{"id":15461,"date":"2024-11-01T20:55:44","date_gmt":"2024-11-01T20:55:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/?p=15461"},"modified":"2024-11-01T21:14:33","modified_gmt":"2024-11-01T21:14:33","slug":"the-uncanny-case-of-reportaje-magazine-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/en\/notas\/the-uncanny-case-of-reportaje-magazine-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"The Uncanny Case of Reportaje MAGAZINE 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"15461\" class=\"elementor elementor-15461\" data-elementor-post-type=\"post\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-69cec2e e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"69cec2e\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-94744fa elementor-widget elementor-widget-spacer\" data-id=\"94744fa\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"spacer.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-spacer\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-spacer-inner\"><\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-21f4b9b e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"21f4b9b\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-e783315 elementor-widget__width-inherit elementor-widget elementor-widget-heading\" data-id=\"e783315\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"heading.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<h2 class=\"elementor-heading-title elementor-size-default\">The Uncanny Case of Reportaje: Historiography and the Politics of Doubt in the films of Nicol\u00e1s Guill\u00e9n Landri\u00e1n\n<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-cb35a2f e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"cb35a2f\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-042be22 elementor-widget__width-inherit elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"042be22\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By Ruth Goldberg<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-e8db727 e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"e8db727\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-1f6c400 elementor-widget__width-initial elementor-widget elementor-widget-image\" data-id=\"1f6c400\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"image.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<figure class=\"wp-caption\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"574\" src=\"https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/IMAGEN-1024x574.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-image-15460\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/IMAGEN-1024x574.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/IMAGEN-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/IMAGEN-768x430.jpg 768w, https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/IMAGEN-1536x860.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/IMAGEN-2048x1147.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/IMAGEN-18x10.jpg 18w, https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/elementor\/thumbs\/IMAGEN-scaled-qwfmm6dhg9odqb56hsir6rg2vrpr0qws6uqlytfyfk.jpg 754w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<figcaption class=\"widget-image-caption wp-caption-text\"><\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-edd3d1b e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"edd3d1b\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-cc6d179 elementor-widget elementor-widget-spacer\" data-id=\"cc6d179\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"spacer.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-spacer\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-spacer-inner\"><\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-ef3c000 e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"ef3c000\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-ca846bb elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"ca846bb\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Twelve years after his death and resurrection, Nicol\u00e1s Guill\u00e9n Landri\u00e1n is now recognized as a vital innovator in the history of Cuban cinema; inspiring an outpouring of homage among the younger Cuban documentarians who have reclaimed his legacy. The claim that \u201cAlvarez, who knows everything, teaches; Nicolasito, who doubts, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">reveals<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d (Zayas qtd. in Guerra 342) has been an often-repeated and vitally important framing of Landri\u00e1n\u2019s body of work to these filmmakers who Dean Luis Reyes and others have recognized as \u201clos hijos de Landri\u00e5n.\u201d Many of them echo similar valorizations along a central theme: \u201che lets us see for ourselves instead of teaching us what to think\u201d (Barriga interview with the author, 2013). The larger implicit claim at stake is that Landri\u00e1n documents and reveals a previously untold truth in contradicting the official triumphalist narrative of the era. This framing of Landri\u00e1n\u2019s work as a revelation of truth that allows the viewer to draw their own conclusions is a central element of his canonization.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">Framings like these have a great deal to teach us about <\/span><i style=\"font-weight: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">how<\/i><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\"> Landri\u00e1n\u2019s work matters and is taken up in the present, and point towards important future investigations into ideologies of reception and retrospection. His work is imbricated in and inextricable from the definition and policing of the words \u201crevolutionary\u201d and \u201cdissident,\u201d and from the larger struggles over representation of the Revolution that haunt the historiography of Cuban documentary film.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The Uncanny Case of <\/b><b><i>Reportaje<\/i><\/b><\/p><p><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">There are examples to support Zayas\u2019 framing of the distinction between Alvarez-as-panfletero and Landri\u00e1n-as-oracle, and there is also (at least) one case that resists this categorization. In <\/span><i style=\"font-weight: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">Reportaje (1966<\/i><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">, also known as <\/span><i style=\"font-weight: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">Plenaria Campesina<\/i><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">) his most didactic and cynical film, Landri\u00e1n <\/span><i style=\"font-weight: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">does<\/i><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\"> teach from a position of knowing, and in a radically innovative way that deserves our close attention: applying the disjunctive techniques of Surrealism to the task.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">In satirizing the official documentaries of the period that Lillian Guerra (Guerra 340)&nbsp; has described as the \u201chyper-real\u201d representation of the Cuban Revolution, <\/span><i style=\"font-weight: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">Reportaje<\/i><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\"> \u2013 itself a masterwork of constructed visual rhetoric \u2013 heartily embraces the rhetorical methods it proposes to critique, leading the viewer into a dizzying labyrinth of questions about subjectivity and political filmmaking, and disturbing our understanding of the documentary form.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">Here, Landri\u00e1n harnesses the seductive power of orchestration in the documentary context, inserting provocative staged enactments, unsettling asynchronies between sound and image, thematic music, slow motion and Foley sound effects into an allegedly simple \u201creportaje.\u201d Even as it revels in its own ironic subjectivity and constructed-ness, however, at first glance <\/span><i style=\"font-weight: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">Reportaje<\/i><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\"> also presents a convincing realism; forcing the viewer to tread carefully in examining its truth claims, as the film systematically undermines any certainty about the historical record as recorded by ICAIC or the documentary form itself.&nbsp; The claims for Landri\u00e1n as a filmmaker who refuses to fix the meanings of his films in the ways typically associated with propaganda films may inadvertently do the filmmaker a disservice in this case, because <\/span><i style=\"font-weight: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">Reportaje<\/i><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">, which, on the surface, looks like his simplest effort, turns out, on closer scrutiny to be one of his most impressive, persuasive and formally complex orchestrations.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">One of the most effectively destabilizing aspects of the artist\u2019s orchestrated vision of these events, however, is that Landri\u00e1n also problematizes the question of whether any of his <\/span><i style=\"font-weight: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">own<\/i><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\"> film is \u201ctrue\u201d in the way that has been claimed, in drawing our attention to the audiovisual constructions he uses to ensure that the viewer sees only what he sees. For all of its artistic beauty, reflexive experimentation and poetic elegance, the more he tampers with the sound and sequencing of the original footage in the service of imposing a single perspective, the more Landri\u00e1n gleefully appropriates and subverts the traditional techniques and methods of the propaganda film.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>A Note on Documentary and Strategies of Representation:<\/b><\/p><p><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">While we may understand that documentary, as a genre, is a complex negotiation between filmmaker and reality, the truth claim is still at the heart of most documentary work: i.e., that an unmediated truth has been captured because unscripted materials were observed happening in nature- and thus, the text built out of them is truthful as well (Godmilow qtd in Shapiro, 90). Beyond producing a description of the events, however, documentarians also have the rare opportunity to engage the audience in considering the politics and \u201cideological constructions that are buried in representations of history &#8211; constructions as basic and enduring as the oppositions good\/evil, normal\/abnormal, and the big one, us\/them\u201d (Godmilow qtd in Shapiro, 91).<\/span><\/p><p><i style=\"font-weight: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">Reportaje<\/i><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\"> builds its passionate argument on a complex framing of the dichotomy between \u201cus\u201d and \u201cthem,\u201d by creating a layered, polarizing tension between binary opposites. Landrian represents the us\/them binary as \u201cus,\u201d (the campesinos, with whom the viewer is directed to identify), and \u201cthem\u201d (the revolution, which the filmmaker represents as an external imposition). The us\/them dichotomy is further developed in the sharp contrast Landri\u00e1n draws between \u201cofficial\u201d culture (for him, a menace) and what he sees as an \u201cauthentic\u201d rural culture.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">In the form of the film itself, Landrian charges the tension between the constructed \u201cus\u201d and the constructed \u201cthem\u201d in the discontinuity between sound and image that Marcel Beltr\u00e1n has described as a masterful \u201csemantic game between what is seen and what is heard\u201d (Qtd in Valladares) which I will examine here in detail.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">Landri\u00e1n\u2019s uses of discontinuity and asynchrony come directly from the Surrealist documentary tradition (Reyes) of appropriating the themes and disjunctive methods of the dream world to explore taboo subjects. Indeed, more than anything else, Landri\u00e1n\u2019s films function as the unconscious of Cuban cinema, in much the same way that our own dreams give us the opportunity to know aspects of ourselves that might normally remain hidden. It is fitting, then, that in this Surrealist documentary homage, Landri\u00e1n\u2019s principle strategy is one that psychoanalysis attributes to the dream work: the \u201csplitting\u201d of objects and affects into good objects of affection and bad objects of hostility; using thematic music and the entire range of tools of audiovisual communication to achieve his goals. These techniques deserve a closer look.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;<\/span><b style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">El muerto delante y la griter\u00eda atr\u00e1s<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>&nbsp;<\/b><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">The third film to utilize footage that Landrian shot in Oriente in 1965, <\/span><i style=\"font-weight: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">Reportaje<\/i><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\"> documents a revolutionary rite performed out in the Cuban countryside. Before the film begins, 90 seconds of jarringly discordant music over the opening credits set the tone for the viewer to expect a tense and unpleasant dramatic experience to follow.<\/span><span style=\"font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\"> <\/span><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">The incongruity between the 12-tone score and the pastoral imagery of the film creates a powerful surreal charge, jolting the viewer to attention. This is one of the forms of asynchrony that most characterizes <\/span><i style=\"font-weight: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">Reportaje<\/i><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">: the use of \u201canempathic\u201d music (music of a different character than the images on the screen) in the classic counterpoint of sound and image as described by Eisenstein (Donnelly 34). Throughout the film, Landri\u00e1n leverages this discordant musical score and dramatic pauses of silence to create a sense of tension and aversion to the events. Against this avant-garde soundscape, a group of villagers parades a coffin along a dusty road in imitation of a funeral procession. The modern score utilizing a piercing flute and harshly strummed piano is wildly at odds with the rustic country setting where signs of modernity are barely evident.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">The sounds of footsteps marching on the dirt road are amplified over this sequence in a characteristic Landri\u00e1n distortion of sounds<\/span><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">[1]<\/span><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">&#8211; his homage to Bresson. The grammar of film language suggests that we are hearing the sound of the action on the screen (the marchers marching), but this is one of the film\u2019s many reflexive mis-directions. What we hear is not the sound of the group\u2019s actual footsteps. The amplified marching is a Foley sound effect, added during post-production to dreamlike effect.<\/span><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">[2]<\/span><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\"> The orchestration of the soundscape forms a key rhetorical strategy at the film\u2019s most impactful moments, here imposed over the edited images to suggest a solemn forced march.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">Enactment is another of the key elements borrowed from fiction film in this sequence. According to interviews, the march was not planned as part of the day\u2019s events, but Landri\u00e1n wanted to show the mass of people marching together and they obliged in following his direction (Zayas).&nbsp; It is one of several moments in which Landri\u00e1n directs the campesinos to do what he wants them as if they are actors in a fiction film. (Contemporary viewers who might hope to mine the documentary text for evidence of how the campesinos felt about the revolutionary process in 1965 suddenly find themselves down a rabbit hole, realizing that everything we have seen and heard thus far is an orchestration: the march itself, the Foley sound effects, the emotional influence of the music, and the serious expressions of the campesinos who unexpectedly find themselves marching.) Even in this opening sequence, Landri\u00e1n pushes so hard against the boundaries between documentary and fiction that we would be hard-pressed to locate them.<\/span><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">[3]<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">The campesinos arrive at a gathering spot where fervent political speeches are delivered under portraits of Castro, Mart\u00ed and Lenin. Meanwhile, the camera lures the viewer into a powerfully intimate, subjective encounter in a series of static shots: the campesinos are deadly serious\u2013 standing around looking suspicious and bored during the assembly, in contrast to the impassioned political rhetoric that appears not to move them in the slightest.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The rhetorical choice not to show what they are looking at (the speaker or the source of the sound) communicates the director\u2019s absolute disinterest in what is being said. The static shots of the campesinos, by contrast, create an uncanny sense of portraiture, lingering to suggest that the artist has turned his camera to look deeply at what is important: the individual. This sequence also functions to create an extreme tension between sound and image. A young woman with a crucifix peeking out of her shirt shifts uneasily under Landri\u00e1n\u2019s penetrating gaze, accentuated by a long moment of complete silence as the camera registers the crucifix. Villagers look directly at the camera without expression. Positioned against the distorted sound of the speeches, these powerful images assert the extreme disengagement of the protagonists from the rhetorical context in which they find themselves. The unsettling disjuncture between what we see and what we hear during this sequence knocks the viewer off balance, into a state of profound unease.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">By juxtaposing the triumphant charge of the spoken words with the disengaged and lifeless expressions of the campesinos, <\/span><i style=\"font-weight: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">Reportaje<\/i><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\"> satirizes the insertion of a complex political ideology into communities like this one. The ominous musical score accentuates a series of cuts backs and forth between the participants and the portraits of Castro, Mart\u00ed and Lenin, painting the sequence with an exaggerated sense of menace and foreboding, as the revolution is reduced to nothing more than a disembodied voice and a few photographs, not even granted a living human presence. Through this rigorous orchestration of signs, <\/span><i style=\"font-weight: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">Reportaje <\/i><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">asserts that these iconic political figures, this rhetoric, have no valid connection to the onlookers. The campesinos, the film suggests, are just putting up with it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the orchestration of sonic and visual elements, Landri\u00e1n deepens his layered dichotomous metaphor of us and them\u2014the image is <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">us<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the people, with whom the viewer is led to identify. In this sequence, the sound is <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">them<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the disembodied outside force of the Revolution. Both the brash and unsettling musical score and the disembodied voice that delivers the political speeches are equated with the Revolution, and are represented in this sequence as violent, unwanted intrusions on an otherwise peaceful and bucolic setting.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">K.J. Connelly has described how lapses in synchrony between sound and image in film create a powerful uncanny effect, \u201c\u2026the lack of synchrony between sound and images has to be characterized as potentially disturbing for the audience, perhaps even as moments of aesthetic and representational danger\u201d (73). And indeed, from this point forward, <\/span><i style=\"font-weight: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">Reportaje<\/i><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\"> becomes a kind of manual of the various ways that asynchrony may be used to disturb an audience.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We hear the applause, but the corresponding image doesn\u2019t show any of \u201cus\u201d applauding. Instead we only see onlookers staring in silence, unblinking. Landri\u00e1n achieves this effect by masterfully inserting shots that are both asynchronous with (and contradict) the recorded sound.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The grammar of audiovisual communication dictates our understanding that we are watching the participants hearing what we hear. (\u201c\u2026sound appearing at the same time as image is often understood as a single event\u201d Donnelly 76.) But a closer viewing reveals that the campesinos are not actually watching or listening to the speeches at the moments when they are shown to be doing so.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Editor Walter Murch forever changed how editors and viewers assess sequences like these, by teaching us to look for the blinks, the involuntary human reaction to cognition at the instant when a sound phrase like a sentence or a round of applause is comprehended (Murch 95). <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reportaje<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> asks us to believe that the campesinos were unmoved by the political rhetoric of the speeches, but also asks us to ignore that the onlookers do not display the autonomic physical reaction of human beings listening to the spoken word. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sound and image were recorded separately during this period, of course; but the filmmaker still had the option to show the source of the sound and\/or to synch reaction shots to their moments. Here no one is shown applauding even though we hear applause, and this counterpoint creates a meaning for the viewer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These discontinuities indicate that the images used here as reaction shots may have been filmed throughout the event and then re-ordered during the edit to suggest reaction.&nbsp; Ultimately, we can\u2019t ever know the full spectrum of truths of that moment of fifty years ago; of who applauded or how they felt about it. We can only look closely at the powerful impact of the construction: a reaction shot in which no one reacts. The juxtaposition suggests that the actors have agency and choose to remain impassive, but that meaning is not revealed through a simple act of observation. It is the director who creates that meaning through this masterful use of asynchrony between sound and image.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">There are several moments in which the film lets its seams show\u2014allowing us to see that the director is intentionally orchestrating the formal elements of the film to advance his poetic vision. The assembly culminates with the campesinos symbolically burying their ignorance, as they set the coffin and effigy of \u201cDon Ignorancia\u201d ablaze. These are the only moments during the film in which Landri\u00e1n lets us hear the natural, animated chatter of the people\u2019s voices, a sound fragment that stretches across two visual sequences. In contrast to the disinterest proposed in the earlier \u201cspeeches\u201d sequence, now we both hear and see the young people crowding around the<\/span><span style=\"font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\"> <\/span><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">coffin, excited for the fiery finale.&nbsp; Landri\u00e1n doesn\u2019t allow the viewer more than a moment of respite to register and enjoy the enthusiasm, however. He imposes the revolution\u2019s ominous thematic music over the young voices, bringing the score to a chilling crescendo.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;<\/span><b style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">El muerto al hoyo y el vivo al pollo<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>&nbsp;<\/b><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">The arresting image of the burning effigy melts seamlessly into the following sequence: suddenly the tension dissipates and we are allowed to relax into the ambient noise of a sunny afternoon among friends. The change in tone offers a welcome relief after the extreme tension of the previous sequence. The official ritual is over, and strikingly, the campesinos are suddenly more at ease as a party breaks out, with sandwiches and music and dancing. We witness a ballet of hands; hands making sandwiches, hands passing sandwiches, hands stuffing sandwiches in mouths, hands pouring drinks, hands playing instruments. Easy, familiar, organic movement.<\/span><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">[4]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Suddenly, people are smiling, and the camera lingers on the faces and the bodies of the dancers, who move slightly but increasingly out of sync with the rhythm of the music.&nbsp; The camera closes in on the fixed gaze of one young woman as the ominous musical score returns one last time, crashing in on any momentary sense of security we may have achieved, as the sequence dissolves into slow motion, a body almost in trance. The two musical themes (that of the revolution and that of the people) overlap in dissonance, until the music of the people is eclipsed by that of the revolution; but still the body of the dancer moves unstoppably, uncannily, in time to the rhythm of the chang\u00fci. Her fixed look directly at the camera seems to suggest: you can impose another culture on top of this one, but this authentic rhythm is in the Cuban body; this music, this rhythm, is the nature of this body (read: nation), and it will endure.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">his extreme use of asynchrony culminates in the film\u2019s most potently disturbing moment. K.J. Donnelly has described the effect that the cognitive dissonance of asynchrony between sound and image has on the nervous system, provoking extreme anxiety in the viewer (11, 84) and achieving an alienating Brechtian effect. This is combined with the other jarring and unexpected aspect of the sequence: the fixed stare of the dancer into the lens of the camera to suggest that the image tells the truth of the contradiction. During the filming, Landri\u00e1n directed the villagers as actors in this sequence\u2014 moving through the middle of the dancing with the camera, yelling \u201cMirame! Mirame en los ojos! No deja de mirarme!\u201d in pursuit of his vision (Reyes);<\/span><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">[5]<\/span><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\"> and in staging the action and then editing to create an extreme tension between image and sound, Landri\u00e1n does effectively communicate his poetic vision of these events. From his point of view, these two cultures are out of sync in every way. Here, in the food and music and dance, he suggests, is an authentic rural Cuban culture.<\/span><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">[6]<\/span><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\"> The revolutionary overlay, after Landri\u00e1n&#8217;s cynical revision, is positioned as a dangerous spectacle.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;<\/span><b style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">Fin\u2026pero no es el fin<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>&nbsp;<\/b><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">In crafting the formal elements at his disposal to create a sense of contradiction between official discourse and individual experience, Landrian also provokes innumerable enduring questions and contradictions for the viewer, without offering a sense of resolution. Instead he offers us a final provocation in the form of a title card describing reportage as an informational genre currently of enormous importance. In general, it provides a vivid account of an event or reality that is studied and exposed.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">This final irony resists closure of any kind. In <\/span><i style=\"font-weight: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">Reportaje<\/i><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">, Landrian disrupts the official narrative of the revolution, leaving us little room to feel anything other than the discomfort he feels. The film\u2019s many subjective orchestrations effectively communicate his vision, but also deny us any possibility of drawing alternate conclusions or of seeing the event for ourselves. We are left unsure of what we would have seen had we been present. Ultimately, since Landri\u00e1n both adopts and exposes the power of documentary film to construct history in <\/span><i style=\"font-weight: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">Reportaje<\/i><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">, our primary task is to look carefully both at the film\u2019s constructions and at how we project onto them. The difficulty arises only when viewers accept the information uncritically as if the film were unmediated visual evidence of a historical moment.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">With the final provocation of the title card, Landri\u00e1n troubles our understanding of the nature of documentary evidence itself \u2014leaving us with nothing firm or certain to grab onto except for the certainty that there are many truths to a historical moment and many ways to tell them. Fin\u2026pero no es el fin.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Note: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This article was originally published in &#8220;Guill\u00e9n Landri\u00e1n or filmic confusion.&#8221; Julio Ramos and Dylon Robbins (eds.) Leiden: Almenara, 2019.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"color: var(--ast-global-color-3); font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align);\">Works Cited<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"color: var(--ast-global-color-3); font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); font-weight: inherit;\">Barriga, Susana. Personal Interview. 5 Jul. 2013.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Donnelly, K.J., <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Occult Aesthetics: Synchronization in Sound Film<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Oxford: Oxford&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">University Press, 2014. Print.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Guerra, Lillian. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Visions of Power in Cuba: Revolution, Redemption and Resistance,&nbsp;<\/span><\/i><i style=\"font-weight: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">1959-1971<\/i><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012. Print.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Murch, Walter. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the Blink of an Eye: A Perspective on Film Editing, 2<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">nd<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Edition<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Los&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">Angeles: Silman-James Press, 1988. Print.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dean Luis Reyes. \u201cLa mirada del otro: el documental surreal de Nicol\u00e1s Guill\u00e9n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Landri\u00e1n.\u201d Paper delivered at the LASA International Congress, May 28, 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8212;. Personal Interview. 5 Jul. 2013.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8212;. \u201c<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nicol\u00e1s Guill\u00e9n Landri\u00e1n: El iluminado y su Sombra<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d Miradas<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, No. 7. Publication<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">Date? Web. 15 May 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">Shapiro, Ann Louise. <\/span><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">How Real is the Reality in Documentary Film? Jill Godmilow, in Conversation with Ann-Louise Shapiro.&#8221; History and Theory 36, no. 4 (1997): 80-102.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Valladares, Lisandra Puentes. Interview with Marcel Beltr\u00e1n. Cubacine Website. 24<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">Apr. 2015. Web. 15 May 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: inherit; text-align: var(--text-align); color: var(--ast-global-color-3);\">Zayas, Manuel. Personal Interview. 16 Feb. 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[1]<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> This technique is used masterfully in Taller Linea y 18 in which machine sounds are edited to unsettling effect.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[2]<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Sound designer and Foley artist Bill Toles was kind enough to analyze the sequence. He explained that a sound designer can hear that the Foley effect was recorded in an enclosed room with three or four people walking in place over gravel, captured by a microphone in a fixed position. According to Toles, the sound of the large group of people walking outside in a wide open space would have made an entirely different set of sounds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[3]<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is not to suggest that the portrayal of political disaffection in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reportaje<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is \u201cuntrue,\u201d but rather to illustrate that the film\u2019s meanings are carefully constructed to enroll the viewer in the director\u2019s vision and require equally careful scrutiny.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[4]<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here, again, the debt to Bresson is striking.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[5]<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Some critics have suggested that the dancers look uncomfortable in the sequence because of the performative nature of the revolutionary ritual, but we might also have to consider the presence of a very large, wild-eyed stranger running through the dance floor with a camera yelling \u201cmirame en los ojos!\u201d as a contributing factor.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[6]<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Although this, too, is a construction. The music we hear is not the music the musicians are playing, but a recording done in a studio at another moment.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-ed2bfe3 e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"ed2bfe3\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-0254657 elementor-widget elementor-widget-spacer\" data-id=\"0254657\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"spacer.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-spacer\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-spacer-inner\"><\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-85e1541 e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"85e1541\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-97d3501 elementor-widget elementor-widget-spacer\" data-id=\"97d3501\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"spacer.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-spacer\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-spacer-inner\"><\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Uncanny Case of Reportaje: Historiography and the Politics of Doubt in the films of Nicol\u00e1s Guill\u00e9n Landri\u00e1n By Ruth Goldberg Twelve years after his death and resurrection, Nicol\u00e1s Guill\u00e9n Landri\u00e1n is now recognized as a vital innovator in the history of Cuban cinema; inspiring an outpouring of homage among the younger Cuban documentarians who [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"disabled","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-notas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15461"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15461"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15466,"href":"https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15461\/revisions\/15466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}