Men with Guns (II) (1997) is a U.S. movie that utilizes Spanish actors, speaking in Spanish. It's shown with English subtitles. John Sayles wrote and directed the film. (Note that there are two different movies with the title Men with Guns that were produced in 1997. That's why this is "Men with Guns (II)."
The movie stars Federico Luppi, who was an experienced and distinguished Argentinian actor. He portrays Dr. Fuentes, an older urban physician. Dr. Fuentes' wife has died shortly before the movie begins.
Fuentes has decided to take a vacation in the mountains, and his patient, a high-ranking army officer, tells him that it's not exactly safe. Yes--the guerillas have been totally defeated, but there are still a few here and there.
Fuentes, nearing the end of his career, believes that his legacy is the students he has trained to move to the mountains and treat the indigenous population. (The country in which the movie takes place isn't named, but it's almost certainly Guatemala.) He decides to visit these students to see how they are doing.
Fuentes doesn't know what he should have known--a war of genocide is taking place in the mountains. (Someone says that he's both learned and ignorant.)
In any case, the movie becomes a road movie as Dr. Fuentes travels further and further into the mountains, and comes face to face with reality.
Along the way, Fuentes accrues passengers. One is a young orphan boy (Dan Rivera González) called conejo (rabbit). He lives by his wits, and is happy to go with the doctor as his guide.
Another is an army deserter, Domingo, portrayed by Damián Delgado. Damián Alcázar is Fr. Portillo, a priest who has lost his faith. Later, they are joined by a young woman, who hasn't spoken for two years since the soldiers raped her. (Played by Tania Cruz.)
Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody (who are actually married to each other) play an American tourist couple. They are somewhat stereotypical. They aren't just clueless Americans. They know quite a bit about the historical cultures whose ruins can still be found. However, they appear totally ignorant of the horrors around them. I think that their place in the movie is gratuitous.
As Fuentes travels, he realizes that he has committed sins of omission. Before training students to work with the indigenous people, he should have gone to inspect the places to which he was sending them. Failure to do this was his fatal flaw. He meant well, but it didn't turn out that way.
This is a very powerful movie. We never actually see any atrocities, but we learn more than enough to know how widespread and terrible they were. Today, over 40 years after the major atrocities took place, we know more about the thousands of lives that it cost, and the thousands of living people who are still scarred by it.
Incidentally, although not shown in the movie, the U.S. Army trained and equipped the Guatemalan forces. They were fully aware of the facts of the genocide. This was during the height of the cold war, and support for dictators was accepted as part of the war against Communism. Some things don't change.
This film will work better in a theater, because of the spectacular view of the mountains. (Actually, the movie was filmed in the mountains of Mexico.) We saw it on VHS, because the DVD versions are very expensive.
Men with Guns has an excellent IMDb rating of 7.5. I thought it was even better than that, and rated it 10.
The movie stars Federico Luppi, who was an experienced and distinguished Argentinian actor. He portrays Dr. Fuentes, an older urban physician. Dr. Fuentes' wife has died shortly before the movie begins.
Fuentes has decided to take a vacation in the mountains, and his patient, a high-ranking army officer, tells him that it's not exactly safe. Yes--the guerillas have been totally defeated, but there are still a few here and there.
Fuentes, nearing the end of his career, believes that his legacy is the students he has trained to move to the mountains and treat the indigenous population. (The country in which the movie takes place isn't named, but it's almost certainly Guatemala.) He decides to visit these students to see how they are doing.
Fuentes doesn't know what he should have known--a war of genocide is taking place in the mountains. (Someone says that he's both learned and ignorant.)
In any case, the movie becomes a road movie as Dr. Fuentes travels further and further into the mountains, and comes face to face with reality.
Along the way, Fuentes accrues passengers. One is a young orphan boy (Dan Rivera González) called conejo (rabbit). He lives by his wits, and is happy to go with the doctor as his guide.
Another is an army deserter, Domingo, portrayed by Damián Delgado. Damián Alcázar is Fr. Portillo, a priest who has lost his faith. Later, they are joined by a young woman, who hasn't spoken for two years since the soldiers raped her. (Played by Tania Cruz.)
Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody (who are actually married to each other) play an American tourist couple. They are somewhat stereotypical. They aren't just clueless Americans. They know quite a bit about the historical cultures whose ruins can still be found. However, they appear totally ignorant of the horrors around them. I think that their place in the movie is gratuitous.
As Fuentes travels, he realizes that he has committed sins of omission. Before training students to work with the indigenous people, he should have gone to inspect the places to which he was sending them. Failure to do this was his fatal flaw. He meant well, but it didn't turn out that way.
This is a very powerful movie. We never actually see any atrocities, but we learn more than enough to know how widespread and terrible they were. Today, over 40 years after the major atrocities took place, we know more about the thousands of lives that it cost, and the thousands of living people who are still scarred by it.
Incidentally, although not shown in the movie, the U.S. Army trained and equipped the Guatemalan forces. They were fully aware of the facts of the genocide. This was during the height of the cold war, and support for dictators was accepted as part of the war against Communism. Some things don't change.
This film will work better in a theater, because of the spectacular view of the mountains. (Actually, the movie was filmed in the mountains of Mexico.) We saw it on VHS, because the DVD versions are very expensive.
Men with Guns has an excellent IMDb rating of 7.5. I thought it was even better than that, and rated it 10.