Central America: Men with Guns

I loved Men with Guns. It is a beautifully crafted film: music, cinematography, acting, directing, and the subject—everything. I like the idea that the locale is not named: though the reviews say the purpose is to refrain from indicting anyone, my reaction is that it indicts everyone.

The film mainly shows a rural population—in contrast to Missing and The Official Story. The most salient feature is a highly xenophobic society. The citizens are extremely wary of strangers, paranoid, frightened, yet resigned to the violence that characterizes their everyday lives. Everyone has a story of death and loss. Citizens hide or they are on the run. Random violence is the norm. Like the title, men with guns wield all the power and there is little that can be done to fight them. The most revealing scene is when a village is ordered to kill six of its own members, and they comply; neighbor killing neighbor as per an order from the army (read: men with guns). The villagers briefly discuss an alternative solution (running away) but return to the conclusion that killing each other is best. Failing to do so means death to everyone, so the six are sacrificed.

Like Missing and The Official Story, violence is random and ongoing. But in the aforementioned films, the central players knew who the enemy was, the forces responsible, and why the violence broke out. In Men With Guns, no one knows why the violence rains down upon them. These are rural populations (Coffee people, Salt People, Sugar people) and they have no understanding of the forces behind the large-sale slaughter of their country man. The perpetrators are simply ……….men with guns.

Dr. Humberto Fuentes is an idealistic, naive man. Like Alicia in The Official Story, he has little knowledge of the instability and violence that plague the country. As he journeys through the countryside—encountering genocides, army deserters, a fallen priest, a rape victim, and a boy orphaned by violence, his naiveté dissolves. Still, he doesn’t seem to become bitter. On the surface, this is a film about a man who acquires self-knowledge from others; lost innocence and lost illusions. But most importantly, it reflects the consequences of America’s (repeated) support of counterinsurgency forces that enable the violence and oppression in Central and South American countries to prevail.