Men With Guns | Federico Luppi, Damián Delgado

Men With Guns | Federico Luppi, Damián Delgado | Stunningly beautiful, sad, insightful.

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Men With Guns

	Men With Guns Federico Luppi, Damián Delgado Sony Pictures, 2003 average customer review:based on 24 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

It is impossible to predict where John Sayles will travel at any given time in his film career, but Men with Guns is one of the director's most surprising journeys. Shot in Spanish, with a little-known cast, the film is a beguiling mix of the political and the mythical. A well-heeled doctor (Argentine actor Federico Luppi) in an unnamed Latin country leaves his comfortable home, in search of former medical students who may be caught in the political violence of the countryside. Although Sayles casts an unflinching eye on the issues of poverty and "willful ignorance" (embodied by the doctor, a well-meaning but complacent man), Men with Guns has a lush visual style and a great grab-bag of songs on the soundtrack. It's a slow and sometimes dreamlike movie, but by the time we reach the end it feels as though something special has transpired. --Robert Horton

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100% Guatemala

The basis of the movie was taken from a secondary character in Francisco Goldman's book "The Long Night of White Chickens", which is about Guatemala during the civil war, also the cover photo is the work of a Guatemalan photographer, Palma. Excellent movie.

Stunningly beautiful, sad, insightful.

As the Peruvian's review indicates, there are certainly Latin Americans who don't want to face part of their political reality, just as there are US citizens who like to deny or rationalize the violence of the United States of North America. The "Indian Wars" of the US empire continue as this film on the oppression of Guatemalan Mayan Indians reveals. While President Clinton did offer a near-apology for our decades of funding and organizing Guatemala's dirty war that killed 200,000 people, our corporatocracy continues to exploit the region and to wage economic warfare via NAFTA, CAFTA and the World Bank.
"Men With Guns" beautifully shows all who care the sort of brutal madness that has been taking place in Central America. I've shared this film with Guatemalan immigrants I know, and they confirm the suffering they endured at the hands of our proxy forces. These US taxpayer funded troops wiped out Guatemalan villages in the same way the Nazis wiped out Russian villages. It's such a disgrace that it happened, and that so few Americans know about it. This film offers us a tool to raise awareness, and civic groups like Global Exchange and Madre offer us opportunities to act in solidarity with the victims of US foreign policy.
I'd also recommend books by Nobel Peace Prize-winner Rigoberta Menchu (who, predictably, had a Yale professor conduct a campaign to cast doubt on her credibility - a standard psy-op tactic of our military establishment) and the DVD documentary, "When the Mountains Tremble."
Also see "Guatemala: Never Again!", the official report of the human rights office of the archdiocese of Guatemala. Sadly, Bishop Juan Girardi was murdered a couple days after turning in that report.

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Powerful

Federico Luppi, the fine actor from Argentina, takes the lead role as Dr. Fuentes. He sets out to find his former students on the road to places he's never been. The shift in his life is caused by the death of his wife. He sets out in spite of his family not wanting him to leave. The aging doctor first encounters one his former students, now a drug dealer, using the same drugs he taught him to cure others, he is now using them for ill purposes. His journey has only begun and he finds many more dissapointments along the way. This is a beautiful film that is allegorical, historical, contemporary and packed with messages for the viewer to interpret. In his quest to find his students he finds his country to be quite different from the view he had of it prior to his leaving the city. He encounters missing people and tales of abductions from men with guns. The villagers call them white men with guns but are quick to say that the Indios are also now white men. Although the story takes place in an unnamed country, the parallels to Guatemala are clear. Having witnessed a corpse on the roadside while travelling in a bus (everyone gawked with little concern, as though it were a common sight) in Guatemala and seeing the treatment first hand of the military I am pretty sure this is where it is. However, this is unimportant as these occurences of hit squads and paramilitary goons, in cahoots with the military, are a frequent sight in many Latin American countries. Anyway, Dr. Fuentes picks up several people along the way to expand the tale. He picks up a "liberation priest" who abandons his collar and those who believed in him, a former military thug turned thief, an indigenous young woman who doesn't speak since she was raped by soldiers and a street-savy kid who is an orphan and Dr. Fuentes's guide. All represent the society Dr. Fuentes is unaware of and as they tell their sordid stories, amidst flashbacks and surreal dreams, a country whose people live in brutal chaos is revealed . This is a powerful movie, one to be seen more than once in order to fully enjoy. Although the story evolves around Dr. Fuentes and his crew, there are several encounters with a funny couple who are "informed" tourists with bad Spanish accents and worse pronunciation. A completly enthralling film, in spite of its length, that hits close to the harsh reality of life in Latin America. A beautiful film that is set to the backdrops of the jungle and it's relics from the past, as well as present day village life , it is a movie that is visually breathtaking and mentally stimulating. Recommended for those that like movies that carry a political and social commentary. Great stuff, see it before your next vacation to the tropics, so that as the guy from the radio says"and now you know the rest of the story" before you get there.

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Human Rights

When a civl war rages through a country, the line between the good guys and the bad ones is blurred. Such is the case in Men with Guns. Both sides in conflict abuse others, even the innocent ones, to secure their goals.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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