Pablo Trapero and the Great Secret of Argentina

El Clan  is a  flawed movie in many respects: some incomprehensible music choices, poor political contextualization for non-Argentine viewers, confusing flashbacks (or forwards, who knows?? ) and much more besides.

However, it’s saved by the fact that it throws light  on the Great Secret of Argentina: the persistence of the deep state regardless of what government is in power (an amalgam of security forces, spies, elements of peronism, elements of the legal system; all working in collaboration with ordinary criminals) and it also hints at the pervasiveness of surveillance. 

Its other virtue is its treatment of the issue of class both in the way it satirizes the credulity and stupidity of the San Isidro  cheto, rugbier class and signals the tensions in its relations with those a couple of of rungs below them who feel entitled to the same privileges but know they will never enjoy them.

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Tous au Larzac

It’s a really good documentary: attractive, intelligent, small farmers talking about their decade long and ultimately successful struggle to hold on to their land and stop it being acquired by the French state to expand a military base.

One gripe: there’s lots of talk about justice and as the years went by the farmers gradually came to see their struggle as part of a broader anti-globalization movement. The only problem with this is that it’s hard to think of a sustainable vision of  global economic  justice that includes subsidies for French small farmers raising sheep and growing a bit of tillage  on a rock strewn plateau.