FALN and In the Country

A film on the guerrilla movement (FALN, Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación) in Venezuela in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Compilation footage gathered by FALN members was edited and narrated by Kramer and Peter Gessner to provide a history of the Jiménez dictatorship and its replacement by a "liberal democratic" government-soon to resort to police state methods to protect U.S. investments-and a perspective on the social and economic conditions that led to the outbreak of guerrilla struggle.´ Written by Kramer. Photographed by members of FALN. (25 mins, B&W, 16mm, From MoMA) In the CountryRobert Kramer (U.S., 1966)During the period of the Vietnam War, a young revolutionary retreats with his lover to a country house, where he struggles to comprehend his self-inflicted inactivity and his alienation from former political associates. "Retreat(ing) from the things that kept him rooted," Kramer wrote, "...in the country they dissolve into their obsessions and the isolation of their class." A Village Voice review noted, "The words spoken in In the Country sound like real words. This seldom happens in the movies-perhaps rightly....When the hero speaks about Vietnam, for example...the film makes us reflect that no words would be good enough."´ Photographed by Robert Machover. With William Devane, Catherine Merrill, Jane Kramer, Henry Heifitz. (65 mins, B&W, 16mm, From MoMA)

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