Master of the militant documentary, original director, former deputy and senator always against the tide of the dominant powers, the Argentinian Fernando Solanas died in Paris on November 6 at the age of 84. His first feature film, The Hour of the Infernos (1968), a huge trilogy at the crossroads of political and artistic avant-gardes, revolutionized documentary through its unabashed adherence to all the artifices of agit-prop, in resonance with the political radicalization of the time.
Fernando Solanas and his screenwriter Octavio Getino made themselves the apostles of a “Third cinema”, revolutionary, insurgent against hegemonic, Hollywood commercial cinema, but also against author cinema prized in Europe, qualified as “Reformist”. Translated into many languages, their manifesto was heard, especially in the Third World and in Anglo-Saxon countries, where it served as the inspiration for a wave of militant films often far below their model.
Engage the public
Fernando Ezequiel Solanas, nicknamed “Pino”, was born on February 16, 1936 in Olivos (province of Buenos Aires), in the residential suburb of the Argentine capital. He has an eclectic training, with a musical and theatrical dominance. The ropes of the trade, he learns them on the job, by turning 800 commercials. After the military coup of 1966, he began the clandestine filming of The Hour of the Infernos, with a small team. The first part, entitled Neocolonialism and violence, favors short editing and collage, uses heterogeneous materials from news, still photography, graphics, with a strong presence of text, written or in voice-over, without forgetting the sometimes ironic musical counterpoint. The public is challenged, summoned to come out of its complicit passivity, like the injunctions of Frantz Fanon or Augusto Boal: “Every spectator is a coward or a traitor”.
The second part, Act for liberation, is a chronicle of the first two presidencies of General Juan Peron (1946-1955), judged generally positive, followed by a remembrance of the Peronist resistance after its overthrow. The tone is now more reflective and does not erase the contradictions of Peronism. The third part, Violence and liberation, contains testimonies on recent mobilizations and their prospects. Everything converges on the need for armed struggle, starting with the contemplation of the face of Ernesto Che Guevara after his execution. If the watchword of Brazilian Glauber Rocha is “A camera in the hand and an idea in the head”, that of the Argentines is “The camera in the hand and a stone in the other”.
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