Reflections of Iberian and Latin American cinema: Our Land by Lucrecia Martel

In Argentina, 2009. Three white men try to expel members of the indigenous community of Chuschagasta, claiming ownership of the land. Armed, they kill the community leader, Javier Chocobar.

The murder is filmed, and in 2018, after nine years of impunity and centuries of colonial history, the trial begins.

A major figure in the Argentine New Cinema, Lucrecia Martel (Zuma, La Cienaga, La Femme sans tête) has been internationally acclaimed for her first feature film La Ciénaga, successively awarded at Sundance and Berlin. Her work, blending fiction and reality, haunted by the history of her country, examines both memory and contemporary issues.

At 59, Lucrecia Martel makes her first foray into documentary with Nuestra Tierra, an investigation haunted by the assassination of an indigenous community leader and its connection to Argentine history, colonialism, and historical expropriations.

A study of a precise and tragic case, Lucrecia Martel’s documentary details the enduring colonial mechanisms, prevalent in Argentina as in many colonial countries around the world. The question of evidence, often visual, is essential, and the filmed sequences of Chocobar’s murder seem to prove nothing, not even the ownership of the lands claimed by the indigenous community.

Notable is the use by the cinematographer Ernesto De Carvalho of drones to convey the beauty and expanse of the territory. This includes an opening sequence that begins at the farthest reaches of outer space and then slowly focuses on Tucumán, highlighting how a single battle over a parcel of land represents, in cultural and historical terms, a battle over all of humanity.

Since most of the images date from 2018, the film implicitly suggests that, under current political conditions, things have only worsened, and those responsible no longer feel the need to hide their true thoughts. In this sense, the clear, lucid, and generous clarity of Nuestra Tierra becomes invaluable: it gives a voice, gentle but insistent and increasingly necessary, to communities that have never truly been heard.

“This film speaks our native language, highlighting its racist complexities, which prevent many people from accessing their vital space. It’s the language of papers. The lives of people expelled by documents of dubious value, lives lost in hours of unnecessary procedures. Cinema can be useful in this place. This is my deepest desire!” Lucrecia Martel

The film premieres in theaters tomorrow, April 1st, and was presented last March 29th in Villeurbanne as part of the Reflets du cinéma ibérique et latino-américain.