The Militant

Description

A packinghouse workers strike forms the backdrop to this coming-of-age story set during the economic crisis in 2002 Uruguay. Ariel, a leader of a university occupation in support of the strike in the capital of Montevideo, learns that his father has died. He goes home for the burial and finds other like-minded youngsters. Though beset by a speech impediment and a partly palsied right arm, Ariel’s earnest, low-key demeanor earns the respect of his peers, even though they can’t seem to get to step two of radical politics, favoring sex, drugs and rock and roll instead. Felipe Dieste portrays Ariel with a perfect ambiguity: from the radical thinker certain what the next step for the movement should be, to the bewildered Everyman who struggles to make sense of his world as the student revolutionary becomes the boss of his father’s ranch and finds himself responsible for paying months of back wages to the gauchos stiffed by his dad. This sensitive, multilayered film, brimming with metaphor and suggestion, was the most-awarded film at the Havana Film Festival, winning second place for best narrative feature, best cinematography and the film critics’ FIPRESCI Prize. —Miguel Pendás

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