Cinema
The Green Wall
La muralla verde
Armando Robles Godoy · 1970
Synopsis
Mario, a native of Lima, sets off with his wife Delba and their young son Rómulo for a plot of forest he has obtained on the outskirts of Tingo María, under a national colonisation programme. He clears the land and sows, fights a bureaucracy that drags out his paperwork, and drives off with rifle shots state employees who have come to destroy his crops. The narrative moves constantly back and forth between the present in the forest and the formalities pursued in the past in Lima.
Context
The director drew the screenplay from his own years as a settler. Amaru Producciones produced the film, whose cinematography was by his brother Mario Robles Godoy; the Mexican Julio Alemán plays the role of Mario, which Anthony Quinn had turned down. Critics have noted the influence of Resnais and Glauber Rocha in the fractured narration, and the allegorical value of the title, the wall against which the hero constantly collides. There is no official video release, apart from an old cassette; a restored copy made by the Filmoteca of the Catholic University opened the Lima Festival.
Who it is for
About one hundred and ten minutes, in Spanish. The story does not follow chronological order and moves from present to past without transition.
Prizes and reception
Golden Hugo at Chicago in 1970, submitted by Peru for the Oscar for best foreign film; placed at the head of Peruvian films by the journal Godard! in 2005, and praised by Roger Ebert.
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