The return of flying cholitas
Among the attractive and varied films proposal circulating in the grid of XXIX International Film Festival Film Mamachas we find the ring, a documentary that depicts the life of Carmen Rosa, a Bolivian cholo was a place in Andean culture, performing, along with three of her companions, as one of the pioneers of female wrestling. The documentary is on the rise and fall of "mamachas" who, after reaching a certain level of popularity were thrown out of the Bolivian wrestling league by his former manager, but most of all is a portrait of that character, that is Carmen. We talked about it with the director of the documentary, Betty M Park.
-Beyond shooting of Mamachas the ring, I have understood you have traveled extensively in South America. Have you had ever come to Uruguay?
"The first time I came to Uruguay was after a BAFICI. Fernando Epstein knew, who had opened the festival with Gigante. Something strange happened to me here was that this last time, when I arrived, the day was sunny, we went to the promenade and looked like a city completely different from what I remembered. The city changes a lot, for example comparing now, it is drizzling. I think that even in people you can tell the difference between sunny and cloudy days.
- How did you contact you with the "mamachas?
-At first contacted through a photographer, an American living in Bolivia. At first I made contact with Gypsy [the manager], the first interviews were with him, but then I met some cholitas that were completely different than I expected. Were quite young and I was a little disappointed. Then I started to hear these other stories about other cholitas and gave the names of Carmen, Yolanda and Julia. It so happened that when I contacted had just broken up with Gypsy, so were keen to tell their side of the story. Thus it was that for the first scene that we We were filming on the steps of a church, where we arranged to meet with Carmen, and she came across a guy who yelled and threw prostitute and began hitting him on the floor. Did you see that the movie is a cut between when she is discussing with the type and when hitting the ground? At that time cut because we did not know whether to go shooting or attempting to separate them, because the chick had beaten face and blood type. He was an idiot, but still had to intervene. Were the first 20 minutes of shooting. That was my first impression ...
-I assume that from that moment you realize you had given with the indicated character to film.
"Yes, definitely so. When we shot at the Gypsy knew there was something that was missed. Cholitas old compared with new, had a completely different perspective and motivation of the new. They were really pioneers, and was a feminist component in the matter, so to speak.
"That is evident in the film, at some level partis an unbiased viewpoint, but are steadily taking the position of Carmen and her friends.
-is that at first would be the history of mamachas, but ended up being the Carmen story. Still, Gypsy has a point: it is a business name, is a manager and does it well. Anyway, I hope that the viewer realizes the expiry of the documentary that the real struggle Carmen is not so much with this or that person, but something inside that makes mother and wife. That was what most interested him. If an external enemy so you can simply point and blame it all, but when you see that everything is a struggle over what you simply makes you, your family and what you want, is much more complex. That happens a little when the husband asks: "O wrestling or your family."
"When you see someone who, as in the case of Carmen, is struggling to achieve something and turns her head against the wall, how this situation puts you in the paradox of wanting to help, despite knowing that doing so are sabotaging the goal about your job?
"Yes, absolutely. All the time I felt that. On the one hand, you can say that since you are with your camera your presence alters everything you're filming, but in this particular case, seeing that she put forward in their quest to be a fighter, always consciously tried not to influence which meant, for example, their obligations, so to speak, to her husband. It is a particular thing it, but suponete my background is completely different. I would say simply "throwing shit your husband", or whatever, but ... In fact, the question is not what your husband wants it, but what she wants from her life. Still, at the end of the last days of recording, at that time I thought of doing something other than them. I used to teach young people from poor areas of the United States how to start their own businesses, and I took that to give the mamachas a kind of workshop, because that was one of the subjects knew Gypsy and was the idea of \u200b\u200bhow to make money and advertising effectively. They were simple things but they did not run, such that if the entry charged ten dollars, they should save six and invest in an upcoming fight. Then we did other things like a five year plan and design a new logo to make patches, stickers and that sort of thing. That was the commitment to myself: silent during the entire filming process and the end of it to help them so that they could serve. At this point it really worries me is how will the film be taken, because I'm not sure if it's for documentaries public or people interested in other movies. "You you had a different expectation of what was the documentary?
-may at first have thought it was going to focus more on the phenomenon of mamachas rather than on the life of one of them.
"Yes, it might be a little hook. In fact, what first interested me was the phenomenon itself, the lines of "oh, my God, this is so weird," but you can not make a documentary just that, or if you do it'll end up doing something like what happened to a short film about Americans did before we were filming. When we shoot we came across a group of people who were making a film that, in fact, then began to put on festivals. At first I went crazy because I came a little scared it was more or less the same as we had done, but as soon as I saw it I realized it was something completely different and that was at half cholitas in a condescending, style of young American entrepreneur and pity for those women saying: "Poor people, poor people in Latin America, look what they do." I in no way wanted to go that way. That position seems idiotic. The issue is that to do that were left just two weeks. I was about three months and yet I felt that I was short.
"That's interesting because you say the same thing occurs in a context in which culture kitsch and irony seem to have devoured almost any cultural expression.
"I have a theory, maybe it's successful, but I think in some places, like Asia, there is some possibility of some degree of sincerity, because it handles both the sense of irony that has pervaded all our culture. Asian culture is so cheesy, with those songs of love, telenovelas, etc. ..., but that otherwise runs. It would not be possible to do that in America in a frank. To me the boom of irony me a bit crazy. I get the impression that it removes the real way to enjoy something that someone has, because it serves all the time to make excuses, such as a circus thing.
- What was the emotional hook that you had with the life of Carmen at the time of making Mamachas the ring?
-Asian culture is in some ways, quite sexist. I grew up in the environment of a Korean family who remained in the ancient culture of Asia. I was born in the U.S., so my perspective is completely different. At least initially, when I was younger, had a hard time adapting to American culture. There were a lot of things I wanted to make a child, but not let me. For example, I wanted to do martial arts like tae-kwon-do, and my father said: "You can not do So girls do not. " So in a sense, this film is a form of combat a few things from my childhood who remained in the unconscious. I think the film has a strong feminist component, but also comes with more than life itself, which is that if you're willing to give everything for a passion, whether it be behind the camera or fight as Carmen, you have leave a lot of things behind.
Posted in Daily on April 25, 2011
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