All of Raymundo Gleyzer's documentaries are heart-felt and profoundly moving. It's hard not to cry and not to feel empathy with the indigenous workers in "The Land Burns" or "It Happened in Hualfin". Gleyzer loved the working men, women, and children of this earth and it is reflected in his documentaries. He considered himself a humanitarian and a revolutionary and felt that this vocation could best be served in field of cinema. Sadly it was his vocation, his ability to show the brutal exploitation of the Ruling Elite and the gentle nobleness of the indigenous people that led to the Argentinean military government assassinating him.
"México, The Frozen Revolution" is a brilliant documentary worthy of being on a top 10 list of great documentaries. Gleyzer shows how despite all of its rhetoric the 1910 Revolution was anything but revolutionary. At the onset of the revolution 97% of the land was owned by the 1%, by the end of the revolution 50% of the land went to the peasants. In reality as the documentary shows. The workers never got a change to enjoy the land at all. Given poor land and forced to borrow at high rates or sell their crops at low prices, the workers continued to be marginalized which is true to this day. Images of the 1970's presidential campaign praising Mexican democracy are interwoven with images of exploited, noble hard-working peasants as well as the brutal 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre in Mexico City; claiming over 400 lives, mostly naive students who thought they could change the government by peaceful protests. After all Mexico is a democracy, right? Ultimately Gleyzer shows how democracy and elections are a sham to pacify the people: Because at the end of the day, the Ruling Elite(oligarchy), not the people (democracy) control all the strings and will use force before conceding even one dime to the workers who actually toil.
