Multimedia Collection
Compadre
DVD
90 min
2004
HV4081 .L56 C66 2004 DVD
In 1974, on a trip to Peru, Swedish journalist Mikael WistrÖm met Daniel Barrientos, a young man crippled by polio, who was scavenging with his wife Nati in a Lima garbage dump, where their newborn daughter had nearly been eaten by wild pigs. Mikael and Daniel's encounter grew into a complicated friendship that continued through correspondence and was renewed when WistrÖm returned in 1991 with a movie camera to document the life of the Barrientos family.
Some thirty years on, COMPADRE brings the story of this unusual friendship up to date, as WistrÖm returns to Peru once again to document the Barrientos, who, despite a life filled with hardshipe, have succeeded in raising their four children. Although the couple no longer scavenges rubbish, they still lead a hardscrabble existence, with Nati working as a cleaner and a nanny, and Daniel driving a motorbike taxi. Their two daughters, now young wives themselves, must deal with their own economic and emotional problems. As Judith explains, "If this were a 'real' movie, it would have a sad beginning and a happy ending, but in this one everything is so sad."
More than just another exposé on poverty in Latin America, however COMPADRE soon reveals itself to involve broader issues of social inequality, as the privileged Western filmmaker becomes increasingly implicated in the story of his impoverished Latin American subjects. At one point Daniel wonders whether all this filming "serves any purpose," and an unrealistic request for payment to continue the filming leads to a temporary breakdown in the friendship.
COMPADRE is thus a compelling documentary that functions on two levels, both as a revealing examination of the economic hardships faced by the majority of Latin America's populace, as well as an unusually revelatory look at the tension-fraught relationship between an anthropological filmmaker and his subjects.
Distributed by First Run / Icarus Films (www.frif.com)
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