HISPANIC ACTORS AND MOVIES - PART 1

Not having considered the complexities that a white non-Hispanic woman might encounter when discussing Latin films or performers, I blithely started writing this post and immediately found myself in trouble.  I know a lot about American movies and actors, but Hispanic entertainment hails from Spain, Mexico, Cuba, and various countries in Central and South America, places I am not familiar with.  Likewise, I had difficulty distinguishing which productions were of good quality and which were not.  It is often my practice to reference Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB because they provide audience ratings and pinpoint performers who have won recognition through the Academy Awards or Golden Globes.  Not knowing if these sites were representative of the foreign film industry, however, in the end I chose movies or actors that I knew something about.  

Although the Academy has nominated Latinos eleven times for either Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor, in actuality it has only recognized five men because it chose Jose’ Ferrer and Anthony Quinn three times each.  Along with favoring particular actors, the Academy also showed a preference regarding country of origin.  All the male nominees were born in Puerto Rico (Jose’ Ferrer and Benicio del Toro), Mexico (Anthony Quinn and Demian Bichir), or the United States (Andy Garcia).  Of the five men nominated, Mr. Ferrer was the only one to be awarded an Oscar for Best Actor (for Cyrano de Bergerac in 1950).  

Best Supporting Actor went to Anthony Quinn twice and Benicio del Toro received the third.  Mr. Quinn won his first Oscar for portraying the hard drinking Eufemio, brother of freedom fighter Emiliano Zapata (played by Marlon Brando) in the 1952 hit Viva Zapata!; his second was for the role of French painter Paul Gauguin in the 1956 Lust for Life, a biography about Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh.  Benicio del Toro won his award for portraying constable Javier Rodriguez in the 2000 best picture nominee, Traffic.  The last time a Latino was nominated for an Oscar was in 2003 when Mr. del Toro was again selected, this time for his role as Jack Jordan in 21 Grams.  People have criticized the Academy for only nominating twenty-six Black men for their work in forty-two movies (Denzel Washington, Will Smith, Morgan Freeman, Jamie Fox, and Sidney Poitier have been nominated multiple times), but the organization’s habit of ignoring Hispanic actors makes its treatment of Black males appear generous. 

Magical Realism

One element commonly seen is Latin stories is Magical Realism.   There are numerous discussions about this technique on the net, most commonly discussing the differences between magic and fantasy, but the most cogent definition that I found was on the Masterclass website.  It says that Magical Realism occurs in stories that take place in the real world, whereas Fantasy takes place in settings that only exist in the creators’ minds.  Magical Realism might use spectral beings, animals with unusual abilities, or emotions expressed tactilely either to make a story more intense or to attack political abuses.  Although this element has been used in movies from all over the globe, it is especially common in Latin American films, so be sure to look for it when you watch them.  For a more complete discussion on Magical Realism, consult: https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-magical-realism.

Because this post turned out to be unmanageably long, I broke it into two parts.  Part One concentrates on Hispanic men and includes discussions on Pablo Escobar: El Patron Del Mal (the Lord of Evil) and The Singer Not the Song.  The latter film, which is based in Mexico, is taken from a novel written by an English woman, and filmed in Spain.  Although it features few Hispanic actors, I included it because it reveals an interesting aspect of Mexican history.

Andrés Parra, Pablo Escobar: El Patron Del Mal, 2012-Colombia

I seldom discuss television shows on my blog, but I was so impressed by Andrés (pronounced Andre us) Parra’s performance that I wanted to include it.  Produced by Caracol TV in 2012, it was primarily filmed on location in Medellín, Colombia (Escobar’s hometown) using Colombian actors.   Due to it being shown in half hour increments, there were originally 115 episodes, but Netflix reduced the number to 74 by lengthening installments to fifty-some minutes each.  I became interested in the drug lord when I watched the first and second seasons of Netflix’s miniseries Narcos, but that production focused on law enforcement, particularly the United States DEA.  El Patron Del Mal, on the other hand, presented a detailed account of Escobar, himself from his youth as a petty criminal to his death at the hands of law enforcement the day after his forty-fourth birthday. 

To prepare for his role Parra obviously studied the drug lord’s mannerisms religiously because his speech patterns and body language match Escobar’s perfectly.  Judging by his appearance in The Great Heist, a series currently playing on Netflix, and El Presidente, which is on Amazon Prime, the actor has a rather small build.  Therefore, he also apparently gained weight during this series to reflect the increasing obesity that Escobar displayed over the two decades he was in charge of the Medellín Drug Cartel.  Señor Parra’s performance was so good, in fact, that he won Best Actor for both the Colombian Television Awards and the Premio Aces.  The show also was picked for being the Best Series of 2012. 

The series met with blow back from some Colombian viewers who thought it glorified the drug trade, but I thought it presented the story of an intelligent charismatic man who could have made great contributions to his country.  Instead, he became a megalomaniac that pursued crime as a vocation.  He personally murdered and robbed close allies, and even more damning, ordered the deaths, torture, bombings, kidnappings, and terrorization of state officials, politicians, judges, and many other Colombian citizens, including an incalculable number of innocent victims who got caught the crossfire.  Ironically, even though he inducted hundreds of their children into his illicit lifestyle, many of Medellín’s poorer citizens still consider him a hero.  He moved peasants out of the garbage dump into Barrio Pablo Escobar, a housing complex constructed specifically for them, built roads, installed city lighting, and supported the Catholic Church’s charity programs, along with many other things.  

Most documentaries about Escobar gloss over the brave men and women who opposed him despite the danger they faced for doing so.  In contrast, El Patron Del Mal dedicates hours to honoring them.  For example, as Escobar’s behavior became more and more erratic, the editor of the newspaper El espectador, Guillermo Cano (Germán Quintero), exposed the man’s outrageous activities; Colombia’s Minister of Justice Rodrigo Lara (Ernesto Benjumea) succeeded in getting Escobar ejected from public office by exposing his long history in the drug trade; and presidential hopeful Luis Carlos Galán (Nicolas Montero) made the extradition of cartel members to the Unites States for trial and incarceration a cornerstone of his political campaign.  The drug lord cautioned all three of these men not to oppose him and had all three murdered when they ignored his warnings.  One other aspect that I liked about the series was the soundtrack.  My favorite song is Yuri Buenaventura’s “El Guerro” (The Warrior) which plays throughout the scenes of Galán’s funeral.  You can listen to it on YouTube.  For an excellent overview of events surrounding Escobar’s reign of terror consult: https://core.ac.uk/reader/217051390.

Dirk Bogarde and John Mills, The Singer Not the Song, 1961-Spain? England? Mexico?

Although the exact date is never disclosed, this story (originally published as The Bandit and the Priest in the United States), takes place in the 1940s to 1950s during the era that the Mexican government’s attack on the Catholic Church is winding down.   Mexico’s anti-clericalism originally came to the forefront in 1821 when the colony won its independence from Spain and set about ending the church’s control while confiscating its wealth.  Over the next hundred years, laws restricting clerics were tightened until the constitution of 1917 forbade them to teach religious education, forced them to relinquish property, prohibited them from immigrating from other countries, outlawed them wearing vestments in public, denied them the ability to vote or hold office, and granted states the right to ban their presence.  As a result, the church lost its power, and many priests were either deported or killed. 

The plot focuses on the psychological war that develops between the bandit Anacleto (Dirk Bogarde) who grew up during Mexico’s reign of terror on the Catholic Church, and Father Keogh (John Mills) who recently immigrated from Ireland to replace the current priest, Father Gomez (Leslie French).  Upon his arrival, Father Keogh immediately demonstrates a strength of character that clearly poses a threat to Anacleto’s cruel control over the townspeople.  The bandit tries to get rid of the Father first through intimidation and later by having him assassinated, but something always goes wrong.  As a final ploy, he stoops to killing off the church’s congregants in alphabetical order to bend the priest to his will.   Ironically, in the process Anacleto develops a grudging admiration for the cleric, who he considers a uniquely honest man.  As a result, when his first in command Old Uncle (Laurence Naismith) attempts to do away with the priest, the bandit kills him.  To his consternation, the act gives the sheriff just cause to drive him and his crew out of town and forbid them to return.

A year later, the townspeople are free to do as they please, including going to church.  Locha (Mylene Demongeot), a lovely young woman who’s had Father Keogh’s back from the start, is now his close friend and ally.  However, there is a problem; she has secretly fallen in love with him, and he with her.  This becomes important when Anacleto returns claiming that he has turned over a new leaf, which he demonstrates by exchanging his black leather bandit outfit for the same clothing that the townspeople wear.  He asks for refuge and because of the unlikely friendship that the men had forged earlier, the priest agrees, even consenting to let him live in the rectory.   Unbeknownst to Father Keogh, however, when Anacleto isn’t hanging around the church pretending to be “good” he is in the countryside visiting with his gang.  He also spies on the interactions between Locha and the Father, collecting information he can use to his advantage.    Eventually, he tells Locha that he knows she is in love with the priest and that the priest is in love with her.  Thrilled to hear this, the young woman expresses her feelings to Father Keogh, only to be rebuffed.  Devastated, she retaliates by running away with Anacleto. 

Once he has Locha under his control, Anacleto resumes wearing black leather, goes to town for Father Keogh, and brings him back to the hideout.  After proving to the priest that the girl is fine, the bandit gets around to carrying out what he’s been planning all along.  He offers to let her go if the Father will tell the townspeople, whom he believes are drawn to the priest rather than to the church, that their faith is misplaced.  The bandit summarizes, “The singer is good, but the song is worthless.”  The priest readily agrees, but Anacleto forces him to prove it by expressing his carnal feelings for Locha with a passionate kiss.  Convinced he has made the cleric betray his vow of chastity, Anacleto lets them leave then gathers his gang and follows them back to town.  

When they arrive, however, he discovered the Father has broken his word and the sheriff shows up to arrest him.  A shootout erupts and soon the only gang member left alive is Anacleto.  When one of the policemen shoots him, Father Keogh rushes to his side to administer last rites.  Anacleto shoots the Father, mortally wounding him, and the two men die side by side as if to signify that the bandit’s war on religion is over, and the priest’s atonement for betraying his friend is death.

At the beginning of the movie, the stilted acting and “Mexicans” who speak with English accents is distracting, but once the action gets going none of that matters.  The plot, which delivers palpable relief when Anacleto is run out of town then causes a deep sense of dread when he returns, overrides the shortcomings.   Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the story is that all the “bad” men and “cowardly” townspeople are Hispanic, while the “good, brave” priest is Irish.  The most intriguing aspect, on the other hand, is the haunting title.  What does Anacleto mean when he states repeatedly that the singer matters, but the song does not?  Is he inferring that the people attend mass because of Father Keogh, who he describes as a genuinely good man, rather than their religious beliefs?  Anacleto clearly lacks understanding of how Christianity works as is demonstrated by his conviction that the priest’s feelings for Locha constitute a betrayal of his vows.  Resisting temptation is the cornerstone of faith, meaning that rather than sacrificing his life for his own salvation, in actuality Father Keogh does it to save the soul of his friend.

The Pablo Escobar miniseries, which scored a respectable 80% on Rotten Tomatoes and an 8.5 on IMDB, received exceptionally positive reviews.  I saw it on Netflix, but now it’s only available on Apple TV where each episode sells for $1.99. That means it will cost close to $150 to watch all 74 episodes, so you probably want to wait until it’s streaming elsewhere.  It is for sale on various websites, but the series is in Spanish and many versions do not have English subtitles.  From the reviews I read, people either loved The Singer Not the Song or hated it.  This resulted in an overall average on IMDB (6.4) and Rotten Tomatoes (66%) of barely better than average.  A preponderance of reviewers focused on the campy way homosexual actor Dirk Bogarde strutted around in his black leather pants and turned the dialog into homosexual innuendo.  

It seemed that the people who loved the production did so because it was a gay movie that was way ahead of its time.  Those who loathed it, however, hated everything about it.  As someone who has read the book, however, I interpreted the story as being about two men who were navigating parallel paths of good and evil.  My conclusion was that both characters were singers (as are we all), but what mattered was not only the songs they chose to sing, but the way they sang them.      

In a couple of weeks, I will post Part 2 which will be about Latinas.  That content will feature the films Volver which takes place in Spain and Like Water for Chocolate that occurs in Mexico.   Until then, you might look on the internet or check streaming services to find Hispanic movies that appeal to you.   Adios.