This is a Musical. A Documentary. A Propaganda Movie. A Historical Essay. An Adventure Story. I am not kidding; I have never seen anything like this. Using 10-15 second long segments from over 80 movies (mostly form the 1930s and 40s, some outside that range) it became a very coherent piece. The source movies range from newsreels, lavish musicals, industrial educational movies, documentaries and plain old Hollywood flicks. What is common in them that each deals one way or another with the cultural and other exchange between the US and Latin American countries. The summary of the story on the video cover gives one kind of overview: * The brave gringo explorer discovers a rich and exotic land.
* He eliminates the jungle and builds a “Garden of Eden” where natives toil happily in the fields.
* There are some problems with the white women in this paradise. They obviously don’t belong here and are persuaded to leave with offers of tickets and money.
* The native women are friendly and adoring.
* The native men, however, are a big problem. They don’t like the fruit company and are unruly.
* Bandits and foreign influences stir them into rebellion, which is put down by brave US Marines, with the help of technological developments such as airplanes.
* The bandits are safe in jail, where things are not so bad because they can still sing.
* Everyone is grateful for US aid.
* We are all good neighbors.
The real power of the movie lies in its juxtapositions. E.g. we see women carrying enormous and heavy batches of banana on their head. Cut and now a segment from a technicolor musical were dancers in their exposing banana costumes dance happily. The difference between reality and the propaganda images is exposed. But reality itself gets challenged. Besides using the capabilities of the medium to shed lights on stereotypes, we also witness that the very same images shaped how Latin Americans viewed themselves. The only statistics quoted in the movie was the percentage of US movies showing in various countries. The numbers ranged from 60% to 95%. I can hardly even imagine what kind of self –alluding effects they might have had on all countries.
Some of the prizes it won:
- Whitney Biennnial, May 1995
- Venice Film Festival, September 1995
- Jornada de Cinema, Bahia, September 1995
- Trieste Festival, October, 1995
- Virginia Festival of American Film, October 1995
- Barcelona Independent Video Festival, January 1996
DeeDee Halleck‘s, the filmmaker’s, page.