La Hora de los Hornos

Abstract

When the first explorers from Europe sailed along the southeastern coast of South America, they reported seeing fires by the hundreds blazing out from the dark silhouette of the land. To one particular stretch of coast at the southern tip of what is Argentina, the Spanish explorers gave the name Tierra del Fuego-the land of fire. What they saw from their ships were the hornos, or cooking fires, of the Indians who inhabited the region; and the sight of those fires blinking on, one by one, in the evening darkness, until they blanketed the horizon like a strange new constellation, struck the imaginations of those first explorers, curious and apprehensive as they undoubtedly were about the inhabitants of this new continent. Throughout the centuries, the expression la hora de los hornos (the hour of the cooking fires) has been used by the historians and poets of Latin America, and it has recently become an anti-imperialist rallying cry taken up by Che Guevara; in calling for a socialist revolution to sweep Latin America, he proclaimed now is 'la hora de los hornos'; let them see nothing but the light of the flames. (Guevara was, of course, an Argentine.) Under the title La Hora de los Hornos, two other Argentines-Fernando Solanas and his coscenarist Ottavio Getino-have put together a remarkable film that is in, of, and for the revolutionary struggle which they see as imminent and urgently needed in contemporary Argentina. Traveling all over the country, Solanas and Getino made contact with, discussed with, and eventually filmed most of those who are actively involved (clandestinely as well as openly, outside as well as within the legal institutions of Argentina) in the struggle for a revolutionary transformation of Argentine society. At various stages in the film's growth, Solanas and Getino showed some of the footage to the different militant groups with whom they were working. On some occasions, this brought about an invaluable exchange of information and discussion between far-flung and very diverse groups that had never gotten together before-or sometimes had not even known of each other's existence. Thus, the film inserted itself in the revolutionary praxis, and the revolutionary praxis inserted itself in the film, causing the film-makers to rethink again and again their conception of the film and their conception of the revolution. The making of the film and the making of the revolution became inseparable. For those of us who are striving to come up with a working definition of revolutionary cinema, La Hora de los Hornos (along with Godard's latest films) may be the most fruitful subject we could focus our attention on at this moment. I say this not only because the very existence and structure of La Hora de los Hornos are rooted in the day-to-day practice of making the revolution, but also because such a tremendous variety of cinematic styles and materials have gone into this film. Solanas and Getino have, in effect, created a remarkable film-mosaic, in which each individual piece, as they conceived it, demanded its own particular expression that would transmit the intended ideological sense. That is to say, each sequence, each individual cell has a different style of photography or a different form. There are small cells which are little stories or narratives of their own; there are others which are free documentaries; there are some which are made up entirely of montage and counterpoint; others are absolutely descriptive scenes; others are direct cinema; still others are something like a cinematographic carnival-song. The only way to unite all this material without it all falling apart, without falling into complete chaos,