Wednesday, March 04, 2009

marinera en san miguel

i like the dancers and overall context of this video-

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

mas sobre los comentarios que tildan de racista a Claudia Llosa

Es triste que siga existiendo tanto odio y que las personas se encierren en ideologias y pensamientos que solo motivan a crear mas odio...todos tenemos que poner nuestro granito de arena para cambiar esto y ante todo respetar la obra artistica de aquellos que tienen el coraje para crear sin mayor apoyo de nadie, y mucho menos del estado. El proceso creativo de todos los artistas Peruanos se debe de apoyar y no se debe censurar a travez de parametros falsos de lo que debe o no debe constituir una expresion artistica. Es obvio que dado a nuestra historia como pais exista un fuerte resentimiento racial y social, mas no se pueden usar tales experiencias como excusa para cometer los mismos actos en contra de otros. Si se exige respeto se debe dar respeto. Y tal como lo dice el resto se debe presenciar de manera directa la pelicula antes de llegar a cualquier conclusion. No por ser indigenas dejamos de ser complejos o nos convertimos en seres “perfectos,” no somos piezas de museo por lo contrario somos individuos como Magaly Solier con ganas de mostrar lo que somos y lo que podemos lograr- dejemos de apoyar a la anulacion de nuestra propia creatividad como individuos- porque eso llega a ser mas peligroso que cualquier imposicion "extranjera." Si Magaly Soler, que en numerosas entrevistas a demostrado ser una mujer excepcionalmente madura e inteligente decide no solo participar como parte del reparto pero mas que nada como ella misma explica "denunciar" por medio de su trabajo actoral las injusticias que ella percibio durante su ninez- no debe ser nuestro papel anular sus esfuerzos-con retoricas ideologicas situadas fuera de contexto- si no mas bien escuchar y actuar para verdaderamente cambiar los diversos problemas que existen en nuestro pais. Es cierto que tenemos la responsabilidad de denunciar el racismo en el Peru, pero mas que eso debemos buscar la manera de corregir este comportamiento- y poco a poco lo estamos logrando- pero inculcar el odio o el desprecio a cierta clase social o etnica no hace mas que incrementar y justificar al racismo. Muy personalmente agradezco que porfin se lleve a la pantalla grande a actores y actrices de origen realmente serrano que demuestran nuestro lenguaje, acento y nuestros manerismos -que son muy distintos a las de aquellos que crecen o nacen en Lima.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

reflexions on Claudia Llosa, La Teta Asustada and Madeinusa

Most of the criticism against La Teta Asustada (in Peru and by Peruvians) yields from Llosa's previous film Madeinusa. They perceive Llosa's portrayal of Andean life as racist and malicious, and condemn Llosa for depicting Andeans as savages and immoral beings. These critics are blinded by their own rethoric and prejudice and fail to see that Llosa is perhaps the only director who has taken the time to look at Andeans as something other than "pan flute bands" or stylized "folk dancers" or any other type of mocked cultural exports that must restrain themselves to concur with the mandated parameters of others. What both Llosa and Magaly Solier achieve is a more complete and complex portrait of Andean people and most specifically Andean women. They see Andean women as something more than brown women wearing braids (as was disappointingly the case with another Peruvian film set in the Andes: Paloma de Papel- where a Limena actress parades around the Andes with badly attached "braids" and a Lima accent)...Essentially I find the call for so called "political correctness"- to be an unwillingness to accept what was bound to happen in a country like Peru- where el Cono Norte and most importantly la Sierra are finally taking the places they deserve in society. Fortunately it seems that we are experiencing the beginning of the end of this paternalistic and hypocritical will to let things stay as they were for more than 500 years... Therefore what we have seen with Madeinusa and now again with La Teta Asustada is that this monumental change in Peru, as expected, is generating substantial discomfort...


"The debates around this new, non-national cinema have been most intense in the case of Madeinusa, a film praised outside the country but almost universally disdained by the intellectual elite within it. I argue, however, that there is no is no point lamenting the failure of Peruvianness, cinematic or otherwise. Such laments have defined the elite variant of (not) Peruvianness ever since the nineteenth century at least, but melancholy declarations of exasperation with Peru's multiple failures are no more than an inverted form of the snobbery, racism, and will to power of those who claim to condemn these same traits in others. Peru's newly exuberant subaltern cinema offers a way out, a line of flight, from such morose reflections on national identity on the part of a would-be hegemonic power whose project is now exhausted. " Jon Beasley-Murray