The tequila case, F.G. Haghenbeck

Acapulco, 1965. In the last few months, the world was about to implode with the Cuban missile crisis and said goodbye to the two most famous and glamorous figures of the time, Marylin Monroe and John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The Tarzan heroe and swimming champion Johnny Weissmuller is resting in his hotel, Los Flamingos. The actor is depressed, nobody gives him a role. He needs money to pay his alcohol and the expenses of his new wife. And he has made business with the wrong guys as he owes half a million dollars to the mafia. Here comes Sunny Pascal, the “heroe” invented by Francisco Haghenbeck. Sunny has to take care of Johnny, protect him and resolve his trouble.

He is sent to Acapulco by his friend Scott Cherries, a producer who wants to contract Johnny for a new TV show. But things are not so simple and Sunny will fall into a can of worms. There begins a race in the Acapulco bay where he is the man to kill. American spies, mafiosi, Mexican corrupted politicians, Cuban spies… Everybody wants his head. And certainties will explode one after the other in a huge set of masks.

Even if Francisco Haghenbeck takes some liberties with history (he explains some of them at the end of the novel), “The tequila case” explores the Hollywood universe of the 1960s. Sunny Pascal will meet up with John Wayne, Frank Sinatra and Ann Margret. Acapulco was then the meeting point of many stars, but also a place to film (and rest). So that there was an important business issue to attract investments (also because there were plans to build casinos, a special need after the fall of Batista’s regime in Cuba and the collapse of American interests with Castro).

Sea, sex and cocktails
Sunny Pascal, half Mexican and half “gringo”, is the “almost hero” invented by Haghenbeck. His taste for alcohol and women turns him into a kind of extreme James Bond, who endangers because of his addictions. His human side is counterbalanced with unrealistic events all along the novel, inspired by the superheroes comics Haghenbeck admires so much (he even worked as a comics creator). For example when he avoids the bullets shot at close range.

Every chapter begins with the recipe of a cocktail which stimulates the glamorous side of the novel. It is not a gadget, as the cocktail often appears in the chapter and has a role in the story. And it underlines the obsessions of Sunny Pascal. It seems that Haghenbeck (a former TV writer) wants to create his own universe, as it is the second novel depicting his heroe. The first one was “Martini shoot” where he explored the same universe of golden age Hollywood stars and alcohol. He just must care not to fall into repetition and the stereotypes that the genre can generate. But thrillers nourish themselves from stereotypes, don’t they?

El caso tequila (The tequila case), by Francisco G. Haghenbeck
Roca Editorial Criminal
224 pages
(in Spanish)

Noe Hernandez and Stephanie Sigman

Narco traffic is an amazing topics for arts nowadays in Latin America, and especially in Mexico. A large part of documentaries production is dedicated to the subject, bookstore shelves are filled with essays. But movie director had not really focused on it, excepted some big romanced Hollywood productions like Traffic, or the very specific genre of narco cinema. Miss Bala is one of the first well documented and clever fictions. Because it shows how narco traffic can seduce people in an uncertain economical context and how it can control them, how it has controled entire sectors of society.

Laura is a 23 year-old woman dreaming of beauty contests. She lives with her father and her brother in Tijuana. Beauty contests are the only way for her to get out of poverty. She applies for one of them. But one night, she is the witness of a shooting in a nightclub. She saw the face of the gang members responsible for the shooting. The gang leader will find her and she will fall under his influence. The gang buys the beauty contest and in return uses Laura for its traffic.

Controversial but necessary
The story illustrates the complexity of the situation. Some might be uncomfortable with several scenes. I saw some critics who do not understand the behavior of the main character and how the movie director can have installed a kind of Stockholm syndrome. Firstly, Laura always remains in a fragile situation, where she cannot forget that the gang has the control over her. She is not free at all. Then the facts are much more complex than one can think. In many cases, poverty explains the power of drug dealers. And any moment of compromise can push somebody into an eternal submission to the gangs. The scenario shows how one can be attracted by easy money and how dreams can hide the rest. It also shows the difficulty of people to know how they are handled and how unexplainable events can actually be explained (like the shooting in the nightclub or the corrupted beauty contest).

The movie is a good reflect of how complex the situation can be in Mexico (even with false police officers, false drug dealers, etc.) even if there is sometimes a distortion of reality. The acting of Stephanie Sigman (seen in many TV series before) is outstanding and perfectly highlighted by the way Gerardo Naranjo filmed it, with many traveling and sequence shots. The movie is controversial but definitely necessary and inventive.

Miss Bala, by Gerardo Naranjo
With Stephanie Sigman, Noe Hernandez, Irene Azuela, José Yenque…
Mexico, 113 min

La belle amour humaine, by Lyonel Trouillot

Haiti has probably one of the best authors of America today (Gary Victor, Dany Laferrière, Frankétienne…). And Lyonel Trouillot is one of them. He is one of the most famous of his generation and a complete artist who has written poems, songs, novels and non fiction works. In his latest novel, “La belle amour humaine” (Beautiful human love), he describes the road trip of Thomas and Anaïse. The young lady comes from a Western country and she is looking for the memories of her grandfather, the businessman Robert Montes. He and a friend of him, Colonel Pierre André Pierre, arrived in the village of Anse-à-Fôleur a long time ago. They were not integrated at all and seemed completely out of time. Their only goal was to accumulate wealth. And they did it quite well, in a region where everybody shares what they have. And they have almost nothing.

Even if everybody had reasons to burn their house and kill them, nobody has been charged for the double crime and no indication has been found despite the efforts of “the little man from the capital”, who was investigating the case. Thomas, who drives Anaïse to the village, warns her that the mystery will remain. The reader knows he will not get any answer from the beginning. Thomas tells Anaïse she will not have the answer she is searching for. Nobody in the village will explain her what happened with the house of her grandfather and his death. Nobody will even look for any explanation. That is the philosophy of this place and the reason of the title: the “beautiful human love” is a theory where everybody keeps their own place. They have a role in society, in life, in nature, and nothing can change it.

Oral tradition
The form of the novel is at least as important as the story itself. It refers to the Haitian oral tradition. It is divided into two main stories counted by the driver Thomas, who is an inhabitant of the village, then Anaïse, the Western girl. Each of them defends the point of view of their environment and are the symbol of two opposite worlds.

Lyonel Trouillot is also an engaged writer, whose writings always have a social dimension. He defends the rights of the oppressed against power and stereotypes. His narrator Thomas makes fun of the vision of tourists going to Haiti. Some take a tragic posture, some are afraid of everything, others consider that Haiti is a paradise and that poverty makes happy. And some are just looking for pleasure.  The criticism is subtle but fierce.

La belle amour humaine, by Lyonel Trouillot
(only available in French, let’s hope his work will soon be translated into English)
Actes Sud

Las Acacias / Bodega Films

Here we have the best Latin American movie in 2011… Well, it is supposed to be. Las Acacias got the award in the Biarritz Film Festival last year. It also received the Golden Camera and the Young Critics Award in Cannes and the Sutherland Trophy in the British Film Institute Awards. Nothing more !

Pablo Giorgelli’s first film does not look like any other one. The Argentinan movie director chose to film a road movie from inside. The spectator is brought closer to the characters, in the truck cabin of Ruben, an Argentinan 50 year old truck driver who accepts to bring Jacinta and her baby Anahi from Asuncion, Paraguay to Buenos Aires. Ruben is a lonely traveler who has been spending 30 years on the road. One can guess his painful past, there is no woman in his life, excepted his sister he visits a couple of times per year, and he has not seen his son for eight years. Jacinta is looking for a better life and decides to go to Buenos Aires where a cousin of her lives. Her wounds are also visible: her daughter does not have a father, her relationship with her own mother seems to be complicated…

No surprise
More than 800 miles together will change their behavior and their vision of life. The transformation is particularly interesting in the case of Ruben and these changings are centered around the cute Anahi. The lovely angel face baby is the trigger and takes the feelings out of Ruben.

The way “Las Acacias” is filmed is really interesting. There is nothing unnecessary, the dialogs are minimal, the script is simple but original. And Pablo Giorgelli manages to combine this simplicity and the transformation into a real psychological movie. But he does not avoid some clichés: the loneliness of the old guy crushed by life, his opening to the others, the family drama that one can guess… So that there is no real surprise throughout the film. And no rhythm at all, sure. That is the problem of these films coming to the screens with such a good reputation.

Las Acacias, by Pablo Giorgelli
With German de Silva, Hebe Duarte and Nayra Calle Mamani.
Argentina, 82 min

The trailer:

Ana Tijoux

Is there a new generation of hip hop artists in Latin America? Some of them have appeared for two or three years. Calle 13 is probably the most famous band but many others have spread, in every country. Ana Tijoux is not precisely a “new” rapper (actually all of them have run for years) but her fame has recently grown in Europe and in the USA. Her first two solo albums, Kaos (2007) and 1977 (2009), were acclaimed by critics. And she just released her third one, La bala.

Ana (or Anita, her real name is Anamaria Merino) Tijoux was born and grew in France. She has always lived between France and Chile. She was part of a Chilean rap band, Makiza, from the late 1990s. But her career has never been linear as she abandoned music during three years between 2001 and 2004, for example. She also joined a funk band, Aluzinati, and featured with several artists, like Julieta Venegas, expanding her environment.

La bala, Ana Tijoux

“La bala” introduces a smoother way in Ana’s work, with RnB rhythms after another one, “1977″, which was a pure tribute to New York style hip hop, two years ago. Her voice and her flow adapt to all genres. She also worked with a large range of musicians, beyond hip hop: Jorge Drexler, Los Aldeanos, Monica Blaire, Javier Barria, etc.

But the album is probably dominated by one song, Shock, that has been written in support to student strikes in Chile. It has become the real anthem of this important movement that asked for more direct state participation in education. And globally an anthem of a general protest in Chile, against the policy of its liberal president Sebastian Piñera. The lyrics are quite strong and report the influence of Opus Dei in Chile and the constitution inherited from Pinochet.

Ana Tijoux, La bala
11 tracks
Nacional Records

Shock :

Inti

I love exhibitions when they play their role and are a window to the world. That is exactly what “Paraiso urbano, Chili graffiti & street art” does. The gallery “Itinerrance” in Paris displays very few pieces of Chilean street artist Inti (about 15) and it only reflects a part of his work as it is always difficult to confine street art into a gallery. But it can be an excuse to explore the whole movement.

The collection exposed in Paris turns around the character of Kusillo, a kind of buffoon in the ancestral Bolivian tradition. His origins are uncertain but he is a character who used to go out with the rain and the sowing and who is used now in the carnavals. Inti (the sun god in the Inca mythology) stages symbols and traditions of Latin  America: death, Catholic signs, corn, traditional clothes, music or guerrilla. And he puts them in contemporary and urban postures. He developed his art inValparaiso, the core city for graffiti (as explained in the video below)

A long story
There is probably a lack in the exhibition as the only real street work is a big mural in the middle of the gallery. But the difficulties to expose street art in traditional galleries are counterbalanced by another exhibition of Chilean artists, in a building under construction, two blocks from there.

Inti street art

Chilean street art begins to be recognized as it deserves. Chile has a long tradition of graffiti and street art and has been the first Latin American country (with Brazil) where the movement really grew. Many artists began to paint in the 1990s, one of the first was Cekis. And – more interesting – once they were inspired by American or European artists, they knew how to go their own way, mixing urban codes with ancestral elements. An online documentary explains why Chile could become the Latin American heart of street art (an old tradition of murals, Chilean-European citizens who could import techniques of graffiti, authoritarian regimes that favored the rise of political protest, etc.)

Here is “Chile Estyle”

Paraiso urbano, Galerie Itinerrance, 7 bis, rue René-Goscinny, Paris 13^e.
Espace Itinerrance, 11, rue Marie-Andrée-Lagroua-Weill-Halle, Paris 13^e.
Until December 17th

Update

Patrick, from Dedalus Moving Pictures, reported this video he recently directed. It is upon the work of Cekis in New York City. Quite impressive, thanks Patrick, let’s keep in touch !

Undertow (Contracorriente)

Miguel and Mariela are married. They will soon have a baby. But their happy life in Capo Blanco, a small village of Peru is not as quiet as it seems. Miguel has a lover. And his lover is called Santiago and has a beard. Santiago is a painter and a photographer and he comes from the capital. They meet on the beach, away from the village, or at Santiago’s home. And they have a deep and passionate relationship.

But in such a small space, everything gets known. People start talking. They discover a painting where Miguel remains naked. In a hostile and conservative environment, he rejects reality and begins to hallucinate. The drama is not far… In these appearances he finds a kind of refuge. And the village gets divided.

International production
In his first feature film, Javier Fuentes Leon focuses on prejudice. The one of a small catholic village of South America. But especially the one that this environment generates on the victims of the prejudice. Miguel refuses to recognize himself as he really is. But the end of the movie gives an answer and an exit to his own dignity and acceptation.

Undertow (Contracorriente) is a successful South American cooperation. The production is a mix between Peru and Colombia (and France and Germany, which initiated the project), and the two main actors, Cristian Mercado and Manolo Cardona, come from Bolivia and Colombia. Nothing easy for Latin American actors to break their image and play roles of homosexuals. And the movie has had a distinguished track around the world: it got an audience award in Sundance (world cinema), but was also a candidate for the Foreign Film Oscar.

Undertow (Contracorriente), by Javier Fuentes-Leon
With Cristian Mercado, Manolo Cardona and Tatiana Astengo
Peru, 100 min

The trailer:

Fania All Stars

It smells like nostalgia. After having talked about the release of a compilation dedicated to bachata legends, another one dedicated to old hits of cumbia, another wave is coming with the Fania All Stars. The mythical band celebrates this year the 40th anniversary (actually it is been four years it has celebrated its 40th anniversary ! one can consider it is the anniversary of the Live at the Cheetah, August 1971). A couple of compilations have been (or will be) released these days, including “Ponte duro, the Fania All Stars Story” and another one which contains a compilation and the DVD of “Our Latin thing”, one of the movies produced by Fania depicting the story of salsa music and being one of the founding acts of the growth of Latin American culture in the USA.

Fania Records was created in New York in 1964 by a lawyer, Jerry Masucci, and the Dominican musician Johnny Pacheco. They were soon joined by musicians like Ray Barreto, Larry Harlow, Bobby Valentin, then Willie Colon or Ruben Blades to form the “Fania All Stars”. Actually the whole Latin American scene of the 1970s gravitated around Fania. Celia Cruz or Ismael Quintana even performed with them in a few concerts. The label also contributed to the massive export of Latin music around the world, especially in Africa with the 1974 concert of the All Stars in Kinshasa.

Our latin thing
At that time it was all a creative mix of political demands, religious and cultural recognition, civil rights activism and artistic improvisation. “Our latin thing” recreates the atmosphere of happy mess, the freshness, the spontaneity and the pride of people who first appeared then on the national scene. Another couple of concerts remained in the collective memory, like the Yankee Stadium, 1975.

In the 1980s, the label’s life became more difficult as many artists had solo careers. It also faced more competition as Latin American music became mainstream and many labels then appeared. Other trends and waves in Latin American music (son, bachata, merengue, reggaeton) may have overshadowed salseros, especially since the 1990s. But Fania has always remained a reference and the volume of its sales is still high.

Some compilations :
Ponte duro, the Fania All Stars Story, Codigo Music (released in Oct 2010)
Ponte duro, the Fania All Stars Story (best of) (released in Nov 2011)
Our Latin thing (Nuestra Cosa), 40th anniversary limited edition, 2 CD and DVD set, Strut

Quitate tu, 1971 :

Our Latin Thing trailer :

OK, it is a bit much to talk about punk music. It is probably more a marketing argument. But it is a kind of. Well, nothing bad in the sound played by “Mariachi El Bronx“, presented as the one who brings punk music to mariachi style. He founded his band five years ago from another band, The Bronx (which effectively makes punk music).

He has nothing Mexican but wanted to celebrate the new influences that each neighbour has on the other one, especially in California. Because The Bronx is not a band from New York, but from Los Angeles. Mariachi El Bronx released an album in August in the USA.

The bachata legends

I must confess that I am neither a fan nor a specialist of bachata. This style does not pass the curiosity and the exotism of new sounds to me and it bores me after 5 minutes. It is probably the destiny of each musical style when it becomes commercial: every producer wants to copy the standards of a success. And recent hits have certainly damaged the whole style.

Nevertheless, a compilation, Bachata legends, shows that bachata is not only the combination of languorous voices, honeyed lyrics and sensual dancing. It brings us on the way of what is now largely unknown, the origins of this Dominican style. Back to the 1960s when the style began to be popularized and called bachata, when the guitars were acoustic and when Juan Luis Guerra had not made bachata more acceptable to international standards. A very special period for bachata and for Dominican Republic in general as the rise of the style corresponds to the fall of dictator Trujillo.

Exporting classic bachata
The label iASO Records presents a few artists of this period, even if José Manuel Calderon, who is said to be the “inventor of bachata”, is not. The compilation focuses on great figures who have been bachata leaders for two or three decades: Ramon Cordero, Edilio Paredes, El Chivo Sin Ley, Augusto Santos and Leonardo Paniagua. It shows a very diverse genre, opened to influences and other styles. Lyrics are not such a caricature, even if a large majority deals with love, love and love (but not really sex, sex and sex !) And musicians are versatile and innovative.

The compilation is a part of an attempt to export classic bachata, as its audience has been almost limited to Dominican Republic, and show that the genre cannot be reduced to the world hit Obsesion (by Aventura)… Another CD called Bachata roja was released four years ago. And world tours are planned, with some of the artists of “Bachata legends”. What about rediscovering bachata?

The bachata legends
iASO Records
Listen to samples on iTunes