Courage

The best movie of 1998 in the latin american cinema, Alberto Durand relates to us the life of the pacific activist Maria Elena Moyano, an amazing woman whose legacy will be eternal for the civilian activism in Perú.

This film stood out as a gem of the Spanish speaking film industry.

Few political dramas contain as much passion and drama as this one.

For a "true story", the story was well told and to feel so well entertained by such a movie is rare. Coraje does this and more. We are taken inside the life of María Elena Moyano a community activist and one that you'd want to advocate for your home town.

But Villa a small shanty village just outside Lima, Perù is where we find her building her community, encouraging the local women and keeping the terrorists at bay. All without brandishing a gun, or a whole lot of money.

Of course as all Spanish language movies seem to have, (the ones I've seen anyway) Coraje contains the obligatory sex scene, but it is not out of place here. Unlike the American film industry which shows sex as a teaser, an entertainer, and a tempter of men with rampaging hormones, sex in Spanish movies is just a reflection of our everyday adult lives, which in my opinion is a better way to portray it in film.

The lead Olenka Cepeda is both very competent and a pretty good look-alike of María Elena.

It is such films that always lead me to watch every Spanish language movie that comes on television in Australia and to tape them if they're on at 1am (as this one was).

This Peruvian-Spanish co-production is based on the real life story of Maria Elena Moyano, a woman fighting against all odds in her country, Peru: Latin machismo, terrorism by the infamous "Shining Path", threats from policemen, a government distrustul of her intentions,...all on behalf of an oppressed population, additionally burdened by poverty, and lack of basic infrastructure. As the different groups start discrediting her, she becomes the target of attacks from all sides. The picture is a rarity in Latin American, where stories of female COURAGE abound but are seldom told, and never before like this on film.