The Journey (1992)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The trip |
| Original title | El viaje |
| Country of production | Argentina |
| original language | Spanish |
| Publishing year | 1992 |
| length | 140 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 13 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Pino Solanas |
| script | Pino Solanas |
| production | Pino Solanas |
| music |
Egberto Gismonti Astor Piazzolla Pino Solanas |
| camera |
Félix Monti Pino Solanas |
| cut | Alberto Borello Pino Solanas |
| occupation | |
| |
Die Reise (Spanish original title: El viaje ) is an Argentine feature film from 1992 , which belongs to the genre of the road movie , but can be described as a very diverse work due to borrowings from surrealism and symbolism as well as numerous elements of satire .
Directed by Pino Solanas , who escaped an assassination attempt while filming. It is still unclear whether there is a connection with the politically very critical content of the film.
The soundtrack title El viaje comes from Astor Piazzolla .
action
Argentina in the early 1990s : 17-year-old Martín from Ushuaia on the cold southern end of Argentina is at war with his mother and stepfather and with his ultra-conservative school. He receives too many warnings and should therefore not be promoted to the final class. In addition, his girlfriend becomes pregnant and has an abortion, even though he actually wants the child. When his best friend and fellow musician in the band left for Buenos Aires , he took his bike and rode north on Ruta Nacional 3 . His goal: to get to know his birth father, who works as a cartoonist in Brazil .
During his long journey, he encounters numerous surprises. Part of Patagonia has been renamed "New Patagonia" and settled by English-speaking colonists, since President Dr. Rana (German: Dr. Frosch, a satirical depiction of the then President Carlos Menem ) sold the land to them. In Buenos Aires , where he wants to visit his friend, a permanent flood has flooded the whole city. His grandparents, who live in this city, are meanwhile being forced by government officials to sell their house to foreigners as a souvenir. Finally he meets his friend from Ushuaia again.
The journey continues via Bolivia and Peru to the Brazilian Amazon , where his father is said to live. In Cuzco he meets a poor girl who is constantly sexually abused by her uncle, which leads to a brief romance between the two. When he arrived in Brazil, he discovered that his father had moved to Mexico because of an illness . In order to get the money for the trip there, he works under poor conditions in a mine and then hitchhikes on to Colombia , where he is attacked by a smugglers' gang, but finally meets his father in southern Mexico, who is in one there curious motorhome travels around the area.
On his journey, Martín repeatedly encounters a mysterious, silent young woman in a red dress. In the jungle of Colombia, the two are making love together in a hammock. The motif of the young woman, like the encounter with her father, has unreal features and apparently only appears in Martín's imagination.
technology
The film is characterized by a sophisticated trick technique in which both traditional technology and CGI (especially in the very realistically depicted flooded Buenos Aires) are used. The tricks underline the overall surrealistic character of the film and are sometimes deliberately unrealistic.
Different lighting conditions are used particularly often. While Ushuaia is shown as extremely dark and Buenos Aires also looks rather dreary, Bolivia, Peru and Brazil are shown in bright, almost garish colors.
The script always alternates between the main plot, Martín's journey, and satirical interludes that are supposed to depict the situation in Latin America.
Satirical elements
El Viaje is full of satirical elements that focus on the situation of the dependent countries of Latin America in confrontation with the imperialism of the USA , but also on conservatism in the countries themselves.
The "National Model School"
Martin goes to the so-called “Colegio Nacional Modelo” in Ushuaia, the “national model school”. There the pupils are to be educated again with conservative methods about discipline and order and respect for the national heroes. The drill reminds z. T. to the school satire in the film The Wall . For this “achievement” the school then receives a prize from the state and the school director is personally appointed by President Rana as his education minister.
Dr. Rana
"Dr. Rana “(German: Dr. Frosch) is the stylized version of the then President of Argentina Carlos Menem . He appears again and again, either directly or mentioned by Martin's interlocutor. Since the government city of Buenos Aires is under water, he appears in public with a diving suit and flippers.
His actions allude directly to Menem: For example, he allegedly sold 14 provinces of Argentina to foreign countries (an allusion to the numerous privatizations 1989–1991). At a congress he played tennis with the US President, an allusion to Menem's media presence, who liked to be photographed with celebrities playing tennis and golf, but also to his extremely friendly relations with the USA, which he himself established with "relaciones carnales" (Eng. physical relationships) had designated.
Exploitation of the third world
In several scenes, the exploitation of the states of Latin America by their neoliberal, US-dependent governments is depicted in a satirical exaggeration. In Bolivia, for example, a "truck to collect foreign debts" does its rounds and takes away the last of their belongings from the population, in Buenos Aires houses are offered as tourist souvenirs, and in Brazil the government decrees the population to wear a "belt that you can buckle up to" so that nobody eats too much, and at the same time markets it as a “diet” using modern marketing strategies . In Peru, the population buys their few groceries in a completely overpriced market - the market woman asks Martin 20 US dollars for two matches and a pinch of salt. And in the mine in Colombia where Martín works, the conditions are like in the Middle Ages.
The "Congress of the Kneeling Countries"
One of the satirical highlights of the film is the “Congress of the Kneeling Countries” (Spanish Organización de los Países Arrodillados (OPA) - “opa” means “mentally retarded”) in Panama . All the heads of state of the countries of Latin America and the USA are gathered there on their knees. The US president also appears to be kneeling in the media, but is accepted by all the other participants in the congress as the undisputed star of the meeting and stands after a tennis match against Dr. Rana is the only one up. This scene is supposed to demonstrate the US bondage of the Latin American governments of the time.
Awards
The technique of film in particular received numerous awards, including the following:
- International Cannes Film Festival 1992 : Prize of the Ecumenical Jury - Special Mention, Technical Grand Prize. The film was also nominated for the Palme d' Or, but didn't win it.
- Gramado Film Festival 1992: Golden Kikito for Best Cinematography.
- International Festival of New Latin American Film 1992: Best Image Work, Special Jury Prize
Web links
- El Viaje in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Tzvi Valley: El viaje entre la Historia y la historieta: jornada geográfica, conciencia social e identidad (accessed on January 5, 2008)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gary Ryan: Play Piazzolla. 13 Tangos by Astor Piazolla. Easy Guitar Arrangements by Gary Ryan. Boosey & Hawkes, London 2008, ISBN 978-0-85162-572-0 , p. 8 f.
- ^ Page of the film festival with the award winners. Retrieved February 28, 2017 (Spanish).