Germany In Autumn (1978)

“When cruelty reaches a certain point, it’s no longer important who initiated it. It should only stop.”

Germany in Autumn (Deutschland im Herbst) is one of the most important political films to emerge from Germany in the wake of the Red Army Faction (Rote Armee Fraktion). This is a collaborative film made by 11 directors from New German Cinema, including Fassbinder and Schlondorff. The directors’ intent is to re-create the tense atmosphere in Germany during the autumn of 1977. At the time, members of the Red Army Faction (RAF) were serving life sentences in solitary confinement for murder in the high security prison, Stammheim. This was a period of extreme political unrest for West Germany. The founding organizers of the RAF were either locked up or dead, but the urban guerilla problem was not solved. It intensified–with the emergence of a much more violent ’second generation’ RAF who subsequently conducted a wave of guerilla actions throughout Germany.

In September 1977, second generation Red Army Faction members, kidnapped industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer, former SS officer and now President of the Employers’ Federation. The kidnappers demanded the release of several prisoners–including the RAF members in Stammheim. While the West German government played for time, in October a plane was hijacked and flown to Mogadishu. The crew and the passengers were held hostage while the hijackers demanded a hostage exchange, including the release of jailed RAF members: Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan Carl Raspe. The hijacking failed. The day after the failed hijacking, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe were found dead in their cells, and their deaths were officially ruled suicides. Schleyer was also later found dead. This period in Germany’s history–autumn of 1977–is considered an extremely volatile time for the new German Republic.

Framed by funerals, Germany in Autumn is part documentary, part fiction, and while the film shows the fallout following the deaths of Schleyer and members of the RAF, it also shows how people deal with state and individual terrorism on all levels of life. The film begins with footage of the state funeral of Schleyer, and includes scenes from Rommel’s state funeral, the assassination of the King of Serbia, and the film ends with the triple funeral of Baader, Ensslin, and Raspe. There is, of course, a strong, connective thread of violence that runs through the footage shown: Rommel committed suicide under duress but his death was officially announced as the result of a heart attack or the result of injuries. The King of Serbia, who was assassinated under the auspices of German Secret Service agents, was a victim of state terrorism. And then of course, this brings us to the deaths of Baader, Ensslin and Raspe, whose deaths were officially ruled suicides–a notion that Germany in Autumn treats as patently absurd. The film includes details of where and how the RAF members were buried, and horse-mounted police monitor the well-attended funeral with helicopters circling overhead. At one point, riot police enter the scene and start whacking mourners with batons.

Also included is a jail interview with Horst Mahler, co founder of the Red Army Faction. He refused to be included in the hostage exchange, and in his interview, Mahler presents strong condemnation for the kidnapping and murder of Schleyer, and this act he interprets to be evidence of the terrorists’ ultimate corruption by capitalism. He states, “a murderer departs from the moral value system. A revolutionary reinforces it.” Horst Mahler was already expelled from the Red Army Faction when he was arrested and sentenced to 14 years, so it’s not too surprising that he refused to be included in the prisoner for hostage exchange. I should add here that Mahler is (as of 12/07) alive and well but went off the deep end politically and now holds very right-wing views.

Other fictional sections of the film depict how German society is altered by the political situation in 1977. In one segment, for example, a film director attempts to release his version of Antigone for television–only to be told that the play depicts ‘terrorist women.’ Antigone, it seems, is too controversial and must be shelved until a time when acts of civil disobedience are not interpreted as condoning acts of terrorism. There’s a bitter amusement to this section of the film as the censors find Sophocles too controversial despite the painstaking efforts on the part of the director to include elaborate and lengthy disclaimers. And of course, the refusal to air Antigone is a sad reflection on how far German society has sunk.

Another chilling fictional section concerns a border guard on the hunt for stray members of the so-called Baader-Meinhoff gang. The border guard aches to fly an American plane full of Napalm, but instead his power is limited to harassing travelers and teasing them with the idea that they bear an uncanny resemblance to fugitive RAF members.

One of the RAF’s grievances was that German history very effectively glossed over the pasts of some of their affluent industrialists, and that as a result former Nazis still ran the country. This issue of the rewriting of history is alluded to early in the film through the deaths of the King of Serbia and the forced suicide of Rommel. But the film explores this at the individual level through another fictional section dealing with a history teacher in crisis who suddenly finds herself unable to teach history because she’s no longer sure what is true and what she should teach.

Director Fassbinder’s interpretation of the political and social climate of Germany in Autumn 1977 is a highly personal account. No doubt Fassbinder chose to present his section of the film this way as he knew many members of the RAF. Fassbinder is seen at home with his lover, actor Armin Meier, and they have vastly different opinions about the deaths of Baader, Ensslin, and Raspe. Armin is ready to blow up the plane and the terrorists in Mogadishu with the reasoning: “if they don’t obey the law, the state doesn’t have to either.” Fassbinder, however, cannot accept the justification that government is free to use violent tactics when dealing with terrorists. Bitter arguments ensue between Fassbinder and Armin, and Fassbinder, who was notoriously difficult in his personal relationships in real life, is depicted here as being rather hard with Armin. With the debate raging around the argument that the state has the monopoly on the use of physical force, Armin argues that the imprisoned RAF members should be “shot or hanged.” Fassbinder asks his lover “who’s going to do that for you?” And Armin answers: “the state.” These positions and these arguments are, of course, representative of two sides of the debate. Armin argues the idea that it’s open season on the RAF as laws need not apply because the RAF are the ones who started with illegal actions in the first place. Fassbinder argues the other side–that the State does not have the right to kill anyone simply because they have the power to do so and are not answerable to any other entity.

Subsequently, when Fassbinder hears the news of the deaths of the jailed RAF members, he is devastated, and he most certainly does not swallow the official story that Baader, Ensslin and Raspe kept some sort of suicide pact. Calling a friend in Paris, he points out the absurdity of the state’s claims that Baader and Raspe shot themselves, while supposedly Ensslin hung herself.

To Fassbinder the idea that an international commission will investigate the deaths is absolutely ludicrous. Noting that Stammheim is the “most secure prison in the world. With a law to prevent contacts. Where nobody is allowed in cells, the cells are searched twice daily,” and yet despite all this, the world is supposed to believe that the RAF members had “real guns hidden” inside their cells inside the prison.

Fassbinder, who dominates a large portion of the film, engages his mother, Lilo Eder, in an argument about various forms of government. As someone who has survived through Nazi times, she acknowledges that in the current political climate, it’s better not to discuss the RAF in case one is identified as some sort of sympathizer. She believes that democracy does not exist for the masses, and preferring the oxymoronic notion of a benign authoritarian leader, she’s content to leave certain issues to be decided by a hierarchy. Thus, it’s seen, that like Armin, she’s quite comfortable with rendering power over to government because they supposedly make decisions for the ‘good’ of those who dwell under their laws.

Germany in Autumn is not for the casually curious. The film is truly excellent, and the directors made a phenomenal film that recreates a crucial time in Germany’s history. However, a little background information on the political situation is mandatory for this film–otherwise you risk being hopelessly lost in this wonderful, engrossing and eclectic film.

This is England (2005)

“Thatcher sits there in that ivory tower and sends us off to a fucking fake war.”

This is England is set against the backdrop of Thatcher’s Britain in 1983 in the aftermath of the Falklands war. The film centers around 12-year-old Shaun (Thomas Turgoose), a lonely boy whose father has been killed in the war. Set in Yorkshire, Shaun lives with his widowed mother, and at the school he’s the object of bullying. One day on the way home from school, a group of skinheads befriend him, and Shaun joins their ad-hoc family. Soon he’s decked out in skinhead gear, sports a newly shaved head, and acts as a sort of mascot. The group’s leader, Woody (Joseph Gilgun) assumes the role of older brother towards Shaun, and shows the lad a fair amount of affection. The group engages in acts of vandalism but are mainly apolitical. Woody is displaced as the leader in the group when the much more aggressive Combo (Stephen Graham) arrives fresh from prison. He’s got a bone to pick with Woody, and as the power shift in the group changes, the tone of the group alters. The presence of the afro-Caribbean Milky (Andrew Shim) causes tension, for example, and the group becomes a gang–harassing, intimidating, and attacking Indian and Pakistani residents. Soon the neo-nazi Combo joins other skins as part of the National Front.

One of the fascinating aspects of this film is that Combo and his thugs are quite aware that the Falklands War is a spasm of empire, whipping people up to a false nationalism and creating an avid phase of patriotism, and yet while fully aware of this manipulation, rather than reject it, they plunge even further to the right espousing ultra-patriotic language and ideology in a mission to ‘purify’ England.

Another fascinating aspect of the film is the human need to belong to something bigger (and in this case, stronger) than oneself can so often lead to disaster. In This is England, a lonely, powerless boy who misses his father is effectively hijacked by a character unscrupulous enough to use Shaun’s grief for his own purposes. This largely autobiographical film is from director Shane Meadows.

Dreams of Sparrows (2005)

“Baghdad is hell.”

The documentary Dreams of Sparrows is the first film from Iraqi filmmaker Hayder Mousa Daffar. Daffar states, “I wanted to show the world what life was like in Iraq.” Those fortunate enough to stumble across this film certainly gain at least a brief, painful glimpse of daily life in Iraq.

Daffar and his associates interview a number of Iraqis and travel to several locations. Most of those interviewed are optimistic about Saddam’s removal from power–although a few interviewed Iraqis start swearing when they hear the name ‘George Bush’. But as the film wears on, months go by, and optimism changes to despair as the daily conditions worsen. Those standing in long lines for petrol are interviewed, and the mood isn’t pretty. We see glimpses of life in a private girls’ school in Baghdad, a temporary shelter for the homeless, a Sadr City insane asylum, and a Palestinian refugee camp. Palestinian refugees were welcomed by Saddam, but were turfed out of their homes after the U.S. invasion. When the film was made in 2003, these Palestinian refugees had spent 8 pitiful months in tents. One man asks, “Where is the democracy and the freedom?”

Members of the General Union of Writers in Iraq present their philosophical interpretations of the current situation, and one man explains the insurgency as an inevitable consequence, “When you provoke a people against their leader, you will start a revolution.” There are even a few shots of U.S. troops. Some are protecting a petrol station–others are seen storming a home, and still others are seen chatting with Iraqi children.

Dreams of Sparrows has its amateurish moments, but overall it’s a fascinating glimpse at a tragic situation. The film begins with a cheesy reenactment (just like those appalling history reenactments), and while it’s understood what the filmmaker is trying to say–the film would have been a lot better without the reenactment. A word of warning–there are a few graphic scenes involving humans and animals. The film takes us to the site of mass graves in Fallujah, and dead and starving animals are a common occurrence in the film. In English and Arabic.

Earth (1930)

“And with warm blood he has signed the supreme verdict against our class enemy.”

Earth is an early slice of Soviet propaganda directed by Aleksandr Dovzhenko, considered one of the ‘great innovators’ of the silent Soviet era. In January 1928, the People’s Commissar for Enlightenment, Anatoli Lunacharsky discussed the need to take “cinema closer to the masses, especially the rural masses” while noting, “boring agitation is counter-agitation.” And Earth is a prime example of Soviet propaganda, meshing together political realities in the country with an idealized storyline. 1928-1932 was a period of industrialization and forced collectivization–two elements of Soviet culture that are clearly present in the film. This 1930 silent film, often labeled a ‘masterpiece’ by film historians was released during the forced collectivization of land and Stalin’s purge against the Kulaks (ostensibly wealthy farmers but in reality anyone who didn’t think Stalin’s policy of collectivization was a good idea). The film’s plot is simple: Ukrainian peasants band together to buy a tractor. The tractor will replace the use of teams of oxen that currently plough the fields. The tractor knocks down the fence of a kulak, and then later, that kulak in revenge murders a peasant. The peasants form a sort of righteous posse and hunt the kulak down. The film, incidentally, was supposedly filmed in a village where a peasant “activist leader was stabbed by reactionary farmers.”

Earth has its good and bad moments. Heavily sentimental, the film begins with the death of an elderly peasant. The death scene is preposterous, with the old man on his deathbed and then changing his mind as he sits up and eats a pear. Then he decides it’s time to die, touches his chest and settles peacefully back down on the bed. While this era heralded in the period of Soviet cinema realism, obviously these sorts of scenes are not exactly realistic. And there are more of these scenes–at one point a naked female peasant rages around in her hut in some sort of ecstatic fit. Earth seems relatively crude when compared to American film from the same time period, and unfortunately, as with so many Russian/Soviet films, the subtitles are abysmal. Here’s an example:

“Well I’ll be a sonuvabitch. Them fellows are real class.”

The realism occurs in the shots of an idealized nature–apples growing on trees, long shots of a sunflower, and clouds moving across the sky. Even the collectivization is portrayed as a naturally occurring event. While cinema historians find value in this film, I thought it was interesting and was glad I watched it, but it was crude, very unsubtle, and downright chilling when considering what lay in store for the poor Ukrainians. 1932-33 brought the Ukrainian Famine, and the number of victims ranges somewhere between 2.6 to 10 million people, depending on the source.

The righteous Kulak hunting posse (and all of its symbolism) is disturbing, and there’s one moment when a peasant glances up at the sky. I half expected to see an image of Stalin amidst the floating clouds, but that sort of thing entered Soviet cinema later. These are still early days…. Anyway, for me at least, there was no enjoyment to be found in the film. Yes, it’s propaganda and so is an interesting relic but the cognitive dissonance between the reality of the dekulakization and this idealized Stalinized version chills the blood.

A Manchester Shirtmaker by Margaret Harkness (John Law)

“It don’t do to offend Government.”

A Manchester Shirtmaker was written in 1890 by Margaret Harkness (1854-1923). Harkness, a socialist and a feminist used the pen name John Law, a Scottish economist who believed in economic reform focusing on assisting the poor and unemployed. Harkness wrote a number of novels, including Out of Work, which was initially refused publication “because of the danger of exposing the reading public to material sympathetic to the working classes.” Imagine that.

The informative introduction by Trefor Thomas compares A Manchester Shirtmaker to parts of Zola’s Germinal admittedly with a “lower level of literary sophistication.” I happen to think that Zola is one of the greatest writers ever on this planet, so comparing Harkness to Zola is for me, pushing it a bit. The main character in A Manchester Shirtmaker, the young widow Mary Dillon, is not three dimensional, but rather a symbol–a victim of the times.

When the novella begins, Mary Dillon is attempting to find work to support herself and her baby. Trapped in poverty in the slums of Manchester, and without assistance from relatives, she hopes to find work as a seamstress using her one substantial possession–a sewing machine. Mary’s attempts to find work serve as a description of the “economics of the sweating system.” In this industry, people are worked to death by a brutal system maximizing human labour for maximum profit. There are few choices for employment facing a woman, and Mary’s choices are additionally limited by the fact she has a child. The novel presents Mary trapped in desperate circumstances, but as the story wears on, her plight becomes increasingly worse.

While the novella has historic value in its presentation of the working classes, there are several aspects of the book that inhibited enjoyment for me. Mary is a most unsatisfactory character. She begins as a victim, and she ends as a victim. The few times she acts all end in disaster. Acted upon rather than taking action, her passivity, at least to this reader was frustrating. But I am not alone in my opinion. The book includes a letter from Engels to Harkness expressing this very point. Furthermore, the novel is excessively sentimental, and sentimentality is a pet peeve of mine

Another difficulty I had with the novel was its blatant anti-Semitism. The greatest villain of the piece, the man who heartlessly delivers the coup de grace to the poor young widow is a Jew. The Jewish Sweaters who take work from the poverty-stricken workers can be viewed as fellow victims of a brutal capitalist system, but the Jew who rips off Mary Dillon is just gratuitous anti-Semitism, and such a characterization is hard to stomach–even though this may just a reflection of the attitude of the times. I found myself thinking about Rudolf Rocker, the anarcho-syndicalist whose lifelong companion was Milly Witcop, a Ukrainian Jew. He was alive (1873-1953) at the same time as Harkness. A solid fixture in the Jewish labour movement,  and determined to smash the “sweating system” he was involved in the garment workers’ strike of 1906–sixteen years after Harkness wrote her novel.

Northern Herald Books, 2002
85 pages.

Zero de Conduite (1933)

“Do you want a zero in conduct?”

French director Jean Vigo made only two feature length films (and two short films) before dying at the age 29. L’Atalante is an much acclaimed film–but Zero de Conduite has fallen into obscurity. Upon its release, Zero de Conduite–a short tale of schoolboy rebellion–was banned in France. Perhaps it was judged too subversive–Vigo’s father Eugene Bonaventure de Vigo (AKA Miguel Almareyda) was in his youth, a prominent anarchist. Vigo’s father later abandoned his anarchist beliefs, became mired in some shady political activities, and was murdered in jail.

The film begins with the return of various schoolboys to a strict boarding school. The school environment serves as a microcosm of French society–with those in charge, corrupt and dictatorial. The boys live on a diet on beans, and teachers search for sweets, which are then confiscated. The teachers threaten the boys with the dreaded “zero in conduct” if they misbehave, and of course, that principle only works if one cares about such things. It’s not long before three troublemakers–instigators Bruel, Caussat, and Colin–are identified. The film depicts a number of ridiculous rigid rules, and the boys’ reaction to them. While one teacher is tolerant–the Chaplinesque Huguet–other teachers are notoriously strict. One of the teachers even seems to have a questionable taste for one of the boys. After a particularly trivial infraction, the boys lead a revolt against authority on alumni day. In one unforgettable scene, a pillow fight rains feathers down on the rebellious boys as they somersault in a crowded dormitory.

Unfortunately, this is a terrible print. One scene takes place in a railway station at night, and it’s very difficult to make out some of the action. The sound is crackly, and white splotches appear on the print. In spite of all this, however, the film evokes the magical, irrepressible spirit of childhood, and it certainly revived the ecstasy of my rebellious schooldays. In French with English subtitles

Salvador (1986)

“It’s like Baltimore, or something.”

Salvador, from director Oliver Stone, takes a look at the war in El Salvador during 1980-1981 through the eyes of a renegade photographer. The film, critical of American support of the right wing Revolutionary Government Junta and its death squads illustrates the country’s messy political, domestic and military situation. The result is a hodge podge blend of spot-on political acuity mixed with the usual ridiculous Hollywoodisms (yes, I made up the word, but it fits).

When dumped by his wife in San Francisco, seasoned war photographer Richard Boyle (James Woods) decides to head for the war action in El Salvador, and he takes along DJ Doctor Rock (James Belushi) mainly for the use of his car. Doctor Rock thinks they’re heading for a resort, and he’s shocked when they arrive in El Salvador. A few minutes inside the border confirm Rock’s worst fears about the country.

Boyle’s other motive for returning to El Salvador, as it turns out, is to rescue a young El Salvadorian woman, Maria (Elpidia Carrillo) and her baby. As events in El Salvador spiral out of control, Boyle and Maria’s escape becomes problematic. This is complicated by Boyle’s adversarial relationship with right wing military leader Major Max, and Boyle’s intentions to capture some photographic evidence of the massacres taking place in the country.

The film does a good job of illustrating events as they unfold–the murder of Archbishop Romero, the rape and murder of three young nuns and a popular lay worker, and the fact that America is stirring a very ugly conflict. While American “Advisors” hang out in a lush resort hotel and largely avoid the realities of what is taking place, the countryside is littered with rotting human carcasses. The massacre of civilians is blamed on left-wing death squads, but Boyle quickly realizes that the country is in the hands of a right wing government who are slaughtering thousands and trying to stick the blame on the FMLN guerillas. The film also illustrates, quite well, American paranoia when it comes to excusing involvement in El Salvador in order to head off ludicrous fears regarding Castro’s supposed intentions to invade America. There’s one excellent scene in which Boyle faces off some fellow Americans. He’s disliked because he’s a leftie, and he tries, valiantly, to explain his moral problem with America’s involvement and support of the murderous right wing: “I’m left wing, but I’m not a communist. You guys never seem to be able to tell the difference.”

The film however, slides into absurd Hollywoodisms. For a start, just on a plot level, since when did Boyle suddenly decide that Maria was the love of his life? According to the film she didn’t seem to exist until Boyle’s wife leaves him, and then it suddenly becomes an imperative to travel down to El Salvador. Furthermore the film continually perpetuates stereotypes by trivializing, idealizing and simplifying. The trivializing images: The villains of the piece (Major Max and a few crass American officials) are simply stock characters–not real people. There are the idealized images: Maria–who incidentally lives in a hut on the beach–is portrayed as fancifully swinging naked in a hammock with Boyle, allowing herself to be photographed by her brother. The simplified images: Boyle is periodically portrayed as some sort of American action hero–a most unfortunate tendency that is repeated ad nauseam in Hollywood films. Salvador is a film that is supposedly outside of the mainstream, and yet it continually projects innate American superiority in the film’s images. So, it’s a mixed bag–some good–some bad.

Live-in Maid (2004)

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors,” and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man that naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment.” It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in the place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single unconscionable freedom—Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation–From The Communist Manifesto 

Live-in Maid (Cama Adentro) is set in Argentina in 2001 during the financial crisis that devastated the economy, and the film examines the shifting relationship between a middle-aged woman and her live-in maid. Divorced, upper-middle class Beba Pujol (Norma Aleandro) is used to a pampered life, and that’s largely due to the constant ministrations of her faithful maid of 28 years, Dora (Norma Argentina). The two women serve as a contrast in economic opposites. Whereas Beba is manicured, expensively dressed, and coiffed, Dora is heavy-set, and her haggard appearance is secondary to her function as a workhorse.

When the film begins, the economic crisis is already underway in Argentina, and Beba is feeling the results, but she’s in denial. Unable to pay her maid for over seven months, she has just begun to join the masses in attempting to sell any precious possessions for a little cash. While many lay their wares on the sidewalks, in Beba’s case, she enters a shop and masquerades as a customer before she’s driven by necessity to explain her purpose–the sale of her china teapot to the shop owner.

Beba is used to privilege, and so it’s very difficult for her to adjust to a new life based on poverty. She still expects the maid to fill her glass with whisky, and she still expects to have her hair done even though at this point, she can’t even pay her maid for keeping her large Buenos Aires apartment spotless. Dora gets room and board for her efforts, but she is unpaid labour. Since the relationship between Beba and Dora is supposed to be a financial transaction (Dora works and Beba pays), when Dora is faced with the prospect of never getting paid, the relationship between the two women is severed. But this also allows the women to renegotiate their relationship outside of monetary considerations.

Live-in Maid is not an overtly political film, but nonetheless it addresses many relevant social issues. These two women are actually the single most important figure in each other’s lives. Beba’s only child lives in Spain, and Dora has a long-term relationship supporting the very shady Manuel. For 28 years, Dora has ’served’ Beba, and there are many things they both accept about the inequity of their relationship. There’s a moment when Beba offers Dora a better, larger bedroom, but Dora rejects it. Their relationship cannot shift from its old paradigm so easily. Even though Beba is penniless and is exploiting Dora, it’s difficult for her to let Dora go, and it’s equally difficult for Dora to leave even though she’s not getting paid. The financial aspects of the relationship mask the emotional commitment they both feel.

In the beginning of the film, Beba is not a particularly sympathetic character. Her refusal to give up luxuries–such as hair appointments and whisky seem to reflect her shallow, materialistic character. But a few scenes later, after many humiliations, Beba chokes on a meal she accepts in lieu of cash payment for make-up she is trying to sell, and this incident acts as a wake-up call for Beba. This film could so easily have slipped into sticky sweet sentimental drama, but instead Live-in Maid maintains a crystal clear poignant portrait of two women who desperately need each other, but who are reluctant to admit it. Instead it is easier for them both to cling to the defining financial transaction–something that passes all too often as a substitute for a relationship with another human being, and once that financial transaction is abandoned, the women are free to redefine their relationship on new ground. From director Jorge Gaggero, Live-in Maid is in Spanish with subtitles.

The Guerrilla and the Hope: Lucio Cabanas (2005)

“In the 60s and 70s in Mexico and many other countries, there was a wave of political violence that pitted the governments against popular and student protest movements. The result was hundreds of people dead and missing. In Mexico these years were known as the Dirty War. In Guerrero State, in Southern Mexico, the Costa Grande region was the hardest hit by state repression since that was where the peasant guerrilla movement arose led by teacher Lucio Cabanas.”

The Guerrilla and the Hope (Guerrilla y la Esperanza) is a 2005 documentary about the life of guerrilla leader Lucio Cabanas Barrientos (1938-1974). Cabanas, a schoolteacher, possessed a remarkable ability to “reconcile various parties: teachers, peasants, farmers and students.” Cabanas became radicalized after many friends and colleagues began to ‘disappear.’ After a clash with the army during strike action on May 18, 1967, which left many dead, Cabanas fled to the mountains. Here, forming the Army of the Poor and Peasants’ Brigade Against Injustice, he led an armed rebellion against the oppressive regime. Cabanas morphed from being a “peasant guerrilla” to a “revolutionary socialist guerrilla.” He and his fellow guerrillas survived in the Guerrero Mountains, and at one point, Cabanas kidnapped Figueroa, the Governor of Guerrero and held him for ransom.

The film includes this statement from President Luis Echeverria regarding the guerrillas:

“This small group of terrorist cowards are unfortunately made up of very young men and women who generally come from broken homes. They are mostly slow learners…very maladjusted adolescents with a precocious propensity to using drugs and with a high level of homosexuality.”

I had to include that quote as Echeverria states that the guerrillas turned to guerrilla warfare thanks to perceived social deviance, and of course this is a denial that poverty, torture, disappearances, and oppression have anything to do with this equation at all.

The most interesting aspects of the documentary concern the friction and infighting between the various guerrilla groups, and in one interview, a man states that he didn’t understand why the Communist party got a huge chunk of the loot from a kidnapping ransom. Ideological differences between various guerrilla factions led to problems and arguments. Cabanas was eventually killed by government forces determined to crack down after Figueroa’s kidnapping. The footage of Cabanas’s dead body–including close-ups of bullet wounds reminded me of the way Che’s body was treated like some sort of trophy after his death.

The documentary traces Cabanas’s early beginnings and his short life through archival footage and many interviews with family, friends, historians and fellow guerrillas. In spite of the fact that there’s a lot of information here–including from those who were directly involved–Cabanas remains a somewhat remote and impersonal subject. Various myths surrounding Cabanas are discussed, including the idea that he will return to avenge injustice, and special features include the trailer and interviews.