Review: Documentary La Sierra

So I recently saw a screening of the documentary LA Sierra about a Colombian community intimately affected by the para-military/guerilla war in that country. it was shot by an AP reporter who works out of Colombia and a photo-journalist who does the same. The narrative focuses on 3 main characters who are involved in what they refer to as "the war". In depth interviews with the 3, a 22 yr. old commander, a 20 yr. old "soldier", and the 16 yr. old girlfriend of a jailed 19 yr. old soldier guide the story. The three pregnant girlfriends of the commander also play "suporting roles" as it were. Footage of violence and night raids/ shoot-outs, combined with domestic and community life comprise the remainder of the context. The film was followed by a panel discussion and Q & A. So...what came across in this film? Afterwards comlaints were made about the lack of contextualization, the way the microcosm of this seemingly petty gang-like violence was inadequately framed by the larger national and international power- heirarchies and influences. There was a ghettoized affect, which the focus on the particular lives of individuals directly affected by and propogating the violence at the most local of levels, seemed to highlight. I found it interesting that this personal/ emotional grounding of the so-called war seemed myopic to some. From my perspective what the film showed was exactly the conditions necessary to maintain generation upopn generation of war, without any clear goals, where fighting simply becomes a way of life, a source of identity for the articiants. And indeed that is exactly what was expressed in the macho rhetoric of the 22 yr. old commander. This war for him was over his neighborhood, it was what gave him a sense of purpose, a meaning to his life. And why this? why violence and a fight for control over a community where people made less a US dollar in a week? It was exactly that, poverty, the kindof poverty that digs into a person and fills them with a deep, unshakeable shame, and then rage. It is the trap of being an intelligent man or woman in a place where there is no way to express that intelligence. As the more reasonable and sensitive and self reflective character says, "there is no opportunity." He was able to define himself as a nurturer, to find meaning in love for his child, but the commander, whose father had provided him with his first taste of humiliation, needed his machismo to secure his identity. And if you are a man in a macho culture, with a father who gave you no sense of pride and you can't work inorder to create one on your own, how do you escape humiliation? How do you secure a sense of dignity for yourself? In the world of men, in the culture of deep intractable poverty, "the war" was the only place to develop some sense of purposeful if momentary identity. And what of the women? When the commander is finally killed by the government, ecah of the women who beared his children, 14,16 and 15 are shown in their grief. The last one who has just given birth, a chubby 15 year old, with a face which is resolute and strong is shown crying softly as she nuzzles her newborn. This scene is the one above all that had the audience in tears. For it is the women who bear children, that is their source of pride, of dignity, of hope. And also they are the martyrs, who weep in the aftermath and still care for their children as they grieve for their children's fathers. And these women are 14,15,16. It is a poverty that renders all but the body useless. For men, they can give their blood, women their wombs. And what teenager does not want to be worthy,does not want to believe their life is of value at least in whatever they can be productive. The proud girl who was interviewed, refused to become a prostitute and so sold candy on the buses, making 1-3 US dollars a day/week. She brought money to her jailed boyfriend whom she urged to marry her, not even skipping a beat when she mentioned that each visit entailed a vaginal search by the guards. Her body had already become her only source of production, her only valuable commodity. After her break-up, she decided the candy selling was too humiliating and in the end, turned to erotic dancing, what she had aworn not to do. It is hard to imagine the psychology of a 16 yr. old girl or a 20 yr. old boy who lives with constant death, violation, and mortal danger, who continuously speaks of a hopeless future, and fully exects to die before 30. But we do not need to go to Colombia to see this. America's urban ghettos bear the same fruit of poverty. The movies that have been made about African American slums in New York and LA are based in these realities, and they continue. The projects with their gangs are rife with the same violence, fear and abuse. The hopelessness of youth in these areas has been dosumented across the country by Jonathan Kozol and other qualitative researchers. The desire of teenage girls to make something of their lives thorugh becoming mothers is expressed in the research done by Michelle Fine and many others. And so, in the end "La Sierra" is really a story about poverty and desperation. As one of the characters said, "I owuldn't do this if I could get a job." The question to ask ourselves is, if we find this so upsetting when it occurs in other nations, why do we allow it to continue on our own soil?