CoMo No. 14: Costa Rica (June, 2023)

[sally]

Over 65 years ago, when Costa Rica became the largest nation in the world to disband their military, they redirected national resources towards public education and universal health care, fostering a wide middle class and a society committed to inclusion. Since then, Costa Rica has earned the number one spot in the Happy Planet Index, a ranking of countries based on measures of environmental protection and the happiness and health of its citizens.

on the one hand there seems to be a lot of female directors in costa rica, on the other hand the movies all look like arthouse-lite fare and there's virtually nothing available prior to the 1970s. gonna be a quiet month for me

[Mario Gaborovic]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TqEXjTGJ1g
https://letterboxd.com/film/elvira-1955/

In terrible need of subtitles for this. But I guess some of you know Spanish.

[niminy-piminy]

Mama Elsa Molina: Any news?
Padre Rafael: The usual. And with you?
Mama Elsa Molina: The usual.

CARNIVAL IN COSTA RICA (Gregory Ratoff, 1947) #CoMoCostaRica

The studio took pains to reproduce an authentic Costa Rican ambience in the studio, as well as having several sequences actually shot in Costa Rica.

Many Costa Ricans, due to the sequences shot in the country before the civil war, consider this film to be of historical value.

An Endless Unfunny Rom-Com Musical
https://cinemasentries.com/carnival-in- ... 0136718750
(Luigi Bastardo)

...
Yes, the movie takes place in Costa Rica. Well, actually, most of the “locals” in the feature refer to it as “Cahsta Rica” – so this might technically be some mythological country I’ve never heard of. They also have a hard time speaking Spanish, saying things like “seen-yor” instead of “señor.” But that’s mostly attributable to the fact that most of this Costa Rica’s inhabitants are, in fact, as white as sour cream. The movie features a few bona fide Hispanic folk, such as Cesar Romero – who takes third billing as Pepe Castro: the carefree son of a prominent family, whose father (Pedro de Cordoba, who was actually French/Cuban) wishes him to marry Luisa (Vera-Ellen), the suspiciously whiter-than-white daughter of the Molina clan, which is led by J. Carrol Naish – who was of Irish descent.

Pepe, however, wishes to marry his American girlfriend, Celeste (Celeste Holm), so he pretends to be a total drip to Luisa. She buys it, of course, because she’s not an American, and is quite gullible on account of her nasty ethnic blood. After nearly forty minutes of god-awful dancing and songs that wouldn’t even pass as filler in the worst Marx Brothers film, our lead (American) character decides to show up: a feller by the name of Dick Haymes. Sadly, that actually is the poor guy’s real name; his character in the movie is called Jeff Stephens. But both of those useless tidbits of information are as extraneous as the Caucasian Ricans who don all kinds of gay colors to celebrate the never-ending fiesta Costa Rica throws 24/7 (I mean, we all know they don’t work, right?) since our hero looks like frickin’ Matthew Lillard.

Once Jeff meets and falls for Luisa, he resorts to serenading her in a (ahem) “traditional” Costa Rican manner.

And it is here that I wish to invoke my right to use the timeless saying “A picture is worth a thousand words” and present you with this fine image...

https://youtu.be/3H5fR-Pd3Wo

[Mario Gaborovic]

All the feature films I've seen, ranked by my preference:

A ojos cerrados (2010) 6/10
El despertar de las hormigas (2019) 6/10
Dos veces mujer (1982) 6/10

Eulalia (1987) 5/10

Agua fria de mar (2010) 4/10
El sanatorio (2010) 4/10
El camino (2008) 4/10
Del amor y otros demonios (2009) 4/10

[niminy-piminy]

just saving the link (with a few film titles to explore)...

https://www.cinematropical.com/cinema-t ... ing-of-age

The country previously had an intermittent and fragmented film history, producing only about twenty feature films in the span of a century.

[niminy-piminy]

a random (vaguely film-related) pursuit...

Chavela Vargas is a Costa Rican singer of rancheras, a folkloric musical form widely popular in Mexico. She dressed as a man, smoked cigars, drank heavily, carried a gun, and was known for her characteristic red poncho. In a Colombian television interview in 2000, she openly admitted she was a lesbian.

Vargas was born Isabel Vargas Lizano in Costa Rica on April 17, 1919. At only 14, she fled the country because of its lack of opportunities for starting a musical career, seeking refuge in a more sophisticated Mexico. For many years she sang on the streets but in her thirties, she became a professional singer.

Her first album was released in 1961 and she has recorded over eighty albums. She was partly retired in the late 1970s but came back in 1991, and debuted at Carnegie Hall in 2003 aged 83, at the behest and promotion of Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, a long-time admirer and personal friend of Vargas. She is featured in many of his films, in both song and video.

https://youtu.be/wVHYnL08gIM

[niminy-piminy]

A MAN, WHEN HE IS A MAN (Valeria Sarmiento, 1982) #CoMoCostaRica

In A Man, When He’s a Man, Sarmiento interviewed men of all ages in Costa Rica about the meaning of romantic love. Through a montage of their responses, boleros and classic romantic films, the film produces a humorous, cunning reflection on masculinity and machismo in Latin America.

Sarmiento told her subjects, mostly men, that she was making a documentary about Latin American romanticism, not machismo. Their candid responses strip the bachelors bare.

the all-too-familiar macho mystique

[Mario Gaborovic]

There you go, even Costa Rican female directors try to shame you for having sexual urges. As if any serious relationship could exist without intercourse. You can just look, no touch and let's talk about pragmatism in art, shall we.

The thing is, most people are simple without interest beyond banality, but you are still, as a man, obliged to see a person hiding within that sensual body. More often than not - what person, actually?? AND WE EVEN WANT THAT! But should I fool myself about her value, eh?

Ok doc, I guess.

[rischka]

don't make me give you another warning please

[Mario Gaborovic]

don't make me give you another warning please

Most bananas are nothing special, plenty of them even slightly rotten. Yet if my hunger is great, I'd peel them anyway.

So, should I eat only those bananas which give me a experience of becoming one with it while tasting?

Or should I cut off my tongue and take food intravenous, until I decide to resume the suffering and take the easy way out?

[sally]

rebel objects - carolina arias ortíz (2020) #CoMoCostaRica

[rischka]

[Lencho of the Apes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsLewtNOWYY

[niminy-piminy]

re: rebel objects ↑↑↑
→ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_sph ... Costa_Rica

The spheres were discovered in the 1930s as the United Fruit Company was clearing the jungle for banana plantations.

Workmen pushed them aside with bulldozers and heavy equipment, damaging some spheres. Additionally, inspired by stories of hidden gold, workmen began to drill holes into the spheres and blow them open with sticks of dynamite. Several of the spheres were destroyed before authorities intervened.

The stone spheres of Costa Rica are an assortment of over 300 petrospheres in Costa Rica, on the Diquís Delta and on Isla del Caño. Locally, they are also known as bolas de piedra (literally stone balls). The spheres are commonly attributed to the extinct Diquís culture, and they are sometimes referred to as the Diquís Spheres.

The spheres range in size from a few centimetres to over 2 metres (6.6 ft) in diameter, and weigh up to 15 tons. Most are sculpted from gabbro, the coarse-grained equivalent of basalt. There are a dozen or so made from shell-rich limestone, and another dozen made from a sandstone.

The stones are believed to have been first created around the year 600, with most dating to after 1000, but before the Spanish conquest.

It has been claimed that the spheres are perfect, or very near perfect in roundness, although some spheres are known to vary over 5 centimetres (2.0 in) in diameter. Also, the stones have been damaged and eroded over the years, and so it is impossible to know exactly their original shape.

The first scientific investigation of the spheres was undertaken shortly after their discovery by Doris Stone, a daughter of a United Fruit executive. These were published in 1943 in American Antiquity, attracting the attention of Samuel Kirkland Lothrop of the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. In 1948, he and his wife attempted to excavate an unrelated archaeological site in the northern region of Costa Rica. In San José he met Doris Stone, who directed the group toward the Diquís Delta region in the southwest and provided them with valuable dig sites and personal contacts. Lothrop's findings were published in Archaeology of the Diquís Delta, Costa Rica 1963.

[rischka]

wow i hadn't heard about these stones, pretty cool!

[sally]

no me neither, strange...

anyone know if there's any particular reason there are so few films before the millennium? it's baffling

[Mario Gaborovic]

no me neither, strange...

anyone know if there's any particular reason there are so few films before the millennium? it's baffling

Because Central American countries (like many other places except Europe/North America/Far East) are third-world where everything comes with delay. Only Costa Rica is a bit more progressive than the rest.

And that's basically the case with everything that has to do with the progress: movies, music, car industry, human rights, development index, etc. Of course there is some exceptions like Arabian peninsula, where human rights can't keep the pace with GDP, but those things are mostly incidents, not the rule.

Even within Europe you have these "leagues" where just about anything started in UK (football, too!), then you have France, Germany, Scandinavian countries and maybe Benelux, while for the most part Balkans were the s*thole of a place throughout XX century, but still a better place to live than Turkey. And even Turkey was more established cinema than Costa Rica (I could go on, and on).

[brian d]

yeah all of central america remained behind some other parts of latin america in terms of several forms of culture, and would import movies and music from mexico or argentina in particular. even printing presses didn't arrive until the nineteenth century, when mexico had several as early as the sixteenth, so there wasn't a large literary tradition. add to that the fact that climate limited some of what could be done, and the relatively low population of all but guatemala. with digital filmmaking it's a lot easier to make movies there, same as everywhere else, but distribution is also limited which is why most of the films look like second cinema art house festival movies.

[sally]

ah that makes sense, i guess i assumed film industry would filter through from the stronger regions but i suppose it didn't work that way

[niminy-piminy]

VIAJE (Paz Fabrega, 2015) #CoMoCostaRica

Is this even a movie? I didn’t feel I was watching actors, I felt I was gazing at a real couple, everything feels as organic as the nature around them, as pure as the lakes they dipped in and as beautifully melancholic as the real deal.

[Mario Gaborovic]

Excellent. Likely the best film I've seen from CR so far. A lot to learn about romance from this one!

[sally]

omg don't people have different responses to film...i thought this was one of the most atrociously awful movies i've seen - like some teen girl unreal fantasy of perfect idealised romance, or something designed to stupefy repressed housewives who, for instance, don't want to deal with the for example fact that after multiple days of sexual flirting in a hot sweaty jungle wearing continuously the same pair of knickers, the (disgustingly unattractive 'pretty male model fantasy boy') guy is not gonna be able to get near her without passing out from her stinking crotch the second he gets close, no idea why she was still wearing them tbh

actually even my teen daydreams about boys were much more complex than this so i don't know what this is

[niminy-piminy]

ÍCAROS (Pedro González-Rubio, 2014) #CoMoCostaRica

Thirty years have passed since Marcel left Spain in order to avoid military service.
He has been living in the heart of a forest in Costa Rica ever since.

A naked man, living among howler monkeys, in the shadow of a mythological creature.

He practices Ayahuasca ceremonies, often joined by young travelers in search of mystical experiences.

[niminy-piminy]

The Devil’s Elbow (Antonio Jara Vargas, Ernesto Jara Vargas, 2014) #CoMoCostaRica

https://remezcla.com/film/trailer-el-co ... s-history/

Every country has skeletons in the closet. Of course some are more transparent with their past sins than others, but in many cases it takes years, even decades of struggle for a nation to begrudgingly acknowledge its misdeeds of generations past. Many might be surprised to learn that even peaceful, harmonious Costa Rica — “La Suiza de Latinoamerica” — with its progressive energy policy and total lack of a standing army, once carried out extrajudicial assassinations of political prisoners as it teetered on the brink of all-out revolution. In fact, many Costa Ricans are unaware of some of the tragic incidents that stained their own country’s history in the last century.





On December 19th, 1948 five Costa Rican citizens and one Nicaraguan who were members of the local Communist Party were kidnapped by army officials and taken to a river bend — El Codo del Diablo — where they were summarily shot and dumped into the river. After one of the bodies was discovered floating downstream days later, the perpetrators were tried and sentenced to prison, but ultimately managed to flee justice. It is widely speculated that contacts in the government aided in their flight.

El Codo del Diablo approaches the history of the massacre through a variety of techniques, employing recreations, interviews and archival materials that are pieced together with a poetic eye and stylistic flair that offer up both a personal and historical vision of the events, and makes the incident more tangible than ever before.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codo_del_Diablo_murders

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calderonism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figuerism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27 ... osta_Rica)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Mora
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Luis_Fallas

[niminy-piminy]

despite all the effort, page two (of this thread) remains out of sight...


TWO-TIME WOMAN (Patricia Howell, 1982) #CoMoCostaRica