ABSTRACT
A powerful, brilliantly made work, it exemplifies the anti-colonialist turn in sixties filmmaking. The case for independence is shown as well as stated, as footage contrasts prosperous Europeans at leisure with hard-working Muslims living in squalor. The illiterate Jose Dolores, grandly attired as a European officer, resists attempts by the creoles, Teddy Sanchez, to cast him aside, but he relents when faced with baffling political questions. The film opens with the Spaniards and their Inca slaves descending from the Andes into the jungle, carrying heavy artillery and two Spanish ladies in sedan chairs. Herzog may have chosen to explore Spain’s imperial past rather than his own country’s – just as Pontecorvo and Zurlini focused on others’ experiences instead of Italy’s colonial history – but he offered a trenchant example of the anti-colonialist turn in European filmmaking.
