FILM-ARGENTINA: Solanas Returns to Politics with Camera in Hand

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Aug 6 2002 (IPS) - Argentine filmmaker Fernando “Pino” Solanas, best known for his 1986 film “Tango: The Exile of Gardel”, has begun a documentary of testimonies about the crisis that erupted in December, and which he intends as “a portrait of the devastating effect of applying the neo-liberal economic model.”

The project, which could be finalised within the year, is a collection of interviews with the protagonists of the country’s past 25 years, and testimonies of the “victims” of the model they implemented: factory workers, teachers, doctors, rural families, bankrupt business owners, the unemployed and swindled savers.

“It will be a big denunciation,” says the director, whose other major film production is “Sur” (South, 1988). The first part of the new documentary will cover the milestones of the application of the neo-liberal model since the last military dictatorship (1976-1983) to the fall of the Fernando de la Rúa government in December 2001.

The second part will reflect the Argentine people, gathered in neighbourhood assemblies, a common grassroots occurrence that began in response to the crisis.

Solanas thus marks a return to his origins in political films. He himself explains that the project — with the working title “State of Assembly” — is an effort to draw a line of continuity with “La hora de los hornos” (Hour of the Furnace, 1966), a documentary that was a co-production with Octavio Gettino.

“Furnace” recounted a large portion of Argentina’s 20th century history. It was shot over a period of four years, and is four hours long. It could not be commercially released until 1973 because production was completed during the dictatorship of Juan Carlos Onganía (1966-1970). It was shown only clandestinely.

The film consists of three parts: Neo-Colonialism and Violence, Liberation Ceremony, and Violence and Liberation. It marked a turning point in Latin American cinema with its innovative use of language and its subject matter.

“Furnace” was the antithesis of the entertainment movies of the era and highlighted the political commitment of its creators.

As a result of “La hora de los hornos”, Solanas and other filmmakers formed the Liberation Cinema Group, which identified them with a movement of artists who put politics before art, explains producer Lita Stantic. “It was an attempt to make a revolution through film,” she said.

The film was unprecedented in Argentina. Productions that had a social focus were based on fiction, although they portrayed the realities of exploited workers, such as “Prisioneros de la tierra” (Prisoners of the Land, 1939), by Mario Soffici, or “Las aguas bajan turbias” (The Waters Flow Turbid, 1952)

The premiere of Solanas and Gettino’s film unleashed a wave of political movies including “Quebracho”, “Operación Masacre” and “La Patagonia Rebelde”. The debut of “Los hijos de Fierro” (Children of Iron), by Solanas himself, had to be postponed, this time because of the 1976 military coup in Argentina.

Solanas moved to Europe, and it was not until democracy was restored in the 1980s that he returned to movie making. His new works were a fictional but somewhat poetic portrayal of the exile of Argentines who were persecuted by the dictatorship.

This approach entailed a more colourful and musical language of film, which allowed him to captivate massive audiences, including internationally.

It was the era of “El exilio de Gardel” and “Sur”, which propelled him to international fame. Later, he became involved in political activity with so much enthusiasm that he even put his life at risk.

In 1989, Solanas voted for Carlos Menem for president because the candidate belonged to the Justicialista (Peronist) Party, which had traditionally represented the working class and the poorer sectors of the Argentine population.

But months after Menem took office, the filmmaker accused the president of “betraying the vote”. Solanas publicly stated that Menem’s was a “corrupt” government that applied the exclusionary neo-liberal economic model favouring a minority of the electorate.

Shortly thereafter, Solanas was shot six times in the legs, fired upon by unknown assailants as he left a recording studio. He still bears the scars and remembers the message of the attackers: “Next time it will be in the head.” He did not hesitate to blame the attack on Menem.

And Solanas did not let up. He joined party politics and was elected senator of a centre-left party for the province of Buenos Aires, the country’s most populous. From his legislative seat, he nearly single-handedly fought attempts to privatise the Argentine-Paraguayan hydroelectric dam, Yacyretá.

In the 1990s, deeply disappointed in the Menem government first and the centre-left parties later, he filmed “El Viaje” (The Journey) and “La Nube” (The Cloud), which did not do well among film critics or at the box office. After those relative failures, the filmmaker lived in isolation, until he was called to take part in a new project in 2001.

He was offered the director’s post for “Afrodita”, a co-production involving Argentina and five European countries. The film was based on a novel by Chilean author Isabel Allende and Victoria Abril and Marisa Paredes were hired for the lead roles. But the crisis in December sank that project after work had already begun.

Depressed, Solanas, 64, sought refuge in his own home until the overall collapse prompted him to take to the streets again. He began filming the neighbourhood assemblies, the long lines to buy dollars with the failing Argentine peso, the protests outside the banks, and the “caceroleos”, the massive banging of pots and pans by entire neighbourhoods as a show of process.

With this new material, Solanas proposes to resume the story that was left incomplete in the 1970s. “I want to show how life is, to show these people whose wealth was sold out from under them, whose votes were betrayed, whose jobs were taken along with their savings,” he said.

As when he began shooting “La hora de los hornos”, Solanas does not yet have financing for his project. According to his calculations, the film will cost somewhat less than a million dollars.

But he believes there are European funds available to back the project, and he foresees editing a four-chapter version of the film for television.

“I want to show that it is not Argentina that has failed. What has failed is the neo-liberal model incarnate in its political leadership,” he said.