La dignidad de los nadies
Fernando Solanas
2005
120 minutes (Spanish)
LATAMROB rating: ****
THIS film by veteran progressive Argentine film-maker Fernando Solanas explores the human dimension of the crisis that paralysed his country in 2001 by mining the conditions in which ordinary people live – from the poor in the shantytowns of Buenos Aires to middle-class farmers trying to save their land from rapacious multinational banks. Solanas is one of the greats of Argentine cinema and has at times paid a heavy price for his outspoken views. A few days after publicly criticising President Carlos Menem in 1991, for example, he was gunned down and barely escaped with his life. With impressive defiance, it strengthened his convictions and propelled him into a political career of his own. He has been a leading light in efforts to develop a political “Third Cinema” free of the constraints of Hollywood and Europe, and The Dignity of the Nobodies is a great example of what this can mean in practice. – EC
