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Sunday, Apr 27, 2008
3:45 pm
Latent Argentina
When most people think of Argentina, they think of the inflation, poverty, and helplessness that have plagued the country in the wake of the financial crises of recent years. Actually, argues Fernando Solanas, Argentina is one of the richest countries in the world. Its shoreline, potable waters, and farmland are bountiful. It has the sixth largest metal reserves in the world. It was, after the U.S.S.R., the United States, and France, the fourth country to send a living being to space and safely back to Earth. For Solanas, the fact that many Argentines don't know that they are the owners of this enormous innate wealth is the result of “mental colonialism.” In an attempt to change things, he dedicates his film to “the young men and women, workers and scientists, willing to recover latent Argentina.” This Argentina of thirty-six million people is full of contradictions. A third of its population lives in poverty, and only one-third has a high school education. Privatization of industry has left the country with polluted waterways, factory closures, and a colossal brain drain. Like a feisty, rebellious lawyer putting a powerful antagonist on trial, Solanas demonstrates that multinational corporations have corrupted Argentina with their wealth, forced the closure of the country's greatest industries, and are rendering the country unable to develop, leaving it ripe only for the exploitation of its natural resources. This film, the third in a series by Solanas, is an impassioned call for social and economic justice that we can all learn from.
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