Alsino Y El Condor Views

General Goods

Alsino y el Condor made at the time of the Sandanista overthrow of the Somoza regime in Nicaragua, is an allegory of the Nicaraguan people rising up to meet their oppressor. The film is a Mexican-Cuban-Nicaraguan co-production, yet despite this, it has the distinctive Littin touch. Littins#x0027;s shortest film to this point was criticized by some for its too blatant use of political allegory.

There is a contrast between Alsino #x0027;s dreams and the realities of his country as it heads towards revolution. Alsino likes to climb trees and to imagine himself flying. His dreams are ignited by the US Army helicopter that begins to hover over his head. Alsino wants to fly. The fact that the helicopter is fighting the very people who want to liberate his own people is lost on him. Alsinol#x0027;s dreams are the dreams of his people, although as he is a child he cannot realize this and it is only after he falls from the tree and becomes hunchbacked that he becomes conscious of reality. After meeting the guerilla he returns home to find his town abandoned and his mamabuela dead, the Dutch postcards burnt and scattered to the wind, like his dreams. Alsino becomes one of the guerillas himself. Finally understanding the war and foreign aggression he can fly on the wings of his dreams of freedom.

The very obvious allegories here are the illusion of liberty through flying, and real dictatorial oppression and North American aggression expressed by the helicopter. Cultural domination is expressed by Alsinom#x0027;s wanting to possess the foreign object, the helicoptert#x2014;even though it represents aggression. The film is full of symbols #x2014;in fact it could be said that there is not one real character in the film, merely symbols and emblems. There are birds unable to fly because their wings have been clipped, and Alsino becomes hunchbacked because he falls from a tree and only then begins to see things in a different light.

This film rewrites the Nicaraguan folktale of the boy who wanted to fly as the story of a boy living through the brutality of Somoza