Guido Models (Julieta Sans, 2015)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Guido Models by Julieta Sans Alan Smyth (bio) Guido Models. Julieta Sans, 2015. Instituto Nacional de Cine y Artes Audiovisuales (INCAA) and Stigliani Mouriño. 68 mins. Since Argentina's informal sett lements known as villas miseria first appeared on cinema screens in the 1930s, filmmakers have primarily defined them by their relationship to violence, drugs, and criminal gangs. Guido Models, the award-winning debut film by Julieta Sans, sets about reimagining narratives of villas and broadening understandings of these complex spaces. The documentary follows Guido Fuentes, a Bolivian immigrant living in Villa 31, Argentina's largest unofficial neighborhood. A passionate and self-taught designer, Guido trains economically marginalized teens as catwalk models. The fashion shows he organizes despite a lack of state support celebrate and make visible in the most explicit of manners those who are otherwise shunned by mainstream society. Whereas contemporary documentaries generally portray fashion as a divisive force by critiquing the labor exploitation and dangerous beauty ideals driven by transnational clothing companies and Western consumerism, Sans explores its potential to build bridges between disparate socioeconomic, regional, and ethnic communities. The director ventures into the road-movie genre as she follows the titular mentor and his two most promising students, Delia Cáceres and Sonia León, across international borders to the city of Cochabamba, where they host a public show celebrating the work of Latin American immigrants. This positively unsensational portrayal of Guido and the young women he manages challenges stereotypes about the villa dweller. They are resourceful, resilient, and unrelenting in their quest to succeed against the odds. They are not helpless victims, nor are they used to serve the interests of any political movement, as has historically been the case when screening villas. Shots of elegant models posing in front of dilapidated shacks and recurring close-ups of their stilett o heels gracefully negotiating the muddy terrain of the villa convey dignity in the face of destitution. Such moments mark the emergence of Sans as a compelling voice in Argentine film, which is renowned for its strong social conscience. Sans observes, rather than speaks for, Delia and Sonia as they pursue social mobility amid a culture of machismo. Her fitt ing employment of music, [End Page 195] demonstrated by Alicia Villareal's rousing live performance of "Te quedó grande la yegua" [The mare was too big for you], touches on prevalent local and global debates about gender rights and violence toward women. References to the Bolivian and Paraguayan origins of villa residents reinforce major themes of international solidarity and social inclusion. Guido's creations, which include a beautiful gown based on the Bolivian flag, speak to the significant contribution of Latin American immigrants in a deeply fragmented Argentine society and reflect the protagonist's mantra "todo por la integración, 'no' a la discriminación, 'sí' a la inclusión" [all for integration, "no" to discrimination, "yes" to inclusion]. The Plaza de las Banderas, where the flags of the Americas are permanently at mast, becomes a symbolic setting for a final show that reinforces a sense of Latin American kinship and rejects the postcolonial hierarchies that villas have come to represent in Argentina, a country that has seen its Indigenous influence whitewashed by its European image. Despite Guido's positive message, however, the documentary's downbeat pace and somber tone circumvent the naïve implication that art is a sure-fire antidote to privation and social invisibility. Sans's use of direct cinema allows the disheartening realities of poverty to reveal themselves organically. Images of hardship never feel imposed, yet the overwhelming enormity of the concrete labyrinth often seems unsurmountable. A poignant final sequence filmed from the window of a train carriage underscores the uncertainty faced by villa communities, as a pensive-looking Guido gazes silently toward the sprawling shantytown to which he returns after his cross-border trip. Thereafter, Sans counterbalances this disillusionment with hopeful glimpses of the dressmaker in his home studio, an intimate world of colorful materials and sparkling sequins where an unwavering work ethic inevitably resurfaces despite the lack of opportunity he endures. Guido Models is a welcome and original film that diverges from standard discourses surrounding both...