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Guatemala secrets

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This is an hour-long documentary by Gabriela Martinez, who teaches in the SOJC in Eugene. The documentaries she makes are often ethnographic. This one is about the archives of the National Police in Guatemala that were recently discovered in an abandoned building. The archives document what happened to thousands of people who were “disappeared” by the former Guatemalan government during a period of civil strife dating back to the 1980s.

The film, actually it’s video, was clearly made on a shoestring. There is no sound person, most of it was shot by Gabriela alone. There is some archival footage, a number of interviews with people doing the research on these archives, family members of people who were abducted and murdered, some new government officials. But here’s the thing – Rough though it was in some ways, technically, I found it to be very powerful. Partly I think it was because the people who are working on going through these old, falling-apart documents (some of which date back more than 100 years) and matching the files to remains found in mass graves, and the families of the victims, have been living with this horrendous period of violence for a long time. So they are passionate but not dramatic, it is a quiet passion. And it sneaks up on you. I’m not sure that looking at a few sections will give you the feeling, the impact of the accumulated segments. But here are a few examples of sections that I thought were particularly powerful.

The opening montage up to about 01:00, shows photos that we will come to understand later, but even when you don’t know what they are, they are intriguing, mysterious in a way.

02:20 – 3:10 Mario Polanco from an organization called Support Group, tells about members of the group who were abducted, assassinated and tortured – even a 2-year-old child. His expression is typical of the other interviews – he clearly feels the impact of the story, but he recounts it in plain language and leaves the feeling up to the viewer. The shot of him is a medium shot, he is sitting right next to a wall, which we are taught not to do unless we have to, but in this case the wall is covered with photos of the victims. It’s almost as though they are all together listening to him tell their story.

25:55 – 27:00 We see the condition of the archives and we hear how they were found.

37:55 We change aspect ratios, and it looks distorted a bit, but the first time I watched it I hardly noticed because I was so engrossed in the story, possibly because the segment shows us an excavation site of a mass grave.

The whole scene following the excavation shows the mounds and mounds of body bags in this dirty enclosure, and how the remains are being analyzed. It’s powerful imagery – while the person in charge of the body bags describes the process of analysis in clinical terms. The camera moves through the mounds of bags, handheld.

I think I would conclude that, in most cases, the technical drawbacks of the film actually add to a sense of authenticity. And authority.

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on “Guatemala secrets”
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