The release of La boca coincided with a renewed period of repression, disappearances and indiscriminate executions. The community portrayed in the film had clearly already suffered at the hands of the brutal insurgents, as highlighted by images of bodies and graffiti shown in the prologue sequence as well as by the fear on the faces of those villagers who survived. The subsequent narrative depiction of rape and slaughter of villagers by the soldiers sent to defend them thus emphasises the film’s apparent concern to underscore those officially sanctioned acts of violence, whether authorised by one renegade officer or by the authorities in Lima. Indeed, much of the controversy regarding portrayal of the military stems from the different character types representing different attitudes towards conflict and violence within the military itself, and more broadly from society at large.
Lieutenant Roca, for example, is the flawed father figure, a charismatic but fanatical leader. He is ruthless, authoritarian, and morally questionable, and represents the less humane approach to those innocents caught in the crossfire, prepared to deploy any means necessary to defeat subversion, even if that led to high death rates of innocent people. Roca’s status as official state representative is further reinforced by images of him saluting the national flag and leading the national anthem, seen framed by a long shot remote from the crowd and almost engulfed by the church building that itself forms an oppressive centrepiece to the village. However, instead of acting with honour, he uses excessive violence, with the single aim of enforcing a brutal policy of counter-subversion.
Spectator identification with Luna as a more humane character is encouraged by depicting him as the only soldier who attempts to make an emotional connection with members of the local community. Luna stands out, for example, by showing sympathy for his comrade Gallardo’s treatment of the young villager woman. Although he fails to speak out to support her, he later tries to make amends by appealing to Roca not to harm the villagers he has locked up after the raid on the wedding party. It is perhaps also significant that Luna is not involved in the second interrogation scene in the film, in which torture methods of an increasingly brutal nature are encouraged by Lieutenant Roca. A further sign of the tentative beginnings of a mutual bond of kinship comes when the villager who has acted as the regiment’s mountain guide begs Luna personally to save them, as if he recognises that this young man differs from his comrades in his attitude towards the community.
The emphasis on Luna’s experience as crucial to the film’s overall message is further emphasised by the manner in which Roca, already depicted as crazed, hysterical and out of control, chooses to regard Luna’s decision not to shoot as a sign of weakness and impotence – a crisis of masculinity. This emphasises the assumed dominance of a hard, brutal, violent form of masculinity, a machismo, that the film contests. Luna’s ability to commit to the struggle is questioned, and hence also his identity as soldier. He is imprisoned as a traitor, and the physical confinement he endures is aggravated by a growing realisation that his disgust at the escalating brutality marginalises him from the rest of the group.
By challenging Roca to Russian roulette, Luna forces his superior to relive the traumatic event that triggered the psychological breakdown that he has tried to repress by consignment to oblivion. Sneered at by his comrades for his apparent weakness, Luna thereby takes control of the situation and reasserts a different kind of moral and emotional authority. In so doing, he performs his own act of rebellion against the system of patriarchy, represented by Roca, which he had admired but which has failed and oppressed him. The Russian roulette game thus serves as a dramatic device that draws the two men to a similar level by forcing each of them to confront their own mortality at the same time and within the same space. By leading the challenge with determination, Luna proves to himself and to his comrades that he is capable of facing up to his fears. In contrast, close-ups of Roca’s face and hands reveal a trembling vulnerability beneath the surface of the tough image he prefers to project that is fundamental to his sense of self. As the ‘game’ progresses, Luna draws attention to his lack of respect for the lieutenant by addressing Roca using the informal ‘tú’ form, and ensures that the whole regiment observes the spectacle of Roca’s degradation. While the former thus reasserts his macho masculinity before the group, the latter suffers the loss of his in the most humiliating way. In order to triumph, Luna needs to resort to the tactics of violence, but then rewrites the rules by walking away.
The film’s reflective, critical approach provided an opportunity for discussion of issues that affected Peruvians in remote areas on a daily basis. Lombardi was criticised by some for creating an entertaining work in a classical style on issues of such intense and controversial concern that rejected the more overtly political aesthetics and philosophies of his ‘Third Cinema’ predecessors. Nevertheless, he was applauded by most for having placed a polemical fiction about contemporary Peruvian reality at the heart of public debate.
Sarah Barrow
Note
1. The anti-terrorism legislation, introduced in 1981 and enhanced twice in 1987, made it much easier for the government to imprison anyone suspected of promoting a point of view that was deemed to be sympathetic towards the Shining Path cause.
Cast and Crew:
[Country: Peru, Spain. Production Company: Tornasol Films, Inca Productions. Producers: Gerardo Herrero, Benito Lizarralde, Emilio Moscoso. Director: Francisco Lombardi. Screenwriters: Giovanno Pollarollo, Augusto Cabada, Gerardo Herrero. Cinematographer: José Luis López Linares. Editor: Juan San Mateo. Music: Bernardo Bonezzi. Cast: Gustavo Bueno (Lieutenant Iván Roca), Toño Vega (Vitín Luna), José Tejada (Galardo), Gilberto Torres (Sergeant Moncado), Berta Pagaza (Julia), Antero Sánchez (Lieutenant Basulto).]
Further Reading:
Ricardo Bedoya, Entre Fauces y Colmillos: Las Películas de Francisco Lombardi, Festival de Cine de Huesca, 1997.
Alberto Elena and Marina Díaz López, eds, The Cinema of Latin America, London, Wallflower, 2003.
Elizabeth Jelin, State Repression and the Struggle for Memory, London: Latin America Bureau, 2003.
John King, Magical Reels, London and New York, Verso, 2000.
Jeffrey Middents, Writing National Cinema: Film Journals and Film Culture in Peru, Lebanon, NH, University Press of New England, 2009.
Source Credits:
The Routledge Encyclopedia of Films, Edited by Sarah Barrow, Sabine Haenni and John White, first published in 2015.