"South of the Border": A Review.

Oliver Stone's new documentary film, "South of the Border", is a "must see" film for anybody who has an interest in the South American movements for liberation. Most folks who follow events in South America know a lot already about the developments covered in Stone's film. On the other hand, Stone does a fantastic job of relating disparate events across different South American nations into a coherent continental movement against colonialism, for the establishment of a new continental autonomy, social justice, and true peoples' democracies.

Stone begins his narrative in Venezuela. Here he outlines the events leading up to the first election of Hugo Chavez and the resulting deep changes in Venezuelan politics, economics and social structure that are the Bolivarian Revolution. A great deal of time is spent covering the the growth and development of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela after its establishment, including the 2002 US backed coup against the Revolution and Chavez, the funding of the Revolution through Venezuela's oil revenues, and the passion behind the aims and goals of Venezuela's revolution.

Leaving Venezuela, Stone takes us to Bolivia and the leftist peoples' government of Evo Morales and the Movement for Socialism. From there to Argentina and the elections of anti-colonial Presidents Nestor Kirchner and Christina Kirchner. Then Stone moves us to Paraguay and the new Presidency of Catholic Bishop and Liberation Theologian Fernando Lugo. Then a quick move to the new Brazil led by Lulu da Silva's Workers Party. There's a stop in Ecuador under a new progressive and anti-colonial President, Rafael Correa. Finally Stone takes us to Cuba where the modern anti-colonial fight began with the 1959 Cuban Revolution.

"South of the Border", in telling the tale relies almost exclusively on interviews with South America's new progressive leaders. Fortunately, these interviews are an honest telling of the tale without posturing and pretext: South America's new leaders come across as very human and humorous challengers of US colonial hegemony in South America.

With irony, Rafael Correa explains Ecuador's opposition to US bases in Ecuador and his government's offer to the US that it can maintain its base in Ecuador if the US will agree to an Ecuadorian military base in Miami. Personally, I very much enjoyed Nestor Kirchner's story of what it felt like to be the first South American president to point-blank refuse a deal with the IMF. I equally enjoyed Lulu's "take your damned money and get out of here" conversation as he paid off the last of Brazil's debt to the IMF. And there's Evo Morales, who in his soft spoken humble way tells the story of how Bolivia's previous Washington controlled government sold Bolivia's water system to the Bechtel Corporation and immediately made illegal roof top and backyard cisterns for collecting rain water for household use.

As said above, Stone's last visit is to Cuba and an interview with Cuban President, Raul Castro. In the opening of the interview, Stone says to Castro, "So you're the grand daddy of all of this?" Raul Castro responds by denying any grand daddy role. Here, Castro stresses the disparate ideologies and approaches in South America's new movement towards autonomy and social justice. This disparity includes on one hand Cuba's Revolution along Marxist-Leninist lines, to the economism of Argentina's Kirchners and the social democratic practices of Lulu da Silva's government in Brazil on the other.

In may ways, it is the interview with Castro that puts the basic theme of "South of the Border" into a coherent whole. Here the point is made that that the Bolivarian Revolution is not just a Venezuelan phenomena, or a Bolivian or Cuban phemonena. Instead, the Bolivarian Revolution is a continental phenomena that aims to finally throw off the destructive yoke of US imperialism and thus allow for the development of authentic democracies as determined by the peoples of each nation.

I highly recommend "South of the Border" to anybody who would like a view on South America that isn't based on US State Department or Fox News propaganda.

"South of the Border" is showing at Salem's High Street Theater through Thursday, August 26th.