SOME NOTES ON "MEMORY OF A PLUNDER" (A SOCIAL GENOCIDE)

The experience of Grupo Cine Liberación in Argentina was cut shoRt by the military coup of 1976 and the repression that followed, which left more than 30,000 “desaparecidos”.

Solanas, as the rest of Grupo Cine Liberación members, had to flee the country and go into exile. After a short time in Spain he finally settled in France, where he finished the last of group’s projects, “Fierro’s sons” (Los hijos del Fierro).

His next works, The others’ glance (La mirada de los otros, 1980), Tangos, Gardel’s exile (Tangos, el exilio de Gardel, 1985) or South (Sur, 1988) would take a more intimate colouring, closer to the “cinema d’auteur” than to that “third cinema” he had theorised about and made within Cine Liberación.

“Memory of a plunder” (Memoria del saqueo), shot between 2002 and 2003, marked Solanas’ return to a cinema openly social and political. He explains his decision this way:

“The tragedy we lived with the collapse of De la Rúa’s liberal government made me return to my beginnings in cinema, more than forty years ago, when the search for a cinematic and political identity and the resistance against the dictatorship led me to film “The hour of the furnaces”. Circumstances have change to the worse: How is it possible to starve in the “world’s granary”? The country had been devastated by a new type of aggression, silent and systematic, which left more deaths than State terrorism and the Malvinas war (Falklands). In the name of globalisation and free trade, the economic recipes of the international orgaisations ended up in a social genocide and the country’s financial bankrupt. The responsibility of the governments of Menem and De la Rúa does not exempt of theirs own responsibility to the IMF, the World Bank and the countries that dominate them. In their search for extraordinary profits, a neo-racist plan was imposed upon us; a plan that suppressed acquired social rights and condemned millions of people to death for malnutrition, premature aging and curable diseases. These were crimes against humanity in times of peace.”


Visually, “Memory of a plunder” may not be as powerful and challenging as “The hour of the furnaces”, a truly revolutionary piece of cinematographic art in itself. However, the reality that it reveals is no less dramatic and shocking. Solanas’ capacity to analyse and dissect the mechanisms by which the neo-liberal agenda was imposed in Argentina during the nineties and the devastating consequences that this had for the mass of the Argentine people is certainly remarkable.


“Memory of a plunder” was conceived as the first piece a series of four feature documentary films, independent amongst themselves, but united by the topic of Argentina; from the devastation and plunder of the neo-liberal model, to the reconstruction and alternatives of a new project able to reclaim rights which had been taken away and democratise democracy.”

“Memory of a plunder” was followed by “The nobody’s dignity” (La dignidad de los nadie, 2005) and “Latent Argetina” (Argentina latente, 2007). The final film of the tetralogy, “Land in revolt” (Tierra sublevada) is due to be released in 2009.


Asked for his first impression after seeing “Memory of a plunder”, Costa Gravas, the director of Missing, commented: “We feel disturbed, angered, puzzled by what you have make us discover in detail. Our first reflection was about the French and Western press and media. They are constantly attacking Cuba, but we were told nothing or very little about Argentina and the vastness of this plunder.”

Direction: Fernando E. Solanas
Script and voice: Fernando E. Solanas
Research: Acira Argumedo and Fernando E. Solanas
Image: A. Fernández Mouján and Fernando Solanas
Montaje: Juan Carlos Macías, Fernando Solanas, Sebastián Mignona, A. Ponce
Sonido: J. Kuschnir, M. Dickinson, G. Scheuer, E. Vaucher
Música Original: Gerardo Gandini