The gaucho was the product of miscegenation of European conquerors and the indigenous peoples of the Americas. He was an outcast of both societies, but found his niche in the estancias and hacendados of the open pampas, where, though not a slave, he belonged to the land upon which he lived. The sense of alienation is unmistakable, and unrelenting. The folklore music is true to the character and times of the gaucho, and ties in flawlessly with the story. The death of Martin Fierro belonged in the annals of a society trying to forget its past, and his resurrection as an icon of Argentine independence makes this a must see for those who seek to understand the Argentine character. I have seen the reenactments of the duelo criollo knife fights, and far from seeming unrealistic, they are incredibly dangerous and exciting. I recommend heartily this film. It is not the fast-paced action films of the late 20th Century. It is, more realistically, a bumpy, disjointed, often catastrophic show of the cultural disarticulation of the society that was Argentina in the 19th Century.
Reviews
2 Reviews
La fiaca
(1969)
Classic Argentine humor
3 December 2008
If one wants to understand Argentine humor, this movie is a must see. Hilarious, laconic, beautifully ironic. Wonderful statement of the Argentine character. "Tengo fiaca" is the classic statement of lack of motivation. Taken to the extreme, the protagonist finds himself unable to make himself go to work, with a case of spring fever, and skips work, to work out his lack of motivation, and after having run its course, and running out of alternatives, returns to work, only to find that he still cannot force himself to sell out to the industrial machination of modern society. It is, along with Julio Cortazar's essay "Sobre la solucíon de controversias" in his work La vuelta al dia en ochenta mundos, the quintessential statement of Argentine humor.
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