Dust Of Life (1995) + Latino: America’s
Secret War In Nicaragua (1985/Cinema Libre DVDs)
Picture: C Sound: C Extras: C-/C+ Films: C+
It is
always good to have a healthy discourse that criticizes government, especially
in a powerful and free democracy like The United States, which extends to the
results of its actions pro or con.
Cinema Libre has issued two narrative feature films that examine
overseas results of military activities.
Rachid
Bouchareb’s Dust Of Life (1995)
tells us the story of the young boys left behind when Saigon
fell, rounded up if they were orphans, lost, supposed thieves or born of any
American soldiers. They are sent to a
labor camp to become “better citizens” but is really to torture and
propagandize them. The opening moments
were as chilling as Pasolini’s Salo
(1975) and though the film is not that brutal or effective, it does remind us
that the children left behind form the Vietnam debacle just were not
hanging around doing nothing and in some areas, genocide resulted including the
rise of the Khmer Rouge.
I thought
the film had its moments and the acting was not bad, but its idea that the only
opposite of communism was faith was heavy-handed and the conclusion does not
work. Despite bringing an event to our
attention that is likely similar to many after the U.S.
left East Asia, this is too oversimplified and
lacks the exposition it needed to make this effective.
The letterboxed
2.35 X 1 image is weak despite this being shot on film, while the Dolby Digital
2.0 sound is barely stereo. A trailer is
the only extra.
Haskell
Wexler is known as a cinematographer and his Medium Cool (1969) continues to be a classic, but less known is Latino (1985), a film about the Reagan
Administration, Nicaragua
and the Contra Rebels. For those who do
not know, the Contras (of the infamous Iran-Contra Affair in which the Reagan
camp traded arms for the U.S. hostages in Iran to make sure Jimmy Carter lost
the election, having them only freed after he won and took office, then Iran
secretly got armaments from the U.S. via Israel!) were mercenaries hired by
Reagan and the CIA to battle anyone they wanted to dub a “communist” though it
turns out (as this film shows) it was also to get rid of farm collectives that
took away market power from U.S. markets.
In
addition, they were dubbed “freedom fighters” and remember the Soviet Union still existed, so the argument seemed easier
to make. They were actually artificial
guerillas sponsored by the CIA (et al) meaning they were only going to be as
effective as their sponsorship versus the real thing, who had nothing to loose
and was willing to die for what they believed in. The knee-jerk reaction would be to call; the
latter “terrorists” but since the U.S. was in their territory, that
was an argument too hard to make.
This
drama tells one story of how this all happened at a time when Hollywood was
pumping out feel-good films, music was having its last artistic years and the
Reagan Era had somehow kicked in without most people understanding what was
really going on. In Nicaragua, the
farmers just trying to get by were dealing with invading Contras, who are there
to fight the Sandinista Government the U.S. did not like and felt was far too
far to the Left to be in the superpower’s sphere of influence. The narrative has a former Vietnam vet
(Robert Beltran) sent in to battle the Sandinistas, but he falls for a local
woman (Annette Cardona) who likes him too until the Contras start attacking and
affecting her life permanently.
The
melodrama does not hurt the core of the film, yet despite this being Wexler’s
director’s cut, the narrative tends to be a little formulaic and predictable
(the romance does not trivialize the historic events, but like Gone With The Wind and Dr. Zhivago, they get backgrounded in a
way that backfires a little bit here) with not enough of the back story of the
actual historical events presented. The
result is we get the cliché of “running peasants” as we see poor people running
around either under attack, trying to keep what little they have and there is
not enough character development overall despite a fine cats that also includes
Tony Plana.
LucasFilm
actually had the guts to co-produce this film, but like many a Left Wing
discourse in the 1980s, it did not go far enough or was clear enough in what it
had to say or show. This review tells
you more about the historical events than the film, though I give Wexler credit
for being so proactive in his political work.
This was a subject you would never see in a mainstream Hollywood film
and to show you how sensitive this subject matter was, the 1989 James Bond film
Licence To Kill (with Timothy Dalton
as Bond, Benicio Del Toro as a henchman who was a former Contra and Robert Davi
as a very powerful drug kingpin in the most violent Bond to date) briefly
mentions the Iran-Contra Affair and Reagan-friendly (at the time) MGM/UA
torpedoed the film’s release as a result.
Add the end of the Cold War and those are the reasons why the Bond
series ended for a while, so you see why Latino
(which asks about individual identity in such a free-for-all) was hardly seen
or heard of.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is soft and color is not always
consistent, so the film need some work, which extends to its Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
mix. The film was a Dolby A-type analog
theatrical release, but this soundtrack lacks surrounds and is at least a
generation down. Extras include a
Production Gallery of stills, feature length audio commentary by Wexler and One
On One on-camera interview with Wexler and MovieMaker Magazine’s Tim
Rhys.
Both
films are still worth a look for something different and for anyone interested
in filmmaking of substance, political and otherwise.
- Nicholas Sheffo
