A cinema for “thinking guts”: Bolívar, a tropical symphony by Diego Rísquez
Keywords:
Diego Rísquez, Fernando Birri, Neobarroque, New Latin American Film, patriotismAbstract
This article studies the New Latin American Cinema produced during the 70s and early 80s. The article builds on Paul A. Schroeder Rodríguez’s idea (in this volume) that political pluralism is a sign of the New Latin American Cinema of the 70s and early 80s by asking: what types of images are characteristic of the films of this period? Based on Fernando Birri’s 1978 film manifesto, I propose that 70s and 80s films are directed to an audience of individuals and not to an audience of a whole group, and that the films address the audience as individuals by increasing the sensorial component of the cinematic image and decreasing the logical-rational component. As Birri describes it, the 70s-80s films make the spectator into a “víscera pensante,” a thinking gut, a body that first feels and then thinks. This article examines Diego Rísquez’s Bolívar, sinfonía tropikal (1980) as an example of the sensorial images and the political pluralism characteristic of this period. Finally, the article also argues that the pluralistic discourse that Schroeder refers to and the sensorial image that Birri mentions are two sides of the same coin. The political pluralism manifests itself through sensorial images directed to the bodies of the spectators seated at the theater.