FPA Latin America blog is proud to bring you Sean Murphy from the FPA Global Film Review Blog who has posted two reviews recently about Latin American themed movies from around the world.

The first film  is called Romero (1989) and is a film about the real Monsignor Romero who was one of the top Catholic Church leaders during El Salvador’s revolution in the 1980s. Many church officials were unable to escape the violence of the civil war, and along with Romero, many were killed in conflicts between the warring factions at the time. The film gives a good account of the issues surrounding Romero’s lack of choices in attempting to protect his community and his church from the prevalence of violence in El Salvador at the time. Many have claimed the events in El Salvador as the dark point and strongest criticism of the otherwise well respected Pope John Paul II. While still in debate today, the lack of support from the Vatican for its representatives in El Salvador at the time and the involvement of US interests in El Salvador makes this film as valid today as it was twenty years ago. There are many documentaries about Romero as well, but if one wants to understand El Salvador in the 1980s and issues in the country and Salvadoran communities abroad today, a good starting point would be looking into Romero’s struggle and the film about his life. The link to Sean’s review can be found here.

The second film is called Beyond the Gates of Splendor (2004) and is about a group of scientists who travel back in time to meet a stone aged tribe living in a region of South America where Ecuador exists today. I have not seen the film, but from what I have read of Sean’s review it sounds like a film which is a mix of events and a documentary style as family and colleagues of the scientists become part of the narrative of the film. You can read Sean’s review here.

I encourage all of you to check out these reviews and Sean Murphy’s other reviews on the FPA Global Film Review Blog. Gracias!

I would like to direct FPA readers to a post by fellow blogger Sean Murphy of FPA’s Global Film Review Blog.  Sean seeks to give interesting and concise reviews on his impressions of films from around the globe and wished to present his impression on the film Fidel: The Untold Story below. Please read below and check out Sean’s blog here:

By Sean Murphy:
This documentary is a love letter to Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
Director Estela Bravo doesn’t try to hide her adoration of the man many in the developing world look up to.
Using archival footage and interviews with friends, relatives, and celebrities, Bravo paints a picture of a person who has not lost his idealism.

The film covers every part of Castro’s life, from his humble beginnings to his time as a leader who has outlasted nine United States presidents.
“Fidel: The Untold Story” also shows how Castro was at first a proponent of representative democracy but was pushed to the wall by the United States and chose to seek aid from the Soviet Union.
Some glaring omissions in this film include coverage of the brutal repression by the Castro government of any opposition.
Bravo wants to paint a bigger picture.
She shows Castro with people like Nelson Mandela and several other African leaders whom he had helped in the past.
And there is Bravo’s portrait: Castro the perennial revolutionary, the friend to the downtrodden, and the gadfly to the capitalist world.

Her film also reveals how the United States can claim it dislikes communist Cuba but opens its doors to communist China. The grudge against Castro is personal.
So, if the viewer is to take away anything from this film is that Castro – demon or saint – is one of the more fascinating characters of the last century.
“Fidel: The Untold Story,” which is unrated, runs for 91 minutes.
Murphy can be reached at  Lojano at comcast.net

As a great fan of films from Latin America and abroad, I would like to present to readers of the Latin America Blog one of our fellow bloggers, Sean Murphy of FPA’s Global Film Review Blog. Sean seeks to give interesting and concise reviews on his impressions of films from around the globe, and has been nice enough to point out three reviews of films related to Latin America to be linked to on this blog. The blog reviews can be found by clicking on the title of the films. The Motorcycle Diaries is a story about a young Ernesto “Che” Guevara taken from his journals at the time. Sean also wrote about two other films, a documentary called Che Guevara: Where You’d Never Imagine Him and La Sierra, a film about three young Colombians living outside of Medellin and how poverty and narcotics affects their lives.

I encourage everyone to check out Sean’s Global Film Review blog and check out these films as well. I personally hope to see some remarkable films about Latin America and the world via Sean’s advice and hope you will frequently check out his blog as well.