Professor Kiarina Kordela
HCST 10 : Introduction to Humanities and Cultural Studies
25 April 2002
Alsino and the Condor is a movie filmed by the Nicaraguan Film Institute and co-produced by Mexico, Cuba and Costa Rica. According to The New York Times, it “is a film about injustice and revolution, not looked at directly but seen, as if passing, by Alsino, a solemn little peasant who, more than anything else, wants to fly.” . The description is more or less appropriate; the movie is the story of a kid named Alsino, who dreams of flying and jumps from a tall tree. This storyline is filled with a somber account of the Sandinista revolution in its effort to undermine the Somoza dictatorship, which presents a sharp contrast (seemingly) to the dreamlike pursuits of Alsino.
Having been produced during the height of the “democratization of the arts” policy of the Sandinista government , the movie occasionally contains typically propagandistic elements. However, close examination of its dialectic structure reveals methods that sweep the audience away with the political message.
The movie’s plot is based on Alsino: Novela , a novel by Pedro Prado, a modernist Chilean writer. Both stories share the same initial settings and similar proceeding. But halfway through the story, the movie takes a detour towards the negation of flight and justification of a new regime (Sandinista Government). The extreme polarity of the two stories will ease the observation of relevant elements for analysis. This paper will utilize Lacanian psycho-analytic theories to decipher the foundations laid in the movie to make the Sandinista discourse possible, and social theories from Guy Debord and application of Lacanian theories by Žižek Slavoj to discuss the discourse’s actual body.
