Chuquiago剧情介绍

"Chuquiago," the Indian name for the capital city that the Spaniards named La Paz, appears to be such an even-tempered film that one is well into it before recognizing the fury with which it is charged. Its dominant expression is of inscrutable calm, much the way Indians look to those of us who don't know them. "Chuquiago" is the second feature to be directed by Mr. Eguino, who began his career as a still photographer and then became a motion-picture cameraman. The movie displays the ease of someone far more experienced, however. Its themes of rootlessness and casual corruption are the connectives for the four separate though overlapping stories that present us with a cross section of contemporary Bolivian society. The film opens when Isico (Nestor Yujra), a young Indian boy, is brought into La Paz and apprenticed by his parents to an old woman who works in the peasant marketplace. Isico, without particular direction except the need to eat and sleep, drifts into the life of a street boy, probably to become, one day, much like the drunken Indians who torment him as he moves about the city. In the second story, Johnny (Edmundo Villarreol) is an upwardly mobile Indian teen-ager, the son of hard-working parents whose Indian ways now embarrass him. Johnny drops out of school and into a life of petty crime, is conned by an agency that promises to find him work in the United States and is last seen running, though no one is chasing him. The film's third episode is both funny and scathing. It's about Carlos (David Santalia), a vain, middle-aged fellow who works in government office where bureaucracy has been raised to a kind of art. Carlos is well on his way to joining the middle class. He has five children, debts up to his ears and parrots the government political line, though he seems to have been a committed radical in his younger years. His aspirations now have to do mostly with appliances and being able to spend Friday nights on the town with his friends. The last episode is about a pretty, intelligent university student, Patricia (Tatiana Aponte), who takes one brave last stand against her conservative parents, loses the fight and winds up willingly accepting marriage with a young man who promises to be just like her father—and possibly worse. Though each narrative is essentially bleak, the film makes its points with such humane wit that it's far from depressing experience. Mr. Eguino's achievement can be measured in the superb performances he has drawn from his actors, both professional and amateur, and in the remarkable economy with which he evokes an entire cultural and economic system in four briefly touched-on lives. "Chuquiago" is a spare, vividly impressive work.