By more movies, I don't mean that I have already written about some this year and now am writing about more.
(Actually, some El Salvador reading that should bring in another movie and a documentary.)
Instead, this is going back to that professor's list of movies he used in class that really helped you understand the country:
https://x.com/MPaarlberg/status/1560397489156624384
There was a list of fourteen films, and I have been slowly working my way through. That is not just due to my usual speed issues, but also that some of the movies have been harder to locate.
I was able to find four in 2022 and five in 2023, but it was hard to be optimistic about finding the final six. As I managed to view three of them this year, it feels more likely that next year I will be able to finish.
For this year's movies, there were some stark contrasts.
Who is Dayani Cristal? (2013)
This is mostly a documentary. Gael Garcia Bernal does some retracing of the path, but it is not really re-enactment. There are times when it almost feels that way, as he is passing through these same places and using the same transportation, meeting some of the same people. Really it is that there are so many people following that same path.
It started with a body in the Arizona desert. The people who try and identify these bodies and return them to their families have one clue, a tattoo across his chest, "Dayani Cristal".
Eventually they find the Honduran family of the man, learning his identity. We meet his parents, wife, and his children, including Dayani Cristal, his daughter.
Like many, Dilcy Yohan Sandres-Martinez tried to make it to the States to earn more money. The need was more urgent due to a son's leukemia treatments.
Immigration "reform" has done more to increase death than decrease attempts.
I was touched to see the caring dedication of the research team.
La Sierre: Muerte en Medellin (2004)
I have to put an asterisk on that date. I found it described as a 2005 documentary and a 2006 television episode that was about half the length of the movie. I assume that the full-length movie was cut down for television presentation. I watched the full version (as far as I know), but the credits showed the year 2004, which is why I am using that.
Medellin is a neighborhood in Colombia which is run by teenage paramilitary groups. Two members and the girlfriend of an imprisoned member are followed by the cameras.
The first most horrifying part is how young they are, and the frequent reminders of how young they are. There may be an extent to which it matures them prematurely, but they really are kids. (And they are very much children having children; Edison was a 19 year old father of six.)
The next most horrifying thing was the apparent futility of it all. Even as they defeat one group, it leads to more war. They work out an amnesty, but there are other neighborhoods.
It did remind me of the organizations in the favelas in Tropa de Elite 2, but it also made me think of the Crips and Bloods.
Tres Bellezas (2014)
Given that there is so much less death, this shouldn't be more disturbing... maybe it is just differently disturbing.
A former beauty queen in Venezuela is determined to have one of her daughters become a beauty queen as well, setting her daughters at odds with each other and neglecting her son. Even when she briefly gives up beauty there are similar dynamics, but pageants return. It is ghastly, tragic, and terribly typical.
Constant death and poverty are hard, but they are not the only things that are soul-killing.
For some context:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/12/venezuelans-obsessed-with-beauty
Related posts:
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/01/hispanic-heritage-month-2022-movies.html
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/12/la-raza-heritage-month-movies.html
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