Good bye Hollywood

The Last Supper

In another of my alternative histories I have been thinking about a world without Hollywood. I am going on a no Hollywood diet, I do find most US films, full of too much cheese with contrived plots. I have been watching lots of Latin American cinema, painless way of learning a bit of spanish, they tend to be low key, little soap operas based on human relationship...they feel, they feel and this is a tough thing for somebody who is 0.3 an academic to say 'authentic', real, believable.

You can get lots of good stuff from Amazon or other dvd rental schemes, although Cuban stuff is more difficult to come across.

If you buy a multi-region DVD player, cheap now, you can watch from any region, this region thing is another marketing device....films can be released in one part of the globe and then in another with different promotion...put in a code and you can watch from any region.

I suppose one of the first I watched was 'El Topo', which my friend Christina Borgenstierna wanted to see, its wholly excellent but not run of the mill. Its a heavy duty counter culture classic loved by John Lennon, a spiritual cowboy film, very surreal and bloody.

Alejandro Jodorowsky, Chilian-Mexican, its director is pretty much a zen master...his Santa Sangre is good as well, pretty much a magical horror film....his interview on the Jonathon Ross show was fun, tells a good tale of Boddhidarma going to the Chinese Emperor.

Machuca (2004)in contrast is about the fall of Allende in Chile, when the right moved in with a coup, there is a stunning scene where the priest eats the host, declaring the school he runs is no longer a place of god, after the authorities 'reform' it!



Alea the great Cuban director has produced a load of master pieces, often pretty critical of the bad side of socialist Cuba, Guantanamera (1995) his last is a good start

Last Supper (La última cena) (1976) - Fiction, 120 minutes...about a slave revolt is a must see.

Death of a bureacrat is a bit too slapstick for me

Chocolate and Strawberry (1993) which deals with gay rights on the island, repression, conformity...sounds dull but is great, going to finish watching it after I post this.


There are a load of good films with the Mexican actor Gael García Bernal Amores perros (Love's a Bitch) (2000), Y tu mamá también (2001), El crimen del Padre Amaro (The Crime of Father Amaro) (2002), and of course, The Motorcycle Diaries (2004).

Seen them all...all great and very accessible...low on politics though, interesting how non political 'El Che' was as a youth, specially when we remember Bookchin joined the Communist Party age nine! I guess without experiencing poverty in the trip across the continent and the coup in Guatamala he would have never been a revolutionary.



Valentín is a 2002 film direted by Alejandro Agresti, very sweet, sad Argentine film, couple of clicks on amazon to watch....about a nine year old boy, whose parents are not all he desires..he finds new parents, smart lad.

Suggestions for more Latin American films please....must do a Werner Herzog post very green political in a non obvious way.