Fernando Solanas is a veteran documentarist and political activist who is now an Argentinian Senator. Along with Octavio Getino he wrote the statement that formulated the concept of Third Cinema in 1969. Fifty years later Solanos is still attempting to make films that demonstrate a different voice and a different argument in global cinema. This new film is a detailed and coherent attack on multinational agri-business and its rape of the Argentinian ecology. As a film it does have flaws but they don’t prevent the powerful message from being communicated.
I had expected a documentary using various non-conventional devices to make its argument, but formally this is quite conventional with Solanos and his crew moving around Argentina, starting in the far north around Salta. The footage that is captured is almost low-res and I wonder if some of it was pre-digital video. Even the higher-res footage seems de-saturated at times and the overall impression is of greens and greys. The strength of the film is the ways in which different aspects of the central problem are explored in detail and then brought into the overall argument.
In the beginning we see the felling of vast acreages of ‘centenarian forest’ and the burning of the stumps so that the land can be cleared for yet more soybean monoculture (Argentina is the third largest global producer of soybeans and a major exporter). The focus here is on several different but connected issues. The first of these is that the deforestation ignores the land rights of the local indigenous people the Wichí. Interviewed, one of the Wichí leaders says they have been living on the land for 200 years. As well as the large trees the bulldozers also uproot the smaller trees, one of which bears a fruit that is a major food source for the Wichí. Indigenous people seem to receive little support from local or national government in the face of actions by the large multinationals behind the deforestation. The film returns to the plight of indigenous people at the end of the film. The planting of soybeans is accompanied by heavy spraying of the crop with pesticides and fertilisers. Crops of various kinds are hybrid varieties and farmers are trapped by the large companies who are making profits, often benefiting from state-funded research into new seed varieties. Hybrid seeds cannot be saved for planting next year and farmers must buy new seed for each crop. Large bio-tech companies like Monsanto are going one-step further and genetically modifying cash crops to be able to withstand the toxins that kill insects. They have persuaded some governments that these GM seeds are produced by a unique process that can be patented so that the companies can charge even higher prices without fear of competition. (The same practice which operates in some pharmacy contexts – Monsanto is now owned by Bayer.) Monoculture also destroys jobs. Large acreages of a single crop are easily harvested by modern computer-controlled machinery. The groves of peaches that might have existed previously employed armies of pickers. Latin America has suffered heavily from the migration of the rural unemployed to already overcrowded cities.
The new monoculture has other bad consequences. The ecological change has forced out beekeepers and the crop is now at the mercy of global prices for soybeans (and the oil and flour extracted). Like all monocultures, moving away from traditional and largely organic methods requires more inputs of fertilisers and insecticides. These are all noted by Solanos and his team as well as the impact of spraying which is often carelessly done by aerial delivery that allows spray to drift over schools and villages. The documentary extends this investigation to show that the high levels of spraying (fumigados) have created a major problem of agri-toxins entering the water supply and being ingested by large groups of people. As well as visiting hospital wards, the team led by Solanas interview many local people, including teachers and parents of young children and claims are also made about the damage to various groups of workers in silos, nurseries and transportation.
Having established the range of problems with the monoculture, the alternatives are also explored – mixed farming and organic farming/horticulture – before returning to the plight of indigenous peoples. There is some comedy in these sequences which leavens the relentless presentation of the damage being done. Solanas is offered a glass of ‘chlorophyll juice’ (a smoothie of wheat grass) which he reluctantly accepts and swallows, putting on a brave face. There is also a strange contradiction in two of the statements we hear. On the one hand we are told that the agri-toxins from spraying and run-offs into the water supply are everywhere in Argentina and everyone tested has traces of them in their bloodstream and on the other we are told that Argentina has more certified organic growing land than anywhere else. Perhaps I misread the subs?
This film succeeds as a ‘social documentary’. It isn’t just about voiceover narration, facts and figures and talking head experts. Solanas and his crew travel to all parts and meet people and talk to them. Also important is the way the different issues are brought together. On the downside, I think some of the issues could be explained a little more clearly. I’m not sure what local audiences and other Latin American audiences will make of the film. From a European perspective and I should state, that of someone who has thirty years of practising organic horticulture, most of the issues in the film were familiar. What I learned was the detail of how indigenous people are once again marginalised and made almost invisible. The damage to eco-systems is a global problem (the palm oil plantations of South East Asia present some of the same issues) and it would seem to be that Argentina needs to strengthen regulation of agri-business practices to a considerable degree. It also makes me aware of the dangers facing the UK if we leave Europe and are pushed into trade deals without the same protection we have as part of the EU.
This documentary was followed by a discussion after its first screening at ¡Viva!. It would be interesting to know what was said. Below is a French trailer for the film and a snippet with English subs (which ends very abruptly):
The Case for Global Film 