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Innovating Nicaragua. Directed by John Mraz. 40 min., 1/2 inch video cassette, VHS, 1986. Available for rent or purchase at Cinema Guild, 1697 Broadway, New York, NY 10019 (212)246-5522. Made on Rails: A History of the Mexican Railroad Workers. Directed by John Mraz. 40 minutes, 1/2 inch video cassette, VHS, 1988. Available for rent or purchase at Cinema Guild, 1697 Broadway, New York, NY 10019 (212) 246-5522. John Mraz is a Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Cruz, who prefers to research and write his history with a video camera. His two most recent films concern the present innovator movement in Nicaragua and an overview of the unionization efforts of Mexican railroad workers in this century. Each motion picture is 40 minutes long and rooted in interviews with the participants in these events themselves. Devoid of narration but accompanied by wonderful and stirring folk music, what the films lack in explanation for the casual viewer, they more than make up for in detail and especially emotion for students of history. Regardless of one's political views toward the Nicaraguan revolution, one can see in Innovating Nicaragua why a spirited daily life continues there despite the shortcomings of the regime in power and outside interference. Likewise in A History of the Mexican Railroad Workers one sees the struggle for unionization in a country tied to international capitalism, while learning a good deal about the magnetism of the name "Cardenas" so evident in Mexico's recent elections. The innovators' movement in Nicaragua is an outgrowth of the trade blockade leveled against that country by the United States. Almost all of Nicaragua's machinery and transport had been imported from the United States. The blockade ended the importation of spare parts needed for repairs. So with governmental encouragement, people organized themselves into specialized groups to make their own spare parts and keep the country on the move. Mraz, who works out of the Autonomous University of Puebla in Mexico, traveled to Nicaragua in 1986 to photograph "any aspect" of the revolution there. He settled on the innovator movement, "because it seemed to capture the essence of change in Nicaragua." We see ferrobuses ~ buses which run on rails. They were reconstructed from discarded city buses and salvage materials. Bobbins for textile looms are now made from the 46 country's hardwood, rather than being imported from the U. S. The lathe on which the bobbins are machined was reconstructed fromjunk metal. While concentrating on the innovators, Mraz captures an entire society at work with itself. Women set up day-care centers so that the men are free to do other work, and to fight. Furniture at the center is donated by male volunteers. People buy in a state-run market, where essentials such as cooking oil, rice, soap and sugar are provided for everyone. No one is turned away. Items on the black-market cost 20 times as much. Certainly there are shortages, and the people gripe. "Milk - no milk," says a mother, who claims she has to feed her baby Pepsi Cola. People buying meat are dissatisfied with the quantity available, but say they will make do. The song in the background of the film at thisjuncture is poignant: "Queremos pan, con dignidad" (We want bread, for sure, but with dignity.) The film carries a heavy and overt ideological message. U. S. imperialism necessitated the establishment of the innovator movement. It is the blockade and aid to the Contras which keeps the country at war and unable to dedicate resources to modern development. When a woman is asked the cause of the milk shortage, she says it is because of hoarding. But others on the scene quickly correct her: it is the war. One wearies a bit at the persistence ofthe party line reiterated by the plant managers and group leaders in the film, but such socialization is an important part of the revolution in Nicaragua, and-Mraz does right to capture it. Regardless of the official enthusiasm surrounding the innovator movement, those women waiting in long lines to buy scarce commodities seemed more concerned with reality than rhetoric. Mraz's second film, Made on Rails...

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