Third World Cinema: A Glimpse into the Latin American and African Film Movements - Essay Example

THIRD WORLD CINEMA: A GILMPSE INTO THE LATIN AMERICAN AND AFRICAN FILM MOVEMENTS Film Movements and their Implications Cinema often involves an active production and revision of human truths and cultural meanings. The role of films in society is highly influential and often helps to pave new paths and modes of thinking. Therefore, a comprehensive definition of the term “film movement” is a problematic area, since it involves within itself various political, socio-cultural facets that have consistently challenged traditional mores and played major roles in cultural revolutions. Film movements have always carried within themselves the seeds of rebellion, the aesthetics of new possibilities and the potential for historical changes. Thus, the ideological implications of the various film movements across the globe are varied and provide for a diversified generic study. In context of our discussion, we will focus primarily on, what has come to be known as ‘the third world cinema’ – a composite aggregation of film movements of diverse national origins. It emerged mainly in the political motivations and aesthetic imaginings of a group of filmmakers hailing from various regions in and around Latin America, Asia and Africa during the 1960s and 70s. This era was marked by an explosive and radical re-envisioning of the cinematic world and ethos. The root of the movement, of course, lies in the ‘third world’, a term fraught with the colonial tensions and arising out of the need to resolve the conflicting ideologies that were still current while these nations were in the gradual process of rebuilding themselves. However, a better understanding of the definition and developmental history of this film movement may be achieved by examining the successive stages of its philosophical, economic and ethological evolutions. T.H Gabriel succinctly divides the movement into three distinctive periods - the assimilative, the remembrance and the combative phases. The Third Cinema developed, during its initial assimilative phases, mainly as a sort of simulated reflection of the entertainment-centric ethos of the Western Hollywood cinema. This phase saw a major preoccupation with the theme of entertainment, being concerned mainly with moneymaking and expansion of the audience. The staple thematic trend of these early Third World Cinema was often centered on sensational adventures, romantic escapades, slapstick comedies with broad humor and adapted versions of Hollywood musicals. It showed, in this phase, a tremendous capacity to incorporate and “ingest” the western film conventions within its own generic boundaries. T.H Gabriel notes a significant example of this kind of blending in the adoption of the Cinema Nuovo trends in the Brazilian Embrafilme. (Gabriel 1982) The second period saw an era of rapid indigenization, where productivity and control of native talents became paramount. The distributive structure of the film industries of the third cinema also underwent a sea change. The focus shifted from blind imitation of its Hollywood models to a reinvention and celebration of the native culture and history. The new wave cinema in India, the ‘engage’ or ‘committed’ films in Senegal and the cinema moudjahid in Algeria are a few pertinent examples of this phase. The ethos of the cinematic themes became obsessed with the issues of exile, the contention between the private and the public lives, the urban and the rural values, and a re-adaptation of traditional folklores and myths. All these traits show a decided turn towards an idea of national identity and selfhood. This nationalist, self-proclamation through the mode of cinema is, in fact, one of the most significant aspect of every film movement in the process of maturation. However, there are also certain pitfalls in this period of the film movement, that show a tendency towards an unambiguous exaltation of the general native culture and racial dignity without any mention of the particular flaws inherent in them. Such generalizations are in themselves dangerous for they create a naturalized picture of the particular culture that is neither comprehensive nor faithful to facts. In the third and final phase of maturity, the third world cinema is gradually turning towards an ethos of public and national service by capturing certain social, political and cultural evils through thorough and realistic artistic rendering. Several subgenres of the third world cinema has even picked by particular socio-political affiliation like postcolonial pathos and struggles of the native women. Miguel Littin, for instance, is an activist-director whose radical reworking of mythologies in The Promised Land is exemplary in Chilean third world cinema. (Gabriel 1982) Third World Cinema in Latin America & an Analysis of Soy Cuba (1964) In Latin America, the emergence and the successive development of the third world cinema and the third cinema formed a sort of intersectional dynamic. Both these film movements arose as a nationalist militant ethos began to fuel the nation’s youth into an explosive political activism that was directed against the rampant consumption and crippling bourgeoisie complacency and motivated towards the unified dream of a socialist utopia. The institutionalization of the third world cinema is perhaps the most important event in the history of the movement and serves manifold social purposes, which extend far beyond the mere commercial aspirations of the early phase. The underground film movements like the Argentinean ‘Cine Liberacion’ and Allende’s Socialist Union films of Chile are striking instances of a cinematic period preoccupied with the struggles and trial of the common, deprived, third world citizen. The latent influence of politics, the cultural past and the social present within the third world context began to be incorporated began to be incorporated with the exultant military revolutionary aesthetics of the third cinema, where cinematic renderings of biographies centering around political figures became a staple in the gradually evolving Latin American film industry. The utilization of the cinematic mode as an ideological propagandist tool (Gabriel 1982) became a widespread feature of the pro-revolutionary Cuban media. In fact, as is common in third world cinema, the preoccupation with the past and an attempt to reform the present and future through the recognition of the flaws of the past is evocatively present in Latin American films belonging to this genre. The famous 1964 Soviet-Cuban film Soy Cuba or I am Cuba, a praiseworthy effort by the eminent directorial team of Mikhail Kalatozov and Sergei Urusevsky, exemplifies the hybrid approach to third world cinema through the ethological backdrop and politically charged motivation of third cinema. While the film was not a popular success in any of the target audience pools – Russian or Cuban – at the time, it has become of renewed interest and has received much critical academic attention in the last two decades. The film is set in Havana, against the contemporary historical backdrop of the pre-revolutionary Cuba, as the political heat was gradually building up towards the historic 1959 overthrow of the dictator Batista. (Ching et al. 2007) The story of the film centers around four short fragments that depict the trials and tribulations of the common Cuban population as a preliminary justification for the promise of a Utopic, socialist state where equality and freedom reigns. It variously records the diverse and varying reactions of the characters in each of the four film segments. The fragmented plots and storylines are cemented with an underlying socio-political ethos that pervades the entire film. While the anti-American stance of the film has been a consistent recipient of staunch criticism, the cinematographic excellence of the rendition and the expert handling of the narrative and the plot devices have been universally praised. The problematic socialist and political stance of the film, as evident in its stringent anti-capitalist propaganda, however is a deeply conflicted area of study. Prominent political leaders, like Fidel Castro, have been vocal in their critique of I am Cuba. (Ching et al. 2007) However, the film still occupies a central position in the Latin American as well as the third world film coterie as a pronouncement of revolution, of failing authorities, questions of identities and the incipient power politics of a growing and evolving nation. Third World Cinema in Africa & A Reading of Ceddo (1977) The new trends of continental cinema making that emerged in the 1960s from Maghreb and Sub-Saharan Africa can be seen as the initiation points of the third world cinema in Africa. As previously discussed, the initial phase of the third cinema movement in Africa developed alongside the western Hollywood films that continued to dominate the screen and the market in the early post-independence years. (Armes 2006) The gradual sophistication of the third cinema movement brought a radical wind of change in the African film industry as it began to incorporate the peripheral issues of cultural memory, history and slavery within its realm. The thematic scope for artistic expression broadened with the evolution of the movement and eventually led to the production of a number of films that focused on these neglected issues of racial heritage and mythologies vis-à-vis the contemporary socio-cultural contexts. There was a marked rejection of the early cinema nuovo techniques as issues of marginalization and oppression began to be dealt with. Glaubar Rocha, for instance, points at the radical revisionist view of “hunger” in Brazilian cinema that protests against the romanticized vision of hunger through sensational stylization in the cinema nuovo genre. (Rocha 1983) In Ceddo, the iconic 1977 collaborative effort of the Senegalese director Ousmane Sambene and the musical composer Manu Dibango from Cameroon, is a stellar product of the African third cinema and features, in its intricate rendition the pathos of the African slavery and the long history of deprivation. One may see this path-breaking film as a marker of the change that was slowly creeping into the African film industry. The focus of the film was squarely on the historical, cultural and contemporary implications of slavery in the African society. Ceddo is a story of a rebel who is made captive; it is, in a broader sense, a fable of the African resistance to the three threats to its national and cultural identity – Islam, Catholicism and Slavery. (Pfaff 2004) The opening scene offers rare light on the daily lives of the Senegalese women and establishes them at the centre of the narrative by giving them a kind of prominence through their artistic depiction. The tranquility of the river combines with the erotic depiction of a half-nude bathing woman. The sense of harmony engendered by this scene is undercut is the very next frame by the introduction of the two slaves being led to the market in ropes, like cattle. The title of the film itself is vocal with disruption. A ‘ceddo’ is, in its most literal sense, a ‘man who says no’. (Pfaff 2004) Such subtle cinematic nuances invest the film with a resonance that captures within itself the essence of the third cinema movement in Africa. References: Armes, Roy. 2006. “Early Cinematic Traditions in Africa”. Traditions in World Cinema. New Brunswick, New Jersey. Ching, Erik, Buckley, C. & Lozano-Alonso A. (Eds) 2007. Reframing Latin America. Austin, Texas. Gabriel, T. H. 1982. Third Cinema in the Third World: The Aesthetics of Liberation. Ann Arbor, Michigan. Pfaff, Francoise. (Ed.) 2004. Focus on African Films. Bloomington, Indiana. Rocha, Glauber. 1983. "The Aesthetics of Hunger." Twenty-Five Years of the New Latin American Cinema. London, UK. Read More