Fernando Pino Solanas

From 1966 to 1968 Solanas worked with director Octavio Getino and the Cine Liberacion collective on a clandestine project, the militantly left-Peronist, four hour-twenty minute "La Hora de los Hornos/The Hour of the Furnaces," a classic in the history of documentary film. The members of the collective saw themselves as guerrilla filmmakers whose powerful documentary would alter the course of Argentine history in favor of the left wing of the Peronist movement. The secret screenings of "La Hora de los Hornos" became "film-acts" when projection was deliberately halted to force spectators out of their passivity and into debates concerning Argentine history and politics. Part one of the film, and the finest section, is a brilliantly edited collage that draws on opera, archival newsreel and documentary footage, avant-garde film techniques, still photos, pop culture icons, TV-style advertising, and satiric vignettes to make a provocative, revolutionary analysis of Argentine history, politics and culture.Their work in the Cine Liberacion collective led Solanas and Getino to develop their influential notion of "Third Cinema," which they promoted in numerous writings and interviews. Third Cinema rejected both the Hollywood production model and the European auteurist tradition and called for an anti-imperialist, revolutionary cinema made independently and cheaply by collectives using a variety of film techniques in artisanal contexts.In their next two documentary features, Solanas and Getino distanced themselves from the Third Cinema concept. "Actualizacion Politica y Doctrinaria Para la Toma del Poder" and "La Revolucion Justicialista" (both 1971) are stylistically conventional examinations of populist leader Juan Peron's political program and his movement, known as Justicialismo. These promotional documentaries were made to support the exiled Peron's return to power. Solanas' next film, "Los Hijos de Fierro" (1976), is creatively adapted from the great Argentine gaucho poem "Martin Fierro." This fiction feature is an allegorical epic with a contemporary political theme, Peronism.Because of political persecution, Solanas fled into exile in France during the early days of the repressive military regime that ruled Argentina from 1976-83. The director was able to channel his prolonged exile experience into a burst of artistic creativity in his next two fiction features, which have been widely hailed as poetic masterpieces: "Tangos: L'Exil de Gardel" (1985) and "Sur" (1988). The elements of both these Argentine-French co-productions are a superb tango score, stunning art direction and beautiful cinematography, a mix of allegorical and real characters and elements of humor and magic realism, all creating an attractive spectacle that entertains even as it takes up contemporary Argentine political problems such as repression and exile. With these film Solanas has become a leader among the many Latin American cineastes who seek to escape Hollywood models, draw on their own popular culture, and make artistically and commercially attractive films that boast both entertainment and socially conscious values.