival.

Commissioned originally by the University of Guadalajara and a Mexican National Fund for the Promotion of Fine Arts, it is about the life and art of Guadalajara native Alejandro Colunga one of Mexico's most influential and interesting contemporary artists. 

For those who like surrealist art, the documentary itself is a delight.  For example, Colunga's childhood is presented through surrealist imagery inspired by his own art, employing both animation and masked and costumed actors in the process. 

The result is magical, at times somewhat controversial, but certainly insightful, getting to the playful and iconoclastic spirit of the artist underneath the work.  Thus we see masked mariachis playing their instruments in a windswept graveyard following Colunga's father's death when the artist was young.

To most readers of my blog, the most controversial scene in the film for some would be that of the 6-8 year old Colunga's experience of the the Celebration of the Mass: The Virgin Mary and many of the Saints turn into trapeze artists and other carnival characters during the Consecration.  Offensive?  Could be.  But put yourselves back into the mind of a ten year old and in the scene the young Colunga _isn't_ portrayed as laughing at the Mass or the Angels and the Saints but rather IN AWE OF IT ALL.  (I myself remember being in AWE of all the images -- the Angels, the Saints, the images of Jesus struggling on his way to Calvary -- all about St. Procopius Church back in Chicago where we'd go to Czech Mass whenever my grandmother (who didn't speak a word of English) was with us.  Priest's and choir's voices would echo through the Church anyway, so I couldn't understand a word ... but there was _plenty_ to look at, all around.  So _honestly_ I can relate to the image in the film ...

Throughout the film, various family members of Colunga, friends, patrons as well as Colunga himself were interviewed to give insight to the various stages of his life.  (Interestingly, he studied architecture, mathematics and other more technical fields in his life before entering into the field of art which he claimed he "didn't study at all" ;-). He also spent a brief period in the 1960s as part of a Guadalajara rock band ;-) before returning back to painting and handicraft/sculpture. 

So who is he then?  One would certainly recognize him as a "great" thoughtful, iconoclastic/playful artist of today for whom Mexican folk-flavored surrealism would certainly be an _ideal_ form of expression. 

The film is certainly not for all, but for those who do love art, especially contemporary art and the freedom that it often expresses, this film will probably be for you. 

The film also serves the purpose of reminding viewers (and indeed the world) that Mexico does have truly rich tradition in art and one that did not simply begin and end with Diego Rivera and Frida and the "Muralists" of the 1920s-40s. There are some GREAT artists like Alejandro Colunga living and producing some very insightful and often quite funny / entertaining contemporary art right now.

In any case, I found this to be a great and fun film!


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The Eternal Night of the Twelve Moons (orig. La Eterna Noche de las Doce Lunas) [2013]

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

IMDb listing
Indiewire listing

Official website

Gozamos.com (D. Delgado Pineda) review

The Eternal Night of the Twelve Moons (orig. La Eterna Noche de las Doce Lunas) [2013] (concept and directed by Priscilla Padilla) is a documentary that played recently at the 30th Chicago Latino Film Festival.

It follows Pili, a 12 year old adolescent girl from the Wayuu people of Northern Colombia, who as per ancient tradition upon having her first period is largely separated from her community (from the men and children anyway) for a period of twelve moons (twelve months, a year) so that she could be instructed by the women of the village (led by her grandmother) in spinning yarn, weaving, and other traditional tasks that would be useful to her in her adult life. 

It is clear throughout the film that the purpose of her separation is both to underline to the community the girl's transition into womanhoon and to give her time to master the skills that would be necessary for her to emerge after her period of seclusion into the community as a marriageable woman capable of fulfilling the tasks that would be expected of her as an adult member of the community.

Of course there is a certain sadness that accompanies this transition: After all, this is a twelve year-old who has to say good bye to her childhood friends, many of whom don't necessarily understand she's being taken away from them, and she herself may have trouble understanding this.  Further, she's instructed by her grandmother and the elder women in the village that a grown woman "does not laugh" especially with men/boys.

Yet it's also clear that a primary purpose of this custom of seclusion of young girls entering into adulthood is to underline their value and dignity, both to themselves and to the rest of the community (and especially to the men).

It seemed clear that the reason why the GRANDMOTHERS were leading the instruction here was that it had been felt by the community that the MOTHERS' GENERATION had been considered somewhat "lost."  Indeed, Pili's mother wasn't even in the village (but living/working somewhere outside of it ...) when Pili had her first period and began this rite, something that the grandmothers of the village reprimanded Pili's mother about when she did come to the village at some point during the year.  And when she comes to visit Pili in her hut, Pili does seem somewhat disappointed in her mother's previous distance/absence from the process and her life. 

Does this traditional maturation process work?  Do the men of the Wayuu community respect Pili more for going through this process?  The jury seems out here.  Yes, somewhere in the middle of the process an older Wayuu from another village comes inquiring to Pili's grandmother regarding Pili's marriageability after she emerged from the process.  He tells Pili's grandmother that he's there for his nephews, but one gets the sense that he might have been there in good part for himself...  He does however offer an apparently rather impressive "bride's price" which Pili's grandmother out-of-hand rejects but recounts to Pili afterwards with some pride that Pili is definitely going to come out of this process respected (and how better to quantify that "respect" than in terms of what she'll be able to "earn" in terms of a "bride's price"...).

Finally what does Pili think of it all?  Well, she goes through the process because her grandmother, her primary caregiver, wanted her to do so.  And it does seem that she's found it to have been of some value.  It does seem to give her some pride that she seems to be offered higher "bride's prices" than other girls (who didn't go through the process).  HOWEVER, she tells the documentarian at the end of the film that what she's learned above all in the process is that she doesn't want to get married yet but instead would like to "finish high school" and "become a career woman" ;-).

The grandmother and her other matriarchical friends always explained this ritual period of seclusion for the young girl as a means of increasing the girl's/emerging woman's respect in the community.  It would be fascinating if the documentarian were to follow the next several years of Pili's life to see how it all plays out: How will she be able to integrate the modern (finishing high school prior to getting married) with the traditional (now that she's marriagable)?  How will she continue to be respected in the years to come?

In any case, it's a fascinating film which offers viewers much to think about and discuss afterwards with regards to both appreciating the value of traditional customs and then applying them positively to current circumstances.


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For Love in the Caserio (orig. Por Amor en el Caserío) [2013]

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

IMDb listing

Official Website

NBC Latino article
NY Times article

ElNuevoDia.com interview*
Primerahora.com report*
PuenteAlDia.com report*

For Love in the Caserio (orig. Por Amor en el Caserío) [2013] (directed by Luis Enrique Rodríguez Ramos, screenplay by Antonio Morales based on his own stage-play by the same name), which played recently to large enthusiastic audiences at the 30th Chicago Latino Film Festival is a film that deserves to be seen, especially by those "in the industry" looking for "young Hispanic talent" in, honestly, any/all areas (acting, direction, writing, cinematography, sound, editing, music...) involved in the making of a movie.

The film is based on the stage-play by Antonio Morales which he wrote when he was a teenager living in the Caserio Project, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the second largest public housing project on U.S. territory anywhere.  In the 13 years since its initial production in 2001, the play has been staged over 500 times across Puerto Rico and has been seen by more than 50,000 people. 

Director Luis Enrique Rodríguez Ramos in this his first feature-length venture DOES NOT DISAPPOINT either.  His background is in advertising and music videos.  Hence he crafts here a WELL-PACED, WELL-EDITED, VISUALLY MEMORABLE PRODUCTION that "POPS."  I'm more-or-less positive that film-makers probably dread "cutting their teeth" working some years "in advertising," but I've seen it before (indeed, at this Festival a number of years back with a Brazilian film called Dia de Preto (Day of Black) [2011] made by a team of three, also first-time feature-length film-makers, whose "day jobs" were ALSO "in advertising" back in Rio...) the skills learned in producing EYE-POPPING 30 second television commercials will serve one well in making a WELL-TIMED, WELL-EDITED, ENGAGING, VISUALLY INTERESTING FILM (OF ANY LENGTH) AS WELL.

Then regarding the leads Anoushka Medina and Xavier Morales who play the lovebirds Crystal and Ángelo in this almost necessarily Romeo and Juliet-like story.  (ANY "teenage love story" set in a "gang infested neighborhood" is almost certainly going to fall back on "the Bard"), I'm glad to read that apparently the Mexico City based telenovela industry has already taken notice of Anoushka but it would not be a waste of time if film-makers or stage-play producers from Buenos Aires to Madrid to Hollywood, Miami and New York would take a look at her performance in this film as well.  The next Penelope Cruz?  Could be ;-). And regarding Xavier, he's almost certainly destined to play the current U.S. President Barrack Obama in _some_ Spanish-language production _somewhere_ in the years to come (Those who see the film will certainly know what I'm talking about as both his looks and even his demeanor fit our current President to a tee ;-).

What then of the story itself?  I've already mentioned that the film follows (loosely) the trajectory of Romeo and Juliet.  There's even an amusing balcony scene adapted _quite well_ to "The Projects."  The story involves two drug gangs.  Crystal's older brother leads one, Ángelo's cousin is in the other.  The rest of the cast is filled-out with friends, relatives and neighbors of both.

Interestingly enough, while there are mothers, Godmothers and aunts of the teens in the story, with the exception of a male director of a drama club to which Crystal belongs, there's not a single adult male in the story at all, let alone one who could serve as a positive role model.   So unlike in Romeo and Juliet where there were at least "patriarchs" of the Montagues and Capulets, in this film the leaders of both gangs were teens or young 20-somethings themselves with their mothers and tias (aunts) hating them for what they've chosen to do with their lives.

Does the story glorify gangs?  This is not an idle question for me as in my "day job" I've done three gang funerals over the years (all of them memorable, none of them "in a good way"...).  My answer here would be no.  The story does not glorify the gangs, as it's hard to imagine how anyone seeing the play or movie to feel that it ended in any way resembling "well."

WHAT I THINK WAS VERY WELL DONE HOWEVER IN THE SCRIPT/PRODUCTION was a point that is often missed in the reporting on gang tragedies: No matter how otherwise Evil or misguided a gangster may otherwise have become, THERE ARE ALWAYS (REAL/SERIOUS) PEOPLE WHO LOVE(D) THAT GANGSTER AND (REAL/SERIOUS) PEOPLE THAT THE GANGSTER LOVED AS WELL.  And I'm not talking here about "homeys" who are enablers / in the same boat as the gangster and don't necessarily deserve much sympathy/consideration, I'm talking about (serious) others: Crystal's gangster older brother, as utterly unsympathetic a character as he'd become still loved his little brother (and his little brother still loved/looked-up to him).  I've seen that with my own eyes.  I've also seen relatives sincerely weeping over the corpses of their dead (and up-until death) gang-banging children. 

As such the story offers much to all to think about and both the film and the stage play would probably be worth a look by youth ministers in specifically Latino (the film's in Spanish with English subtitles) gang-troubled neighborhoods both in the U.S. and beyond.  But returning to my original premise, the talent present in this film is really quite remarkable and deserves a look by those looking for Hispanic faces and voices across the film industry.


* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser.  

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Insurgents (orig. Insurgentes) [2013]

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

IMDb listing

Official website*

CinemasCine.net (S. Morales) review*
NoticiasDesdeBolivia review*

Insurgents (orig. Insurgentes) [2013] (written and directed by Jorge Sanjinés) is a Bolivian docudrama that played recently at the 30th Chicago Latino Film Festival.  Jumping backwards and forwards in time across centuries, it chronicles the battle of Bolivia's indigenous peoples (the majority) for dignity and respect in their own country up until the recent election of Evo Morales the first President of Bolivia to come from the country's indigenous (Aymara) population.

This intentionally non-linear  approach actually helps the viewer appreciate how attitudes and circumstances both change (and don't ...) across time.  For instance, near the beginning of the film there's a scene in which the idle rich of Bolivia of the colonial period discuss the then philosophical trends in Europe, with one noting that all the major philosophers of Europe have considered the indigenous populations the Americas to be less-than-human and that Immanuel Kant even declared them "destined for extinction."  Near the end of the film, the idle rich of Bolivia today, sit sipping drinks at a country club at a golf course, sharing notes on the relative virtues of German and Japanese engineering, the only difference being that their conversation is interrupted by the televised inaugural address of Evo Morales.  Presumably things will now be changing ...

Yet the centuries long struggle has not proven to be easy.  Whether by means of insurrection/war for independence -- indigenous leaders Túpac Kateri (played in the film by Froilán Paucara) and his wife Bartonina Sisa (played in the film by Mónica Bustillos) organized an army of indigenous peasants that laid a months long siege to Bolivia's capital La Paz decades before Bolivia won its independence (an independence of a "different kind" as its Declaration was not signed by a single person from the indigenous peoples) -- or by utterly peaceful means -- Santos Marka Tula (played in the film by Primitivo Gonzales) who was murdered for simply seeking to build schools in indigenous areas -- the cards were stacked against the indigenous peoples by the European descended Criolos who simply considered themselves racially superior to their indigenous neighbors.

Indeed, it was noted in the film that actually under Spanish colonial rule, the Spanish RESPECTED the concept of "community owned" indigenous lands.  AFTER "INDEPENDENCE" ownership of these communal lands was transferred over to INDIVIDUAL, usually already rich CRIOLO (white), owners.

This "land grabbing" in guise of "fighting for independence" is, of course, not unique to Bolivia.  Nor was white settler opposition to the construction of schools for indigenous communities.  What happened to the indigenous lands in Bolivia also happened to the lands of the Franciscan Missions in California following Mexico's independence.  Again, while the lands were run at the top by the Franciscan Friars, the lands of the Franciscan Missions in California were actually run communally with the indigenous peoples who lived there.  After Mexico won independence, these lands were stripped from the Franciscans (and the indigenous people who lived there) and handed over to already rich, usually European descended "white folk" from Mexico.  Then a good part of the first decades of my own religious order's, the Servites', mission in KwaZulu (Zululand) in South Africa was the building of then clandestine schools in opposition to the demands of the Apartheid government of the time, which wanted us there to "baptize" the Zulu people but certainly _not_ to educate them.  (So in defiance of the Apartheid regime we built our schools there clandestinely ...).
 In any case the injustices visited upon the indigenous MAJORITY of Bolivia over the centuries resulted in the recurrence of unrest and insurrections against the status quo up through to the election of Morales.

Will things improve?  Time will tell.  However, at least for this time, for the first time since the arrival of the Spaniards in the 1500s, an indigenous Aymara is actually the President of his own country.  And to most people that would be cause for celebration.

How then is the film?  ;-)  It's made in a docudrama format, hence with narration and actors dressed in period clothes dramatizing the various scenes described.  The sets, mostly outdoors, and costuming are of top quality.  Indeed, most viewers would certainly appreciate the beauty and color existent in the indigenous cultures of Bolivia and honestly come to lament the poverty caused to all involved by the ideology of racism that refused to allow the white Criolos to appreciate the cultural richness and beauty of the indigenous people with whom, like it or not, they shared their lives.

A beautiful and thought provoking film!


* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser.  

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Honeymoon (orig. Líbánky) [2013]

MPAA (UR would be R)  iDnes (3 of 5 Stars)  Fr. Dennis-Zdenek (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CSFD listing*
FDB.cz listing*

HollywoodReporter (B. van Hoeij) review

iDnes.cz (M. M. Spáčilová) review*
actualne.cz (J. Gregor) review*

Honeymoon (orig. Líbánky) [2013] [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]* (directed by Jan Hřebejk [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*, screenplay by Petr Jarchovský [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) is an award-winning/critically acclaimed Czech film that closed the 17th Annual European Union Film Festival held recently here at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago.

The film takes place in the context of a lovely wedding and reception of a quite well-to-do mid-thirty-something couple, Radim (played by Stanislav Majer [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) and Teresa (played by Aňa Geislerová [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*).  Since they're both in their thirties, we can expect that both would have their stories.  We learn early that Radim has a thirteen year-old son (played by Matěj Zikán [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) from a previous relationship.  We find out also that Teresa had been married before as well.  And as the lovely Church wedding ends -- viewers get to hear the famous passage from 1 Corinthians about love "Love is patient, love is kind, ... love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things ... love never fails.  In the end these three remain: Faith, Hope and Love and the greatest of these is Love." (1 Cor 13:1-13) proclaimed in Czech (w. English subtitles) -- we see that Teresa is sporting a small baby bump... so the couple already has had its share of "stories" big and small.

However, none of this compares to what follows at the reception: An odd late-twenties, early-thirty-something man, who eventually introduces himself as "Benda" (played by Jiří Černý [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) who the wedding party had already encountered hovering about the church at the time of the wedding, shows-up at the wedding reception and inserts, asserts himself quite confidently as if he naturally belongs there.  Who is he?  Well, when the bride tired of his presence (and seeing that no one was doing anything to get rid of him) asks him "Who are you?" he answers "Ask the groom."

Okay, the banal scenario of today would be that Benda would have had some sort of a (necessarily gay) relationship with Radim.  But that's not (really) the case here.  The story is far, far more complicated than that.  And by the end of the story, it makes sense that Aleš ("Benda's" real name) was there.

I'm not going to say more about this film because I do believe that this film is good enough to be picked up and shown in the "art house" circuit here in the U.S.  In her introductory remarks, the Czech Counsel General present at the screening of this film -- again the film closed the 17th Annual European Union Film Festival here in Chicago -- compared the works of the director Jan Hřebejk [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]* to Woody Allen both in terms of content and in terms of productivity (both produce thought provoking films on a year-in, year-out basis).  I think the comparison is very good.  No this is NOT a "funny film" BUT it is A LOT like Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors [1989] and especially Match Point [2005].   And I would also compare it to the excellent African-American film Repentance [2014] presently in the cinemas as well, as both films are about the need to come to terms with things, painful things that happened in the past.


* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser.  

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Captain America: The Winter Soldier [2014]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-II)  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RE.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B+)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McAleer) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (O. Henderson) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

Captain America: The Winter Soldier [2014] (directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, story and concept by Ed Brubaker, based on the comic book by Joe Simon [IMDb] and  Jack Kirby [IMDb]) continues a fascinating reflection on "America Now and Then" through the character of Marvel Comics' Steve Rogers / "Captain America" (played by Chris Evans).

The story of Steve Rogers / "Captain America" was that he was a sickly American teenager desperate to be able to enroll in the Army to do his part to fight for the United States against the Nazis.  Like MANY younger American teens of that time, he LIED ABOUT HIS AGE (he was actually too young to serve).  Then even as he was really physically unfit to serve in the military, he tried SO HARD that it was difficult for those responsible for basic training to cut him.  His simultaneous enthusiasm and physical inability to deliver caught the eye of the Army brass and he recruited for a WW II-era American "secret weapons" program aimed at creating "super soldiers."  He entered the program, was injected with a "super soldier serum" and became (physically) a totally different man than he was before.

Steve Rogers / "Captain America" was then deployed to Europe to participate in all kinds of "secret missions" including a battle between United States aligned forces, which after the war comes to be called S.H.I.E.L.D. (Strategic Homeland, Intervention, Enforcement and Logistic Division), basically a "Marvel CIA" and a Nazi aligned enemy force called HYDRA (why?  "cut off one head and two grows in its place") bent on world domination in one way or another and by any means necessary.

The battle between S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA is perfect for a comic book universe because it takes place almost entirely "in the shadows" and involves all kinds of super-heroes and super-villains all with super-powers.  This legendary battle in the shadows gains currency in the public imagination (in the collective subconscious...) BECAUSE both the United States and Nazi Germany REALLY DID HAVE "SECRET WEAPONS PROGRAMS." The United States had the Manhattan Project and Nazi Germany had rocketry, aeronautics, bio-weapons and really all kinds of borderline unbelievable "out of the box" projects (an excellent book on the matter of Germany's Wunderwaffen programs was British Aerospace journalist Nick Cook's book The Hunt For Zero Point about Nazi Germany's "anti-gravity," that is, I'm NOT kidding, flying saucer program).  Then after WW II the United States REALLY DID SECRETLY RECRUIT all kinds of former Nazi scientists and engineers to work for the U.S. under "Project Paperclip" (The Soviets were actually far less subtle.  Those Nazi scientists that they captured were simply deported back to the Soviet Union and compelled to work for the Communists).

SINCE SO MUCH OF THE ACTUAL STORY (Manhattan, Paperclip) was kept secret FOR DECADES, this secrecy offered a perfect setting for these kind of fantastic super-hero, super-villain, super-power, super-weapons stories.  Other recent treatments of this subject, often taking on the style of classic late-1940s film noir (with always "an unspeakable secret" at its heart) have included Steven Soderbergh's The Good German 2006] (about the U.S. recruitment of Nazi V-2 scientists and engineers after the war) and Martin Scorcese's Shutter Island [2010] (a fictionalized story inspired by an actual U.S. bioweapons research facility on Plum Island off the coast of Long Island, NY said to have housed former Nazi bio-weapons scientists brought into the U.S. via Project Paperclip after the war.  Among the conspiracies linked to that facility has been the origin of lyme disease as the first recorded outbreak of this tick-borne disease occurred in Lyme, CT across Long Island Sound from Plum Island, and the Nazis had apparently researched using ticks as "delivery devices" for diseases). 

Alright then, this shadowy world of "super-weapon" research becomes perfect fodder for super-hero / super-villain stories.  The coup-de-grace in the case of Steve Rogers / Captain America's back-story is that "after the War, he goes down in an airplane somewhere over the Arctic.  However, since he had been injected with that "super-soldier serum" he was no longer really human (rather super-human) and so he DOES NOT DIE.  Instead, he is merely _frozen_.  Decades later, the crash site of his plane is found and his body recovered and DEFROSTED whereupon he re-awakes IN OUR TIME.

So Steve Rogers / Captain America is conceived as a 1940s era Superhero who was "Frozen in Time" only to reawaken in OURS.  So much of the humor (and insight) involved in his story involves exploring the differences between "his time" (the 1940s) and ours (today).  We got a taste of this in the truly hilarious (and again, insightful...) dialogues in The Avengers [2012] between the boy-scoutish Steve Rogers / Captain America and the far more flamboyant (and sneakier) Tony Stark / Iron Man (played in the current Marvel adventures by Robert Downey Jr), Steve Rogers / Captain America epitomizing the American hero of the 1940s and Tony Stark / Iron Man epitomizing the American hero of today.

The current film Captain America: The Winter Soldier [2014] explores the well-known lament of our time, vis-a-vis the "simpler times" of The Greatest Generation: that "back in the day" we "KNEW who the enemy was," today "it's so much harder."

So, in this post-9/11 world into which the 1940s-era superhero Steve Rogers / Captain America had been thawed, S.H.I.E.L.D. (again sort of a "Superhero CIA / NSA") comes up with a weapons system involving (1) a computer program called INSIGHT which monitoring EVERY ELECTRONIC TRANSACTION/COMMUNICATION of EVERYONE on the planet (hmm... wonder what Eric Snowden would have to add about this story ... ;-)) comes to be able to determine with some accuracy WHO COULD BECOME an ENEMY OF PEACE / ORDER IN THE WORLD and (2) a fleet of TERRIFYING AIRBORNE AIRCRAFT CARRIERS which could project S.H.I.E.L.D.'s power ANYWHERE, the idea being that between the computer program and this awesome fleet of Stark Industries designed "airborne aircraft carriers" S.H.I.E.L.D. could eliminate ALL THE WORLD'S POTENTIAL ENEMIES (20 million of them) in a single WORLD-WIDE preemptive strike and then pick-off new potential enemies (based on their internet history) as they are flagged / discerned.

Wow!  But who exactly controls S.H.I.E.L.D.? Well that's the rest of the story ... ;-)  In past episodes, we had been introduced to Nick Fury (played ever to the hilt by Samuel L. Jackson) who appeared to be a very hands-on head of S.H.I.E.L.D.  But actually, as in the case of the CIA, there's a "civilian commander" here named Alexander Pierce (played in exquisite Washington "who is he?" / "walks between the rain drops" power-broker fashion by Robert Redford).

Anyway, the boy-scoutish Steve Rogers / Captain America is immediately wary of this scheme to simply "take down" potential enemies of Peace.  Yet 'man of the world' Nick Fury tells him that "After New York" (after 9/11? or after the New York "space invasion" story of The Avengers [2012]) there's no room for error.  We must eliminate our enemies before they have a chance to hurt us."

But of course, things start to go wrong, when suddenly Nick Fury himself becomes the target of a heavy-handed/insistent assassination plot.  Who was behind it?  Steve Rogers / Captain America, the Russian born S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Natasha Romanova / Black Widow (played exquisitely as ever by Scarlett Johansson) and Sam Wilson / Falcon (played by Anthony Mackie) conceived here as a "Special Air Services" / Afghan War Vet, spend the rest of the film trying to figure it out.

Perhaps the first clue to problem is that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Washington D.C. area headquarters appears to be located RIGHT ACROSS THE RIVER from the infamous Watergate Hotel ... Again how much more "complicated" things are today than they were "back in the days" of WW II when "we knew who our enemies were ..."

My only complaint here is that the level of even "just glass-breaking" (PG-13 level) violence is SO LARGE that it's hard to imagine how ANYBODY living in the Marvel Movies' universe would NOT BE TRAUMATIZED.  These enormous airborne aircraft carriers presumably with crews of hundreds, perhaps thousands of people CRASH AND BURN ALL OVER THE WASHINGTON D.C. AREA ... At minimum, think of the casualties among the pilots/sailors.  Then that the crashing of these enormous craft would not cause "casualties on the ground" would seems preposterous.  So a definite level of "suspension of disbelief" is needed to watch the film.  Of course, the film is about SUPER-HEROES, with SUPER-POWERS to begin with ... so "suspension of disbelief" comes with the territory.  Yet, I really do think that the level of "glass crashing violence" is so great that if this were to really happen, we'd ALL BE BASKET CASES by the end.  Think of the trauma that 9/11 caused and that was "just two buildings ..."

But there it is.  The violence portrayed in the film is certainly gratuitous.  On the other hand, the film is about a fictionalized world inhabited by super-heroes and super-villains, all with super-powers.  So we should probably keep it in stride.  In any case, the film seems to be reflective of the societal concern that "things are not as simple today as they used to be."

Bottom line, this is a very good "Marvel Comics" / "Superhero" film even if there's an awful lot of "glass breaking" and other PG-13 level ("bloodless") destruction. 

Then, after all this who's "the Winter Soldier" from the film's title?  Well ... the answer lies in part with Steve Rogers / Captain America's back-story ... and beyond that, I'm not going to tell you ;-)


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