|
Article Excerpt
Integral to the expansion of capitalism since the nineteenth century, the cultural communications complex which used to be analyzed as cultural imperialism has now evolved into the object of study of theories in globalization (Miller, et al. 18). One of the Third World's legitimate and powerful reactions against that earlier cultural imperialism took the form of ideological denunciations of its content-based products. Along with such a political analysis went a search for pure alternative positions which, at the artistic level, were often conflated with the avant-garde forms of the left intelligentsia. In today's epochal climate, I will argue, films such as the ones I explore here, have developed a more complex reaction to better suit the needs of differently acculturated audiences. Pace Audre Lorde ("The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house") the films I will focus on here use some of the formal tools of dominant Hollywood productions and combine them with more vernacular, regional forms and experiences in an effort to produce a critique of the impact of neoliberalism on the national societies of Latin America in times of globalization. Reworking and re-appropriating some of the "master's tools" these films marry the so-called MTV style with classical political allegory and melodrama, thus heralding, perhaps, the emergence of a new type of cinematographic legibility--what I will call here a powerful neopopular mode--in works which, through their creative engagement with international film genres, are both accessible and productive for many glocal publics. (1)
I will analyze two relatively recent films, Amores perros by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (2) (Mexico 2000) and El Chacotero Sentimental (The Sentimental Teaser) by Cristian Galaz (3) (Chile 1999). Both have enjoyed massive audience success and critical acclaim nationally and internationally; both are full-length directorial debuts, both use a tripartite narrative structure that places the national bourgeoisie at the very center of their discourse, and through a strong allegorical process make that bourgeoisie politically responsible for the situation in the country. At both ends of this center, the so-called marginal sectors of society grapple with the results of the neoliberalization of society in general and, more specifically, with contemporary life in the Latin American megalopolis. After introducing both films briefly, I will analyze their tripartite narrative structure, paying particular attention to the middle episode which grounds their allegorical dominant register. I will then connect those allegorizations with what I take to be these films' formal and cultural contributions to our (visual) experience and understanding of the current neoliberal age in Latin America. (4)
Amores perros, written by Guillermo Arriaga and directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, had a full run in the commercial US circuit and was widely reviewed in the American press. In an excellent article in The Nation, B. Ruby Rich wrote: "It has been a long time since a Mexican film became an international critics' darling or audience favorite (since, probably, Like Water for Chocolate). The success of first-time director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Oscar, nominated, Cannes-awarded Amores perros (Love's a Bitch)" changes that. (34) The film is composed of three segments, each titled after a couple: "Octavio and Susana," "Daniel and Valeria," and "El Chivo and Maru." Their lives become intertwined in connection with a major car crash. This collision functions as the point of departure and/or arrival for each one of the couples' stories which provide us with access to three different sectors of Mexican society: the lower middle class, the high bourgeoisie, and, finally, the leftist intellectuals turned either guerrilla fighters or hired guns.
In the US context El Chacotero Sentimental, although very successful with other international audiences at multiple film festivals, probably needs more in the way of an introduction. Directed by Cristian Galaz and written by Mateo Iribarren, the film is based on one of the most successful radio shows in the last thirty years of Chilean broadcasting. The title's "chacotero" ("the teaser") refers to nothing less than the penis in the particular popular slang of Chilean youth. It also refers to the nature of a radio show in which the conductor, nicknamed "el Rumpy" (Roberto Artiagoitia) kept the whole nation tuned in to Radio Rock and Pop, 94.1 FM, during four years. The show's trick was to make Chileans tell on air, and in their own ordinary words, their sexual adventures for the enjoyment and benefit of a radio audience of millions of Chileans. Half a million tuned in to the program regularly. (5)
Working together, El Rumpy and Galaz selected three of the stories called into El Rumpy's radio program and adapted them for the screen. The film quickly became the most popular in Chilean history: one in every fifteen Chileans saw the movie. Similar to Amores perros, El Chacotero Sentimental too has a tripartite structure. In the first segment, titled "Black Paws" ("El Patas Negras"), we are given the love story--a narrative trajectory typical for Chilean culture as well as all centralized national societies--of a college-age young man who comes from the countryside to Santiago, the capital city, to get an education and "make it." However, there is twist to the traditional Bildungsroman when he meets an attractive married young woman, Claudia. The second of the three segments, or acts as they are called in the film, is titled "Secretos" (Secrets) and is strongly allegorical. It tells the story, to which I will return, of an incest and suicide within an upper middle class Santiago family. The third act, "Todo es cancha" (Living Like Pigs), narrates the story of Johnny and Mia, a married young couple with three kids who live as "allegados" (literally "attachments") in his parents' home. Under these crowded conditions (at least eight adults and four children live in a two bedroom apartment) the couple have great difficulties making love and keeping a minimal sense of privacy and dignity.
While in Amores perros, the car accident provides the connections between the three episodes, in El Chacotero Sentimental it is the radio continuity discourse of the host (El Rumpy) which reminds us that the three stories belong to the same social world. I now would like to analyze these two films on at least four levels: the middle episode, the formal level, the broader cultural level and, finally, visuality and spectatorship as thematized in the films.
I: The Middle Episode
It may be remembered that all three stories in Amores perros thematize, with some biblical overtones, betrayal and abandonment. They do so through an intricate web of interrelationships between dogs and people which gives the film its characteristic narrative density. Nevertheless, here I am less interested in the connections between the pets and their compromised owners than in the allegorical structure of the middle episode, since it is here where neoliberal and bourgeois worlds collide with alternative images and discourses.
Daniel has decided to leave his wife to live with his love, a Spanish model who portrays the MTV image of woman with long-legs-and-short-skirts in a new apartment. Daniel's new home is much more contemporary in style than the house he left behind where his wife and daughters continue to live. As a signifier of modernity and functionality, the apartment seems to better fit Daniel and Valeria's profession, publicity, and the production of advertising images. In fact, from the new apartment's window we can see Valeria's imposing figure on a full-building-size billboard across the street. Little by little, reality will show them that the fantasies of the neoliberal market are based on shaky ground and hide all kinds of surprises made evident here by the irruption of rats and violence. As it may be recalled, after the accident which has left Valeria in a wheel chair, her dog (Richie) disappears through a hole in the apartment's...
|
