Balls and Bullets

Abstract

Critical inquiry on Latin American cinema often makes reference to the New Latin American Cinema (NLAC) of the 1960s and 1970s, a time when leftist thought permeated the intellectual and creative spheres while the political arena was encroached upon by the expansionist post-WWII impetus of the United States. At the time, NLAC filmmakers sought to contribute to the search for a national identity, an endeavor that marked the intellectual activity of the Latin American twentieth century, as well as advocated for an autochthonous culture along with poets such as Roque Dalton (El Salvador) and singer songwriters such as Víctor Jara (Chile), two iconic figures of the time. In the context of a national identity discussion, a broader analysis of a cross-pollination between the arts of the period would prove insightful, but it is beyond the scope of this chapter. However, I do reference one of the above personalities within historical contexts in order to better understand the dialogic construction in the Colombian, Italian, and Spanish coproduction Golpe de Estadio by Sergio Cabrera (Time Out, 1998). I propose that the film’s use of humor stemming from the plurivalent culture of Colombia’s working people acquires greater disruptive possibilities when read through Mikhail Bakhtin’s understanding of carnival and folk humor. Furthermore, following Paul Schroeder Rodríguez’s (2012) lead, I touch on the strategies shared with literature—intertextuality and parody—and on broader interartistic practices to demonstrate how their application destabilizes the canonical cinematic images of heroism and gender roles in armed conflict.