Indigenismo and the Avant-garde: Jorge Sanjines' Early Films and the National Project

Abstract

Jorge Sanjines' 1960s films Revolucion and Ukamau challenge the class and ethnic hierarchies of Bolivian society by casting the proletarian and indigenous masses as revolutionary liberators. The new national imaginary they evoke is tightly bound to the experimental cinematic techniques they employ, since their rejection of rationalist, realist aesthetics signals a partial undermining of the linear time of the modern nation. Ukamau both recalls and resists previous Bolivian indigenismo, which sought to co-opt the Indian into a national mestizo consciousness. Its exoticist portrayal of the Indian ultimately limits its political effectiveness, but textual and contextual analyses show subversive Indian agency leaking through.