On Taking Control of the American Spotlight and Shining it on the Issues at Hand & the Hunger of Vidas Sicas

I would like to address Gabe's second question first because it is the question with which I carry the most weight of feeling and opinion. I believe that American filmmakers are one of, if not the most, vocal artistic citizens when it comes to criticizing or unveiling deep dark holes that litter the collective consciousness of America. One need not look any further than Sunday night's Oscar telecast debuted a sequence oversaw by the great Michael Mann that summarized what "America" looked like on film. Rather than having a Hollywood stroke-fest where we are once again forced to re-live the "iconic" moments of damned Jimmy Stewart running down the snow covered streets of Bedford Falls or Howard Beale have a complete breakdown on a national newscast, (which would actually be relevant statements regarding America on film if they weren't trotted out every six minutes to show us how important film is to American society), we were instead shown a cynical and probing look at the battered, delusional and repressed American psyche. We weren't shown the Wicked Witch of the West but burning crosses and white-hoods from Mississippi Burning along with mangled corpses from Saving Private Ryan followed immediately by James Brown singing Living in America. Not only is this a singular statement regarding how this nation is regarded, and there were some pleasant and sweet things as well, but the pieces of this sequence peeled apart gives us hours and hours of the American experience through a sober and mournful eye. The real question to come from all of this, then, is not why are American filmmakers not doing all they can to shed light on the social, political, spiritual, emotional and psychological, internal, international and universal subjects that are relevant, known and heretofore unknown, but rather why aren't enough Americans engaged in what is going on to see these films and give the proper attention and meditation these subjects deserve?

Regarding the visual relationship with the themes in Vidas Sicas, they are heavily related like any good and well-thought out film should be. This is not an easy film to watch because the lives we see on screen are not easy to live. With that said, once we get through that awfully depressing non-diagetic ox-cart wheel shrieking through out the haunting opening long take, we, if patient and lacking expectation, are slowly worked into the spare and thankless lives of one family. I realize nifty and sharp angles here are used to create jarring discomfort and how the camera captures in such a raw way the poverty that surrounds us, but I am more captivated by how the actors are able to translate to us how hunger and thirst look and act. They all blend in here to create a multi-faceted organism designed to show how apathy and a rigid adherence to exploitation for profit of the society surrounding them can make one feel like an animal. I was especially taken aback by the woman who played the mother, a true representation of what the ideal emotional model of a mother would be under these unforgiving circumstances. I understand that sometimes she could be abrasive, notably regarding her eldest son's question regarding hell, but she was strong and emotionally supportive, unlike her husband, who tends to give the old macho 'soldier on' throwback when his children are collapsing from hunger and exhaustion.