Set in 1835, in what is now the country of Argentina, Benjamin Naishtat's El Movimiento is a stark portrait of the struggles associated with a country trying to be born. Currently a land plagued with anarchy and chaos, a group of armed men known as 'The Movement' wreck havoc in a thinly veiled attempt to create some semblance of order. Benjamin Naishtat's El Movimiento is a film one respects more than enjoys, being a film more interested in creating a stark atmosphere than a coherent narrative. This is a challenging film, which shows little effort or retard for making the viewer feel comfortable, offering instead an interesting, albeit challenging study of the corruptible nature of power and control. Through this story of The Movement, the fie film becomes a somewhat troubling reminder of the fact that countries are themselves rarely built on anything but glood and violence, as the film does a phenomenal job at intentionally blurring the lines between good and evil when it comes to its characters intentions throughout.. Intentional or not, by the end of the film I began to interpret it as a thinly-veiled allegory about politicians, with the violent leader of 'The Movement', Senor, being a man who is capable of leading many, but who is endlessly corrupt by his own thirst for power. Throughout the film we see this leader wax poetic about the need for order in a world of chaos, but whenever he finds his ideas or beliefs confronted by anyone he quickly turns violent. This is a man who is simpy unwilling to accept any form of dissenting opinion, willing to resort to violence instead of attempting to comprehend another individuals views. El Movimiento's cinematography is stark, frightening, but also beautiful, contrasting pitch black darkness with white light in a way that itself speaks to the overall themes of the film. While not nearly as impressive as German's Hard to Be A God, Benjamin Naishtat's El Movimiento couldn't help but remind me of the Russian film, being another stark vision of humanities inherent darkness, as El Moviemento focuses on the inherent thirst for power and control which exists in us.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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