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A worldwide view
A three-month UK tour of international documentary
film is being launched at London’s National Film Theatre 2-5 February.
Organised by the Sheffield International Documentary Festival, subjects
range from the second Palestinian intifada to a film about whistling.
Also included in the programme is a short film about the Tower Colliery
cooperative in South Wales, the Chechnyan conflict, Oona King’s defeat
in the general election by George Galloway, and much else besides.
Socialism Today previews three of the films.
Trelew
Directed by Mariana Arruti
Argentina (2004)
95 mins
Reviewed by Bob Severn
TRELEW IS about political prisoners – revolutionary
guerrilla fighters and trade unionists imprisoned by Argentina’s
military dictatorship – attempting to escape from Rawson prison in
August 1972.
The film is named after the airport from which the
prisoners planned to hijack a plane to Chile, then under the presidency
of left populist leader, Salvador Allende. People involved from both
sides of the prison gates tell the history of the attempted escape.
The escape was planned by guerrilla groups both in
and outside the prison, and involved over 100 prisoners. Not seeing the
conditional call for elections in March 1973 as a real end to the
dictatorship, the guerrillas aimed to return to armed combat after the
jailbreak.
The attempted escape involved the growing organised
support for the prisoners in the outside world, including local
residents. On 15 August, dressed and armed like Argentinean soldiers,
guerrillas took control of the prison in order to ‘escort’ the prisoners
to freedom. The freed prisoners were to be transported in military-style
trucks to Trelew airport, board a scheduled plane and reroute it to
Chile.
The first six prisoners outside the prison got into
the first vehicle, but no more trucks appeared. Another 19 prisoners
hijacked three taxis, as recalled by two of the taxi drivers. Other
prisoners, once realising they had no transport, turned back before the
gates. The truck arrived at Trelew airport in time to hijack the
commercial plane. The taxi passengers arrived too late to get on board
so, instead, occupied the airport.
The six who made it to Chile were protected by
Allende from Argentina’s request for them to be sent back. The airport
occupation was short-lived, and the 19 men and women were transferred to
a navy base. All but three were shot dead a week later. This was
followed by an army clampdown, with many relatives and friends of the
escapees murdered, as were members of the local community for their part
in aiding the prisoners. The remaining three were killed in clampdowns
in later years.
The Trelew massacre caused public uproar. The
funeral of the 16, though heavily guarded by the military, was attended
by hundreds of people. Many carried political banners with Ché Guevara
pictures and socialist slogans.
This film mainly consists of interviews with
surviving prisoners, family members, guerrillas, trade unionists, and
prison, military and airport staff, presenting the escape in
chronological order. Photos and news coverage from the time, plus video
shots of the prison and airport, help to break up the film. But the lack
of narration makes the film difficult to follow, although it could be
argued that not having a narrator means that the events are retold only
by those who were there, without being dramatised.
Trelew is definitely worth watching to learn of an
almost forgotten piece of political history. While guerrilla tactics
ultimately failed, the film demonstrates the courage and solidarity of
working-class and poor people in struggle, possible even under a
military dictatorship.
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Directed by Alex Gibney
USA (2004)
110 mins
Reviewed by Ben Robinson
AS THE director points out: "There is bitter irony,
humour and unconscious honesty in Enron’s advertising slogan, ‘Ask
Why’." Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, documents the rise and fall
of one of the biggest energy companies in recent times. A clip from The
Simpsons shows the ‘Enron Ride’, where a group of executives climb
higher and higher up the track, getting increasingly excited, at one
point screaming, "We’re all going to be rich!", before descending into
the poor house.
The scandal at Enron hit hard. The scale of
corruption, backhanders and the attitude towards people’s lives shocked
many Americans, and revealed a glimpse of the true nature of capitalism
to millions. The film ends on a question about the level of involvement
of other companies (accountants, lawyers, governors and other US state
officials, etc), but no answer is suggested.
Watching this film initially feels like being on The
Simpson’s rollercoaster, with fact after fact hitting you in the face
about the ways in which they siphoned off cash from the company into
their own bank accounts. The history of Enron’s dodgy dealings dates
back to its origins in the mid-eighties. However, the ride did not
really begin in earnest until 30 January 1992, when the Securities and
Exchange Commission (a US government watchdog for business) approved
‘mark-to-market’ accounting, where the profits that Enron published were
linked to analysts’ projections of profits, rather than actual turnover.
This completely false way of bookkeeping meant that Enron CEOs were able
to push up stock prices and cash-in on their shares when the time came.
One executive got away with $200 million.
The film shows this in great detail, together with
the way they milked the deregulated US infrastructure for even more
money, shifting energy supplies around to create imaginary deficits,
causing state-wide blackouts on and off for a year in California. The
kind of thinking that puts creating profits before the health and
well-being of millions of people is something that I find impossible to
imagine.
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room shows how the
deregulated economy really works, with big backhanders for the board,
nothing (not even electricity) for anyone else. But this is as far as
the film goes. It is interesting viewing, giving a lot of information
about Enron’s rise and fall. It does not discuss why, however, nor does
it raise the root causes, which lie in the capitalist system we live
under.
El Inmortal
Directed by Mercedes Moncada Rodríguez
Nicaragua, Mexico, Spain (2005)
78 mins
Reviewed by Manny Thain
THIS IS a powerful personal account of the civil war
which raged in Nicaragua after the Frente Sandinista de Liberación
Nacional (FSLN) overthrew the military dictatorship of Anastasio Samoza
in 1979. Ranged against them were the US-backed Contras. This war cost
the lives of 50,000 people.
The film tells the story of the Rivera family. On 3
April 1983, their mountain town, Waslala, was caught in the crossfire of
bullets and mortars. The Contras raided, taking away children to serve
in their army. The twins, José Antonio and Juan Antonio Rivera, were
twelve. José, the eldest daughter, Reina, and another brother, Emilio
(who died in combat) ended up fighting for the Contras. Reina was 15 and
had a 18-month child, Rosita, who was left behind. Juan later joined the
Sandinistas.
We glimpse life in the town: dirt roads, shacks,
beasts of burden, poverty. The Catholic church exploits the chaos and
despair. The preacher commands: "Submit to the authorities whoever they
may be". Even the lush vegetation and landscape contribute to the
oppressive, claustrophobic atmosphere, accentuated by discordant,
jarring sound effects.
Footage of cock-fighting has a voiceover by José,
explaining the Contra training: "And it’s lousy, miserable, that they
train you just for death, just to die there on the frontline. It’s the
same with these cocks… That’s how they trained us in the war". Child
soldiers, brutalised. Reina describes life as a woman in the Contras:
"When they recruited a woman, the commander would take her if he liked
her… then he’d give her to someone in another unit. He’d hand her on,
like you’d hand someone a towel".
María, now an evangelical Christian after years of
heavy drinking, reveals that her husband was tortured to death by the
Contras, his body punctured with holes, an X gauged into his back as a
warning to all Sandinista supporters.
Reina sums up the situation: "Everything that’s
going on now is the result of that war. There isn’t a family in
Nicaragua that hasn’t a wound of this kind". Although not explicitly
stated, this is a film about the consequences of a revolutionary
movement which did not succeed in implementing socialism, and radically
and permanently improve conditions for the workers and poor.
The film ends with images of graves, birds of prey,
penetrating gazes. The credits roll with an optimistic song about
Central American revolution. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that
this is meant as bitter irony, a pessimistic end to a moving,
provocative and uncompromising film.
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