INFLUENCE OF THE ITALIAN NEOREALISM ON URUGUAYAN

CONTEMPORARY CINEMA
Adrin Singer

Italian Neo-realism (IN) has broadly and deeply influenced South American cinema. Its main
continental representative was the New Latin American Cinema (NLAC), mostly seen in the
Brazilian Cinema Novo and in the Argentinean Cine de la Liberacin (Liberation Cinema). It
was also very important in Cubas National Cinema and in the Mexican realist movement as well.
All of these movements worked in the late fifties and sixties, until the military coup detats of the
seventies.
Uruguayan cinema was deeply influenced by the NLAC and by IN. However, its
production was negligible because of its size and its lack of a national film industry (Handler 16,
King 97 and Martnez Carril 7). Just two directors, Mario Handler and Ugo Ulive, highlighted as
filmmakers with serious cinematic projects (King 98). Both adopted the doctrine established by
Solanas and Getino in their manifesto Towards a Third Cinema and by Rocha in his An
Esthetic of Hunger. The result were a small number of relevant NLAC films, such as Handlers
Carlos: cinerretrato de un caminante and Ulives Un vintn pal Judas.
After the years of Handler and Ulives movies, Uruguay lived under a military
dictatorship, during which no Uruguayan cinema was produced, except for government's
propaganda. It took the Uruguayan filmmakers (many of them exiled) almost a decade to recover
from the regime: the first movie, Beatriz Flores Silvas La casi verdadera historia de Pepita la
pistolera (Pepita The Gunwomans Almost True Story), appeared in 1993, eight years after
democracys restoration. From then, few films were made, in a sporadic frequency and most of
them were commercial and critic failures (Zapiola).
Following Zapiola, a more serious movement (not in the sense of an artistic movement
but in its more explicit meaning of kine) started with Flores Silvas En la puta vida (2001) and
especially with Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stolls 25 Watts (2001). They represent the

MA student at the Tel Aviv University.

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Adrian Singer

beginning of what seems to be a continuous movement towards a national production 1, which, it

is worth noting, reveals a specific Uruguayan reinterpretation of NLAC and IN.
My hypothesis for this paper is that the contemporary Uruguayan filmmakers take much
of the ideology and many of the elements of expression of IN and of the NLAC but they avoid
following a pure realism in which reality be showed as is. Zavattini says that
The role of the artist is not to angry or to excite the spectator through transpositions, but to make him
think (or even, if you want, to angry or to excite him) about things he and others do, that is to say, in the
reality as it exactly is. 2

If his idea, together with Bazins idea of neo-realism, means that mis-en-scene disappears
to expose the nude reality, then contemporary Uruguayan movies embed traditional categories
of spectacle within their realism. Thus contemporary Uruguayan filmmakers make modernist
movies, but they use neo-realisms ethic and esthetic to make social cinema. At a certain point,
what happens is what Balint Kovasc says about the influence of IN on modern cinema the use
of the stylistic surface of neorealism.3
In addition, some of these Uruguayan films even place some kind of reflexivity, thus
following the French Nouvelle Vague school. In fact, the Nouvelle Vague is strongly present in
this cinema, specifically in its search of esthetic innovation and in its inclusion of urban
bourgeoisie into their subjects. This general conception has many of the particularities of the
post-NLAC, such as recognizing the difficulties (and questioning the necessity) of resisting the
dominant American-European aesthetics. Taking distance from pure INs realism, Uruguayan
directors negotiate their own political and artistic visions in accordance with the commercial
demands of global film finance arrangements (like other Latin American filmmakers do 4).
Whats interesting in the Uruguayan case is that this situation is not only economic or political,
but also culturally singular - what Achgar calls pas petizo (dwarf country) 5, or the very
1

The term national production is relative and problematic here, since all of these Uruguayan movies are coproduced. In the European context, Thomas Elsaesser argues that movies with these characteristics are postnational movies (Elsaesser 82-84). However, these Uruguayan movies are presented, both to the festivals and to the
audience, as Uruguayan films. Because the purpose of this paper is not to discuss their national or post-national
character, we tentatively take them as Uruguayan films.
2

Zavattini (1954: 85), translated from Hebrew.

Balint Kovasc (2007: 255).

DLugo (2003: 103).
5
Achgar (1997: 13).
4

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particular Uruguayan culture of mediocrity and impotence. This cultural particularity links
especially with the resignation of the new movies to use a pure realism and especially to
provoke any social change, as opposed to the very basic intentions of IN and the NLAC.
Although there are many more, I have selected three films to centralize this analysis:
1.

Whisky

2.

Aparte

3.

The Popes Toilet

I have selected them because of their importance, not only academic but also commercial.
Whisky was far recognized abroad and was seen by 61.777 (Control Z Films), a relatively high
number in Uruguayan terms for national productions. Aparte was seen in Uruguay by more
people than The Matrix by the last week of July 2003 (Oxandabarat) and The Popes Toilet,
a new film, has received approximately 20 prizes abroad and more than 80.000 viewers in
Uruguay (El Espectador). Thus, these three films clearly provide and represent what Zapiola
identifies as the continuity of the new national production, that is, a little greater presence of
national cinema on the screens.
Another critical reason why I selected these films is that, despite the differences between
them, they have a very strong connection with IN and NLAC. In this respect, however, their
cinematic subject is not only the working class but also the urban bourgeoisie and marginal
people. This makes a trio in which most of Uruguays people are represented.
In addition and most importantly, these three films show -each of them by its way- the
particularities of pas petizo, as we will see.

Analysis of the films

Despite being deeply influenced by IN, contemporary Uruguayan realist movies are very distant
from the Italian movement. That distance is both diachronic and synchronous: synchronous
because while IN was born in Europe in the context of an American-Eurocentric world,
Uruguayan cinema is made in the periphery of the Latin American periphery, also in the context
of an American-Eurocentric world. In diachronic terms, IN was born in the beginnings of the
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Cold War, while contemporary Uruguayan films were made long after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The geo-political realities and the ideological times are very different. In our attempt to analyze
contemporary Uruguayan realist cinema influenced by IN, sometimes it is more accurate to
establish a dialogue with the NLAC. We could say that IN influence on contemporary Uruguayan
movies is usually mediated by the NLAC.
This being made clear, lets move forward. Uruguay is a country that was curiously called
South Americas Switzerland. This is because of its supposed relatively better social conditions
in comparison with other countries of the continent. Some historians have made an effort to
demystify this idea6, however, the intellectual establishment built the concept of the Uruguayan
exceptionality7, and most of the society continued to perceive itself as the South Americas
Switzerland. Notwithstanding that, Uruguay has gradually lost almost all of those conditions
and, in a lesser extent, some of its auto-perceptions since the end of the Second World War, the
last international event that gave the country the opportunity to accumulate wealth through
massive meat exports.8
This long and gradual process of degradation accelerated in the last two decades of the
twentieth century, with the application of the neoliberal economic model. Its consequences were
an increase in unemployment, infantilization of poorness and a rise in the number of
Uruguayan people living in critical conditions. In addition, violence and crime rose, especially
since the second half of the 90s9. Cantegriles (slums) have grown exponentially, especially in
the periphery of the capital, Montevideo. The more uneven the wealth is distributed, the more
the cantegriles grow in number and in population10. Moreover, the precarious conditions of life
within the cantegriles have worsened in the last years (idem).
Italian Neorealism came after the big crisis of the WWII and it dealt with the hard living
conditions of the Italian population. Zavattini claimed that Italian cinema had to be a reflection of
the Italian people, and not only to show but also to analyze and portray the reality 11. Thus IN
made an effort to expose the suffering of the people in a time of crisis, and its main directors
(Rosellini, De Sica, Visconti) wanted to trigger a change in society through their films. In
6

See, as an example, Demasi (2004).

Frega, Chap. 10.
8
Ruiz (2007)
9
Departamento de Historia del Uruguay (2007: 238)
10
Porrini Beracochea (2007: 275)
11
Zavattini (idem: 87)
7

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Uruguay we can see that there is an incompatibility between the historic moment and the
cinematic times. The country indeed saw worsening conditions in the fifties and sixties and then
Handler and Ulives movies appeared. They sought the same as IN directors and other Latin
American filmmakers: to insert themselves into the social and political spheres, they consciously
assumed their role as initiators of change12. But the social situation in Uruguay was much more
critical 40 years later, however, we dont see that kind of attitude in contemporary filmmakers13.
Why? There are many reasons.
After the euphoric period of Third World cinema [of which the NLAC was part], the
early manifestoes were critiqued, positions were modified and updated, while cinematic praxis
evolved in myriad directions, say Shohat and Stam14. In fact, many contemporary directors are
critical of the NLAC filmmakers attitude. When asked if they would do more compromised
cinema, Rebella answered:
The compromised cinema, especially the Latin American one, usually is pamphleteering. In general, this
bothers to my generation: we are tired of all the movies being about the dictatorship. I am against
dictatorship and I am a leftist; but as it bothers me that in [Eduardo] Galeano there is first the message
and then the narrative issue, the compromised cinema bothers me. It is a cinema that tries to affect
emotions linked to a historical context, which is a cheap trick to arrive to an emotion that the History
does not have for itself. Thats the Latin American cinema for export, helped by European institutions
that try to clean their guilt of 500 years of colonization. (Blanco 3)

And his friend Stoll answered: My compromise is with cinema [] To send messages I
use the mail15. (This last sentence refers to a quote that Mellen attributes to Hemingway: If
youve got a message, send a telegram).16
Shohat and Stam add more reasons,
A combination of IMF pressure, cooptation, and low-intensity warfare obliged even socialist regimes to
collaborate with transnational capitalism. Some regimes grew repressive toward those who wanted to go
beyond a purely nationalist revolution to restructure class, gender, region, and ethnic relations. As a result
of external pressures and internal self-questioning, the cinema too gave expression to these mutations, as
the anti-colonial thrust of earlier films gradually gave way to more diversified themes. This is not to say
that artists and intellectuals became less political, only that cultural and political critique took new and
12

Pick (1997: 303)

With the relative exception of Handlers Aparte.
14
Shohat & Stam (1994: 249)
15
Blanco (2004: 3)
16
Mellen (1975: 67)
13

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different forms. [] the films of the 1980s and 1990s use the camera less as a revolutionary weapon than
as a monitor of the gendered and sexualized realms of the personal and the domestic, seen as integral but
repressed aspects of collective history. The post-Third Worldist films of the 1980s and 1990s display a
certain skepticism toward meta-narratives of liberation, but do not necessarily abandon the notion that
emancipation is worth fighting for17

I think Rebella and Stoll, and partially Shohat and Stam answer the question asked above.
The analyzed movies in this paper take IN and NLAC influences but they are modernist films.
They display a certain skepticism toward meta-narratives of liberation, but do not necessarily
abandon the notion that emancipation is worth fighting for. So where do we see their similarities
and differences with IN and NLAC? Besides the obvious connection of The Popes with
Bicycle Thieves on the bycicle issue, we can recognize many elements of what Zavattini claims
to be IN on these films:

Low budget

Location settings. Especially in Aparte and The Popes Toilet, where, similarly to IN
films, the landscape acts as another character. In Aparte we see the omnipresence of the
garbage surrounding the characters everywhere. In The Popes we see the reference
to the gauchos pictorial tradition (5.05) and the emptiness of the country as a metaphor
for the characters economic scantiness. The poetic-realist scene of Beto and Valvulinas
riding to Brazil (22.05), shows the contradiction between the beauty and fertility of the
Uruguayan and Brazilian countryside and the hard conditions they live in they must ride
120 daily kilometers to earn a wage.

Non professional actors. This happens only in Aparte, a documentary where the
characters are just present (as Zavattini claimed, 93), and in The Popes, where most
of the actors are non professionals but locals.

Small stories (as Chabrol claimed, 96-99)

Natural light (with exceptions in the three films)

Films that try to be a reflection of the country, showing the other Uruguay, especially in
Aparte and The Popes.

17

Shohat and Stam (idem: 287)

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The use of long shots and deep focus, although they are closer to the French school and
they use edition to obtain more modernist movies. An outstanding long shot is the
gnrique of Whisky - four minutes only cut by the names of the crew plaques.

Improvisation. For The Popes, Virginia Mndez (Carmen) read the script one day
before the shooting not to highlight the non-professional actors (Ranzani). Aparte has
no previous detailed script. Whisky is an opposite exception in this case, since,
everything looks highly rehearsed.
However, these films introduce elements that differ from IN and put them closer to the

French school (and, in some cases, with De Sicas movies):

Individual heroes

Dramatic and melodramatic narratives (even in Aparte: see, for example, Carinas
letter-romance final scene)

The use of cinematic apparatus to generate identification with the protagonists, like point
of view and close-ups

Psychological penetration. They are turning away from the epic toward the chronicle, a
record of a time in which no spectacular events occur but in which the extraordinary
nature of the everyday is allowed to surface [] a shift from exteriority to
interiority18. In Aparte, Handler shot Nenos fellows in their cell (46.29), giving
tracks of their thoughts and feelings. In Whisky, the reference to the inner life of the
characters is the very basic idea of the whole film. All the shots are shot with static
camera, thus transmitting the petrified situation of the characters. In The Popes, an
example can be found at the moment when Beto has his great idea (29.50) the camera
takes his point of view, then portraits him in a close up and then the music begins.
Other means of expression take an even longer distance from IN:

Psychological complexity of the characters. Both Aparte (40.30) and The Popes
(42.55) contain scenes of domestic violence. The films take distance from the NLACs
romantic idea of the of the good poor. In Whisky, the whole story is built on the
complexity of the inner worlds of the characters. The moment Jacobo shouts at the referee

18

Rich (1997: 28)

42

Adrian Singer

(44.25) is a moment of catharsis that, as opposed to the rest of the film, lets us see in an
explicit way what happens inside him (in the rest of the movie we see the contained inner
world through implicit gestures).

The use of the means of expression that IN rejects and the presence of light cinematic
reflexivity:
In The Popes, an important sequence for this is when Beto dreams he is on a

motorbike (53.40) the light changes and the music plays. Another important sequence is the
failure scene (1.25.20), when the color turns to almost black and white and music plays all of
this tends to maximize the feelings of the viewer. Finally, when Beto throws the bottle of wine at
the TV (1.28.50), in slow motion and special sound effects also work to enhance the feelings of
the viewer. In this scene we also see a critique of the media. It is not cinema, its television, but
we can see some kind of reflexivity when we think of the power of the audiovisual product to
influence people, for good and for bad.
In Whisky we dont see so many means of expression in the mis-en-scene as in The
Popes, but we do see them in the development of the narrative. We see twice cinema inside
cinema (14.19 and 49). Beyond describing the personality of the characters, this discusses the
function of cinema in society. Marta the exploited worker goes to the cinema after work as a
means of escapism, but as the story develops we see the dreamer side of her personality,
something Jacobo and Herman lack. She needs to imagine a different reality, while materialist
Herman and disenchanted Jacobo are uninterested in another reality. Above all, the very insertion
of cinema inside the movie is an element that leads the spectator to be aware of the presence of
the medium, to think about his own position as a viewer and about cinema.
Aparte may be the most interesting case in highlighting the presence of the cinema
apparatus. On the one side, it is very loyal to NLAC theory, which claims to make documentaries
about the social realities in the Latin American countries, and to use the camera as a weapon for
social change. On the other hand, Handler tries to remind us throughout the movie that we are
seeing a film. To express this he frames the screen in a black frame (13.37); in other shots he uses
a fish eye lens to distort the image (5.12) (in addition, by enhancing the presence of the camera,
he gives us the feeling to be watching the characters through a security camera, as if they were in
prison); and he also uses slow motion (12.37). In the latter scene we see Handler on screen
43

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shooting with another camera. But the climax of reflexivity comes when we see a scene shot by
Fabin, Carinas boyfriend. In this scene, Handler unifies his wish to literally give his characters
the possibility to tell their own stories by themselves and his wish to remind us of the presence of
the camera (Carina reminds Fabin that he is wasting the cameras battery).
From my point of view, the main gap between pure neo-realism (especially that of the
NLAC) and what these films do is in the fact that these movies, by using reflexivity and
renouncing to the rudeness of the Italian neorealist camera, limit their own function in society.
They seem to say us although we show a hard reality, we do not intend to change it. The
cameras are guns no more.
This shows the general changes Shohat and Stam highlight. Also, at a certain point it
reflects a slow process where stylistic and narrative principles of neorealism were gradually
emptied of their social contents to become mere surface effects ready to absorb and express
different intellectual contexts other than the political19
In addition, it also reflects a specific reality in Uruguayan cinema and in Uruguayan
society and this is the point I would like to highlight on the particularity of contemporary
Uruguayan movies. IN and NLAC were based on national industries (production and
distribution) and aspired to accomplish the specificity of the cinema medium as a mass media that
gets to the people, they wanted to conquer the mainstream and in many cases they indeed
succeeded. Since a national cinema industry does not exist in Uruguay, its chances to reach the
big public are slim; that means that the chances of ideological influence on the masses are also
very low20. As in other Third World countries 21, Hollywood and the European cinema industry
are still dominant in Uruguay22. A sense of impotence generated as a result of this situation (the
obligation to make small films for small audiences in the periphery) is expressed in the
analyzed films. When Beto throws a wine bottle at the TV (an already commented scene of The
Popes), he is not only making catharsis but could also be seen as a metaphor for the
impotence against the hegemonic mass media that is, impotence against Hollywood and
European cinema.
19

Blint Kovsc (idem: 255)

I am ignoring now the debates and critics from the Cultural Studies about the possibility of ideological
penetration of the mass media. I am focusing on the IN and NLAC mentality.
21
Shohat and Stam (idem: 56)
22
Chanan (1997: 196)
20

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Another way of expression of this impotence is Handlers avoidance to insert a voiceover

in Aparte, differing from Fernando Birris Tire di (1960) and Fernando Solanass Memoria
del saqueo (2004). Both films are very similar to Aparte in their intentions to describe poverty
and marginality (especially Tire di), but they have pedagogic intentions that Aparte lacks.
This vacuum of pedagogical intentions reveals an esthetic and a moral decision (to give the
characters the voice usually society denies them) but it also expresses an intention to limit the
intentions of the film, as exampled before.
Whisky presents more difficulties in finding a filmic expression of impotence against
the hegemony, however, that sensation is in the spirit of the movie and it is particularly felt in
Martas wishes and her acknowledge of a disappointing reality in which power abuses her. For
example, when Jacobo asks her accompanying him (11.50), he hides behind the wall,
surprising Marta on her back. He stays in the dark side while Marta stays in the light side, and
this mis-en-scene emphasizes his obscure intentions (abuse of power) and her vulnerability and
the impossibility for her to say no, on the other hand. Martas oppressed and repressed self
expression returns again and again throughout the movie when she tries to say something to
Jacobo, he does not pay attention to her or he changes the subject; when she laughs at a joke
Herman made, Jacobo implicitly mutes her (47.35).
This does not mean that the directors explicitly wanted to discuss impotence and its
connection to the lack of a national cinema industry, however, impotence is present in their films.
Impotence and resignation are main characteristics in Uruguayan culture, and they are also
expressed through its cinema.
Uruguay is a very small country with just three million people situated between the two
biggest countries in South America: Argentina and Brazil. Due to Uruguays distance from the
Euro-centric center and its confinement between the two regional powers, it has developed a
special culture. I refer to what Achgar defines as pas petizo, a concept that helps us to explain
this aspect of impotence and resignation revealed in the analyzed movies. Pas petizo is a state
of mind, a mentality23. It means that it is not just a small country, but a country that sees itself as
destined to be insignificant, and that vision designs its internal culture:
[...] Our condition of being a border nation doesnt seem to abandon us. The small border from where we
have seen and we still see the world and in which we look at our navel, has constituted us. In 1934, the poet
23

Achgar (idem: 18)

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and philosopher Emilio Oribe said: I am convinced more and more that our country is a product of
random History [] Our material destiny will consist in being a more and more insignificant country
while the economic potential of the countries that surround us will grow in time. The immeasurable
quantities of material and spiritual possibilities Brasil and Argentina have are unpredictable. However,
without Intelligence as its essential characteristic, our issue will always be small, miserable and limited.
Rousseau used to talk about the inadequate cultures: for example, to try to develop the culture of a big
nation in a small nation. Our nation being a small nation, its a horrible mistake wanting to implant here a
culture according to the rhythm of the big nations.24

In this nation that sees itself as so insignificant and so unable to act,

The distinction and the good taste [] have been advising that a good behavior means not to distinguish
oneself, not to attract attention. Because we are a middle class country, everything that means to highlight
must be forgotten. Because we are all equal, people should show/remember neither success nor failure,
neither discreditable past nor successful present. This behavior has been called or characterized as the
mediocracy model of the Uruguayan society.25

It is this mediocracy model that leads to very strong social control. A social control that
punishes Beto in The Popes after he gets drunk and all his fellow villagers realize it (27.55).
The mediocracy model also shows an industrialist like Jacobo (Whisky) sunk in his
routine and totally uninterested in the very basic ambition of every capitalist to modernize his
tools of production in order to earn more money. Jacobo factorys decadence works as a
metonymy of the decadence of Uruguayan society, where everything works with the minimum
conditions and in the lowest possible intensity.26 A society that doesnt want to move backwards
but also, and mainly, doesnt want to move forwards. In the words of the Historian Caetano, there
is an integrator imaginary that claims the reformist way that superimposes itself over the
antinomy conservation-revolution (Cateano 86). It is an imaginary of social integration that
Apartes characters break (Aparte means aside) thus generating a big controversy in a
society that didnt want to see its worst consequences27.
24

Ibdem, p.23
Ibdem, p.20
26
We could also take the conditions of his factory as a metaphor of the state of the national cinema: an artisanal
cinema that rejects going to an industrial model. Stoll, one of the directors of Whisky, says: The idea is to live from
cinema, but the day I cant, Ill do advertising and other things, and I will do cinema when I can (Blanco 3).
27
Handler was hardly criticized in the media for shooting and showing minors in prison, thus stigmatizing them.
For this reason he was called by the justice, but freed. He was criticized also for giving money to the children, who
used it for buying many things, including drugs. For the scene of the child cutting his own arm, the child demanded
money from Handler, and after a few tries not to accept, he finally accepted the deal. However, no one said that what
was seen in the screen was untrue (Oxandabarat).
25

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Adrian Singer

As in IN, the analyzed films are pessimistic. However, their pessimism does not lead to
the push for change. When IN was born its History played out in Europe, as demonstrated by the
recent WWII. Uruguayans see themselves as citizens of a country in the margin of History. In the
films we can see the expression of the impotence of showing something without the hope of
changing anything. As said before, by reflexivity Uruguayan filmmakers make explicit this lack
of ambitions and this feeling of impossibility for change. In Achgars explanation of this
hopelessness we can find the difference between Italian pessimism and Uruguayan pessimism:
The point here is not a tragic or operatic hopelessness, but a grey, mediocre, of middle class
hopelessness, which does not emerge from a catastrophe but from the wear that the economic
crisis, the dictatorship and the lack of a dynamic project have produced in the dreams of the
average citizen28.
I see Beto as a modern Sisyphus. In symbolic terms, he wont die, but he will pay a high
price for his willingness to progress and to be different, something viewed as exotic and
dangerous in Uruguayan society. He and Uruguayan society- do not earn the right to be the
privileged Asiatic periphery of the world

29

nor a place where you can see typical South

American tragedies. In Cidade de Deus, for example, or in the last movies of Pino Solanas, the
viewer can see the oppressed people playing everything or nothing, they win the privilege to
live or die (mostly die). The Popes, however, expresses the long agony of Uruguayan
society and its individuals, a suffering that does not have relief even in death.
This fact is also clear in Whisky, where the static camera emphasizes the stagnation of
Uruguay. If IN was a movement related to History, these Uruguayan films seem to be above
History, or aside History no matter what happens, we will remain unchanged. Even Aparte,
which shows a relatively new phenomenon in Uruguayan society (the expansion of marginal
life), shows it from the perspective of what social researchers call an endemic problem of the
country, with no possibility for revolutionary redemption. As said before, Handler renounces to
pedagogical ambitions.

28
29

Achgar, Ibdem, p.42

Ibdem, p.43

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Adrian Singer

Conclusions
Through the analysis of these three movies I have tried to show how IN has influenced
Uruguayan contemporary cinema, and how Uruguayan filmmakers use the neorealistic tools to
express some particularities of Uruguayan culture. They do it both through affirmation of those
tools and through rejection.
As seen, some things that could be specificities are part of more general situations. Reuse of neorealism started in Europe immediately after the fall of the movement, as
demonstrated by Blint-Kovsc. The new filmmakers brought their needs and the needs of their
societies, and then neorealism took new forms, new meanings and new targets. In Latin America,
post-NLAC also assumed the task of taking the old NLAC and to make something new of it. The
changes in the world and in the Latin American societies are expressed through these new means
of expression. There are new subjects, new narratives and new uses of the mis-en-scene;
redefinition of targets and strategies and, above all, redefinition of the roll of the cinema in
society. In the analyzed movies, cinema cannot show us more than a situation. The camera is a
gun no more. This doesnt mean that the social situation is better than in the sixties (in many
cases it is even worse), but international changes and the shock of dictatorships seem to have had
effects. We cannot talk about a militant cinema in terms of the NLAC theorists, but rather of a
cinema that exposes a situation and stops there. To some extent, I agree with Rebella that it is
cinema for export.
Uruguay is part of these general changes. It shares with other Latin American movies the
kind of influence of IN of the present day. Mainstream cinema tools are used and IN avoidance
of cinematic transformations is not present almost anymore. This is something that Shohat and
Stam discuss and we can see in Meirelles films and Solanas last films. Of course this happens in
the analyzed films too, as seen in the development chapter.
However, these Uruguayan films have also their particular side. It is my impression and
I have tried to demonstrate it in the analysis- that they succeed in expressing the interesting point
of the pas petizo. These feelings of impotence, inferiority, grey routine, tango-like melancholy,
and lack of hope, are expressed in the films. Achgar demanded a consideration of the model of

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dwarf country in its cultural production, both in its industrial aspect and in its symbolic one30. I
have tried to respond to Achgars claim and I have tried to contribute a little bit to this thought.
These feelings of dwarf, together with the changes indicated by Shohat and Stam, have
influenced the means of expression of the cinema. As opposed to IN, Uruguayan filmmakers do
not try to avoid or eliminate the transformations of the medium. These transformations are not
always hidden and in some cases they are even highlighted. As said before, Uruguayan
filmmakers do not seek to change society through their films, but they limit their intentions. Did
the movies of the NLAC change social reality in Latin America, as NLAC filmmakers had
hoped? The reality of the continent suggests that the answer is no, and that answer is true for
Uruguay as well. Certainly, the camera is not a gun as effective as directors thought in the sixties.
Now, the question they ask is, what is the function of cinema in the new Latin American reality?
In Uruguay, an impoverished, tiny, peripheral and border country bounded by the two regional
powers, what is the function of cinema today?

30

Ibdem, p.10

49

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