1973 Film Review

Prospectus, Parkland Community College, Champaign, Illinois

May 10, 1973. Volume Six, Number 16. Page 4.
La Hora De Los Hornos
by Ken Segan

The Hour of the Furnaces is a powerful, beautiful documentary concerning the revolution in Argentina. Early explorers in the New Lands saw innumerable Indian cooking fires along the coast of Latin America where Argentina is now located. They gave it the name of Tierra del Fuego (land of fire), and the cooking fires were “hornos.” The expression “the hour of the cooking fires” developed over the years, based on these fires which lit up every night. In more recent times, it became an anti-imperialist rallying cry, especially when taken up by the late Ernesto Che Guevara when he said “Now is ‘la hora de los hornos,’ let them see nothing but the light of the flames.” Che was Argentinian, incidentally.

As far as politically oriented and revolutionary cinema goes, the Director, Fernando Solanas, and his co-scenarist Ottavio Getino, have made a fine assemblage of the multiplicity of Argentinian life (ths was part one, 95 minutes, of three parts): we see the bustling, speedy, cosmopolitan city of Buenos Aires (largest in Latin America, and fifth in the world) with its factories, commuters, high rises, and urban way of existence. And we see the desolation of arid lands in the mountains populated by poverty stricken Indians.

The juxtaposition of images throughout the film is intense, gripping, and penetrating. They portray the frivolities and waste and leisurely life of the middle and upper classes. The theme throughout the film is that the violence, the real violence in Argentina, is not that of an occupying power, as the United  States in Viet-nam, nor is it the armed forces (for they wear the same faces) or police forces (even though we see footage throughout of police beating demonstrators); the violence is more subtle -  it is the exploiting upper classes, and the starvation, the poor housing, the low wages, the poor medical care, the educational levels, etc. This is an excellent point and it strikes home throughout. Jesse Jackson has said that here in the United States, the actual violence is in the ghettoes, in the shacks, and among the rural poor’s and migrant workers’ extremely poor standard of living.

This is very true. The violence is the huge corporations controlling the economies, the politics, the social conditions of these countries, whether it is Brazil, Puerto Rico, the United States, or Argentina.

Sequences show the upper and middle classes at beaches, at livestock auctions, and at horse-racing. One good sequence shows an elite dinner party for a well-known Argentinian writer, who says that the youth have it so good, as they go to the Mediterranean more often than he, and that his favorite city is Venice, and Argentina is just so far, far away…so far from where all the good life is, and now terrible it is that he has to be so far away, in uneventful Argentina, while all the action is over there, in Europe. C’es la vie!

The children running alongside the passenger train, at the same rushing speed as the train, begging for pennies; the dying boy whose medical care consists of a frog being rubbed on his chest by a local ‘medical’ healer; the young men sitting around waiting to visit with a prostitute – these scenes show the depravity of existence in Latin America. And the incessant television commercials, billboards, and newspaper advertisements of beautiful, white, high fashion-oriented women as they promote the super sports cars and Rolls Royces, diamond-studded necklaces, Timex watches and flights to the Riviera, really hit home, and get to us, the viewers, because of the rapid-fire contrast with scenes of police violence, and abject poverty, and the teeming masses of people, yes, people, in squalid hovels.

This is a superb, inspiring, and educational film, and I recommend it to all, especially those of us, in Champaign-Urbana, and elsewhere, who drive their shiny new cars and buy dishwashers, and go to concerts and to good steak restaurants for dinner. It is especially informative for those in Europe and the United States who know little about the politics of life in such as vast and varied country as Argentina, and all of Latin America. Apathy seems to be the keynote of the day. Viva la Revolucion!