In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Los viajes del viento, and: El vuelco del cangrejo
  • Sydney Hutchinson
Ciro Guerra, writer and director. 2009. Los viajes del viento. Ciudad Lunar Producciones.
Ruíz Navia, Oscar, writer and director. 2009. El vuelco del cangrejo. Contravía Films and Arizona Films.

Natural and aural beauty are probably not the first things that come to a foreigner’s mind when thinking of Colombia. In two recent Colombian films, however, music and nature play central roles. These films will be of interest to anyone looking at popular representations of Latin American music, and they could also be useful for initiating classroom dialogue on musical interactions with ethnicity, tradition, senses of place, or conflict.

In El Vuelco del Cangrejo (The Crab Trap), life as they know it in the Colombian Pacific village of La Barra is beset on all sides: by over-fishing, by trash, and by city folk looking to make money off its scenery. The conflict between insiders and outsiders is symbolized through the clash of two musics, which we experience through the ears of Daniel, a visitor running away from an unknown fear. As Cerebro (The Brain)—an actual village resident—says to Daniel, “This place isn’t what it used to be.”

Early in the film, we are introduced to the character known only as Paisa, a common nickname for an urban white guy in this part of Colombia. Busy [End Page 315] building away on his dream hotel, oblivious to villagers’ warnings that concrete buildings only get washed away, Paisa disturbs the villagers not only with his outsiders’ view of property rights but with the enormous speakers he has installed, blasting popular reggaetón music day and night.

No one likes Paisa, so it is no surprise that he is not invited to a village fete, a beach bonfire with singing and dancing held in order to bring the fishermen—who have been out for days—back home safely. There, the villagers drown out the reggaetón with the marimba, drums, and distinctive singing of their currulao music. The last moment of the film, where the machete-wielding village men stand up to Paisa and his fence, is marked by their unaccompanied singing of another currulao, whose lyrics state, “I am not from here, I am just arriving.”

In contrast to this intimate portrait of Pacific village life, Los viajes del viento (The Wind Journeys) is an epic road movie filmed in 80 locations in Colombia’s northeast. Music itself is the protagonist here. The story unfolds in a mythical space, closely tied to vallenato music and drawing heavily on macondismo, the Colombian celebration of magical realism tied to Gabriel García Márquez’s imaginary town of Macondo. The only clue pointing to its time period comes when the main character, an accordionist, takes part in the Festival de la Leyenda Vallenata in Valledupar, which vallenato fans will know took place in 1968. Other elements of the vallenato mythos are introduced through the story of Ignacio, played by the actual vallenato singer Marciano Martínez. He says he received his horned accordion from the devil himself after winning a musical duel at a crossroads, in a close echo of tales told about the real-life accordionist Francisco Moscote that clearly also resonate with blues mythology. In such ways, the filmmakers intentionally blur the lines between art and life, myth and reality.

If temporality is deemphasized in favour of the timeless, place is much more foregrounded in this film, both through the stunning cinematography and the characters who inhabit it. We follow the accordionist and a young hanger-on from the hilly terrain of Magdalena to the city of Valledupar, up into the northernmost Andean peaks and on to the windy, desolate coast of the Alta Guajira. On the way, we meet colourful inhabitants: folk musicians competing in a cockfight ring, one of whom is accused of winning by witchcraft; mixed-race men involved in shady dealings and speaking a native language; Indians living far from civilization; an Andean shaman; Blacks playing drums for an initiation ceremony in a shady copse. If all this sounds stereotypical, it is—but in the way of a fairy...

pdf