Prologue: Companion to Latin American Film

Summary

This companion to Latin American film seeks to provide an introduction to the development of Latin American film over the last seventy years via an analysis of the most salient examples of the genre. For this reason, twenty-five films have been chosen, and in each case, some background information about the film – including cast and crew, as well as the basics of the plot – has been provided before the analysis of a discrete set of ideas, themes, and devices is provided. The pattern is similar in each case, although not uniformly so. Some essays focus more on camerawork than others, some treat literary sources while others do not; in each case it is hoped that the essay is tailored to cover the most significant aspects of the film under consideration.

The book is intended for all those interested in Latin American cinema but is particularly suitable for Spanish majors at U.S. universities taking introductory courses (300–400-level), and for first-year university students majoring in Spanish in the UK. A guide to further reading is provided as well as a glossary to explain some of the more technical terms which are used. The emphasis throughout has been on clarity of exposition and, for this reason, footnotes have not been introduced.

The list of films studied is, of course, not exhaustive and, for reasons of space, some important films have not been included. The idea behind the selection was to stress the varying genres that Latin American film has explored, ranging from the political-ethnographic (Qué viva México, Los olvidados), to the documentary (El chacal de Nahueltoro, La batalla de Chile), and the serious social commentary film (Pixote). Latin American film has produced playful, light-hearted blockbusters (Como agua para chocolate, Y tu mamá también) and serious social-commentary type blockbusters (Cidade de Deus). It has produced films which treat issues such as slave rights (La última cena) women’s rights (Lucía, Camila), gay rights (Fresa y chocolate) and lesbian rights (Yo, la peor de todas). Lastly, in order to stress the osmotic nature of Latin American film – which is not as reducible as Hollywood film to a list of the greats – some account has been taken of films which were born from that interplay between film and other media, in this case, the film industry and TV (Cartas del parque, La tarea).