Phillida
Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
henbro11
This was a very well made and beautifully shot movie. Insofar as it depicted the personal experiences of the very likable protagonist, including her interactions with the people she met in Peru, it was very moving. The movie makes a pretense of being socially and politically conscious, and insofar as it deals with the Sendero Luminoso guerrilla movement, it is tolerably balanced -- i.e., the movie does not glorify the movement (which indeed was quite brutal), but it also notes that the movement emerged in reaction to serious social oppression and injustice.I am, however, compelled to add the following critical note: the movie, astonishingly, contains literally not one word about the U.S. role in Peru or elsewhere in Latin America, which, as any literate observer is doubtless aware, was of crucial significance throughout the time period covered in the movie.Simply ask yourself: why is the Peruvian military so extremely brutal towards its own people (as admirably depicted on screen)? From watching this movie, one would conclude that it must be due to some genetic defect in the Latin race, which makes them barbarians by nature. In reality, the well known and amply documented reason for the brutality of the Peruvian and other Latin American militaries, is that they are instructed to deploy such means in the fight against "subversion" by their U.S. trainers and funders. For example, in the 1960s, as we see in the movie, the Peruvian government violently repressed a social movement calling for land reform (thereby sowing the seeds of the later emergence of Sendero). Omitted is the fact that this operation was carried out under the auspices of a large-scale U.S.-run counterinsurgency campaign on the model of the Truman Doctrine, complete with CIA-run training camps in the Peruvian jungles, etc. (see, e.g., chapter 28 of William Blum's Killing Hope). We hear not a word about any of this. Does the filmmaker really think that he can get away with such a blatant omission? Imagine a documentary depicting state repression in Hungary during the Cold War, which doesn't say a word about the Soviet Union. If you can imagine that, you just imagined this movie. It is very easy to deplore the backwardness and barbarity of Third World people, like the people of Peru. It is evidently a lot harder to face the fact that civilized westerners bear primary responsibility for the Peruvian bloodbath, which is why we have to sweep such facts under the rug.Apart from this caveat, I greatly liked the movie.
