Nostalgia for the Light ties together themes of vastness and meaning in multiple ways. I felt watching it that I could not separate the tangible from the cosmic. Our memories as seen within the film are fleeting, but real. Though the stars are succinct and vast, they have no meaning lest we ascribe it. Yet, we give meaning to so much less at higher costs. We lose ourselves in the minutia and in doing so lose ourselves in the cosmos. At the end of the day, no matter how big or small, our purpose is what we allow it to be.

Soldiers from your nation’s army are standing in the street. They see you, then the camera you’re holding. They raise their rifles and, without a word, begin to shoot. The capital city is under siege from within. It seems like almost yesterday that Allende was democratically elected, and now everything is suddenly changing. As the street filled with military vehicles and personnel, and the sky was flooded with aircraft, it would have been confusing to any member of Chilean society. The reality was that the country was undergoing a coup, and it would not be long until Allende was dead. His final speech to the country was conveyed in the presidential home over the radio as coup forces flooded the building. Not only was this an intense tragedy, but it was not explained to citizens what was happening. There was no recourse for regular people to help their country lawfully; they had already done that. The sea of protesters, to me, their voices are washed out by the sound of jet planes and exploding mortars.

This movie had a strange effect on me. I understand that you have to have patience for these older art films, but I did not like this at first. I thought it was pretentious when it came to politics. Then, as the movie went on, I began to feel the anguish of the protagonist. As his life flashed before him, he understood that everything he had hoped for had come tumbling down. He was not a good person, and even though he had hope, it was not enough.

The gay undertone of the film was something that stuck out to me. Straight relationships were often depicted as transactional and abusive. The misogyny in society is an apparent cause of the symptoms of the society. Could there have ever been something better? Probably not. However, the main point is that Paulo’s relationship with his male co-worker ended due to political strife. Signifying that if things had been different, he could have had a chance at happiness. The rich in the movie make sure that does not happen.

Aside from this, the entire movie feels like a dream. I can only recall flashes of it. Popping out and saying you will die before you can do any good.

Compared to Barravento, this movie feels more complete in its ideas and appears to have a changed trajectory by the director. While the Rocha maintains the didactic and the epic, this movie seems to do it in a higher sense. Whereas Barravento took place in the same village with the same characters, this movie expands on this aspect. Barravento was held back by static characters, whereas in BGWD new characters are introduced, and thus significant enough change occurs in the story to keep it entertaining. This is the same with the setting; it is not interesting, but when compounded can create a more interesting story.

The most enjoyable part of BGWD is its protagonist. Rocha holds the camera on him at length and connects the viewer to the scene. The movie has long, epic, didactic, or character-driven scenes that pressure the protagonist and thus the viewer.

Marxists view on religion is that the people turn to it as a result of their oppression. The solution to this is not the abandonment of the religion, but to fix the material conditions so that religion is not so necessary. 

An issue highlighted in Barravento is that religion cannot be relied upon to bring good fortune, as multiple fisherman die because of it. So the issue highlighted is that religion can protect, but also destroy and the villagers must learn to fend for themselves. In straying from the religion they become more independent. Simultaneously the independence of the villagers is deeply rooted in their religion, thus the conflict. 

The way the film is made seems very authentic and as though it has very little interference in the candomble and fishing elements. In this way the characters feel more real and the essence of the religion and people is better encapsulated. When the characters are given more direction, it serves to heighten the epic within the film and advance the plot. This is not to say natural actions and direction are not interspersed between the didactic and epic as it is truly a fusion. Ultimately this creates a very tenable feeling with the film, that I am not going to forget any time soon.

I agree with Stam’s stance on heightening trance religions to greater cultural importance. This is not to say that the religions are not important already, but that they lack significant means of disseminating them into popular culture. In order to achieve Stam’s idea of lifting trance religions to the respect and recognition of European and Abrahamic religions, there would need to be a greater form of distributing such cultural ideas. Whereas in Europe this is done through the church, Stam seeks to accomplish this through film.

I do however disagree with Stam’s relation to transgenderism and transracism as displayed in this text. I feel that he relates to African trance religions, though without Eurocentric stereotypes, with a liberal lens. While this is not a distinctly negative action, I think it fails to recognize that much of the world does not operate through the same world view. I think he fails to properly contextualize the gender and race views of these cultures and is instead imposing his views onto them. In doing so, he crafts an idea that due to this, these cultures are more moralistic and, therefore, better. I am not saying this is not true or possible, but I do think he fails to properly analyze his viewpoints on a foreign entity, which he does not contextualize enough.

De Cierta Manera, by Cuban director Sara Gomez, is a revolutionary film that portrays realistic themes about post-revolutionary Cuban society. The film tackles many revolutionary themes such as machismo, class, race, labor, gender relations, integration, etc.

There is no successful character in the film. The film intentionally does not give itself a happy ending as is common in Hollywood movies. The purpose of the film is not pleasure, but to teach its audience a lesson and hopefully advance social norms. Although the films protagonists walk off into the sunset in the films end, they are not necessarily successful. Yolanda is clearly shown to be racist, despite espousing liberal ideals to her afro-cuban boyfriend and Mario is treated as lesser by his girlfriend and friends after selling out his friend in an emasculating manner. In an important scene, Yolanda treats a young white schoolboy well, saving him from legal trouble and getting him lunch to avoid his becoming a hoodlum. She goes above and beyond as a teacher to help this boy and is forgiving of his mother and her situation. Later in the movie, however, she berates a black boy’s mother who works harder than Yolanda or the white boy’s mother when the boy does not pass the class. Despite Yolanda’s outspoken views that are allegedly backed up by liberal views, she draws the line at race and is clearly bigoted. When Mario does what his girlfriend wants him to, the power is taken from him so he does the right thing. However, when Mario talks on Santiago he gets little praise from his peers and only little praise from Yolanda’s brother who is clearly racist and does not care about Mario’s well being or understand his perspective. This shows how often we want people to do the “correct” thing, but are not willing to understand their perspective or how it will affect them and instead expect them, especially if they are marginalized, to shut up and do the right thing. So in the end Yolanda does not reward Mario yet expects him to be macho for her showing she does not respect him and she has failed as a teacher. These people are not good revolutionaries as they do not work together so the film acts a cautionary tale to the viewer.

Overall this film is very informative on social norms and cultural expectations and how they disrupt our otherwise perfect idealism or way of life. Sara Gomez creates an educational piece and gives the viewer perspective on their own lives by displaying the lives of other marginalized people. These characters are not bad people, they are just human, and Sara Gomez accurately highlights this in De Cierta Manera.