Gay Bandits

One of the major modifications Marcelo Piñeyro made to Ricardo Piglia’s novel Plata quemada is bringing the love story between Nene and Ángel to the forefront, which in the original is only a secondary detail in the plot of the heist. In some aspects, this emphasis on the “love story” over other aspects of the plot is not so unusual. After all, Lombardi did the same in his adaptation of Captain Pantoja. (The romance between Pantaleón and the Colombian—originally Brazilian—had only been a secondary aspect of the novel). But, of course, if the film’s emphasis on romance is not only conventional, but, perhaps, the core trait of a commercial movie, the fact that the love story in question is between two men could be seen as subverting Latin American (as well as U.S.) social norms.

Bingham, in a very perceptive comment, noted that he found the film of interest because it made overt the homosexual undercurrent present in action films. In fact, the film seems to point out this innovation in a sequence when, during the final shoot out, Cuervo declares the hoodlums to be just like “the last of the Mohicans, and he and Ángel start banging on the floor and making pseudo-Native American noises. The reference to Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans is particularly apt, since this and other of the author’s novels can be seen as the origin of the modern Western genre and, therefore, of all action narrative. It has been argued that the “detective” is nothing but the transposition of the Western hero to an urban setting; and Cooper would go on the write the first “spy” novel, appropriately titled The Spy.

Some decades ago, Leslie Fiedler described the friendship between Hawkeye and his Mohican mentor Chingachgook—two of the protagonists of Last of the Mohicans—as “innocent homosexuality,” thus pointing out the same-sex desire that runs through Cooper’s novels and the action genre which descends from them. Of course, in Piñeyro’s film, there is nothing innocent about the characters sexuality. Moreover, if Ángel and Nene are heroes, it is sort of by default. They are portrayed heroically—and who doesn’t love doomed lovers?—but objectively, given their disturbed behavior—Ángel is psychotic and obviously a psychopath—they can only be seen as villains.

Piñeyro is thus developing a by now common insight regarding action heroes. Moreover, there is a tradition in film of depicting anti-social characters as homosexual. While rare in American film—the only examples from a studio era Hollywood film I can think of are the gay killers in Joseph H. Lewis’s film noir The Big Combo—it is much more common in European art film. For instance, in Roberto Rosellini’s Rome, Open City one of the main Nazi characters is effeminate, while his companion is a sadistic lesbian. Luchino Visconti, openly gay himself, depicted Nazis as homosexuals in The Dammed. Bertolucci explained, or perhaps explained away, fascism by linking it with homosexuality in The Conformist. (The ultimate villain of the film, Lino, is shown to be a gay fascist).

National Allegory and Metaphoric Gesture in Money to Burn

At the end of Money to Burn, Piglia quotes Berthold Brecht: “throughout the book I have attempted to maintain the stylistic register and ‘metaphoric gesture’ (as Brecht called it) of the social reports whose theme remains illegal violence.” Although Piglia’s quotation seems to indicate that the “metaphoric gesture” is already present in the “social reports”—“relatos sociales”—which, it appears, underlie the actual narrative of Money to Burn, the fact is that he admits that the novel attempts to be more than a straightforward narrative of events. (The “social reports” in question are, I believe, not only the narratives generated by the different media, but also by the population as a whole). If one remembers the epigraph which opens the book—“After all, what is robbing a bank compared to founding one?”—the “metaphoric gesture” seems to be an attempt at presenting the story as an illustration of the principle implicit in the epigraph, in addition to a fictionalizing a real event. In other words, if Brecht’s epigraph presents capitalism itself as theft in the grandest scale—represented by the founding of the bank—the narrative of the robbery and the brutal extermination of the criminals would be indicative of the ultimate criminality of the system under which, obviously, we live.

I cannot avoid associating ’s “metaphoric gesture” with Fredric Jameson’s notorious statement that “All third-world texts are necessarily . . . allegorical, and in a very specific way: they are to be read as what I will call national allegories.” However, while both Jameson’s national allegory and Brecht’s and Piglia’s “metaphoric gesture” imply the existence of a second meaning underlying the surface one, the fact is that Money to Burn takes great pains to break free from the ideological boundaries of the nation. In other words, Money to Burn is not a criticism of Argentine society or even primarily of capitalism in Argentina. Money to Burn is a criticism of capitalism per se.

The space depicted in the novel is, obviously, transnational: the robbery takes place in Buenos Aires (Argentina), but the shoot out is in Montevideo (Uruguay); the robbers aim to drive up the Pan American Highway all the way to Miami or New York, where some plan to invest their money in Tango joints; Giselle is an Uruguayan hippie, that is a local exemplar of an international type, and the music they listen to is rock; etc.

Perhaps the key moment that marks the “metaphoric gesture” as exceeding national boundaries, is the reaction to the burning of the money: “Burning money is ugly, it’s a sin.” As we know bills are not tied to any material object. They are signifiers without, in appearance, any signifieds. In fact, in appearance a rational response to the burning of the money would have been indifference. After all, one could assume, though it’s not mentioned in the novel, that the money could be insured and, therefore, its burning would have not affected anyone.

However, the response of the population to the burning of the money is one of extreme indignation, much greater than the reaction to the death of police, innocent bystanders, or criminals. It is seen as “an act of nihilism and an example of pure terrorism.” The reason underlying this moral indignation is precisely the emptiness of money as a signifier, which has permitted it to become the signifier of capitalism itself, of the possibility of acquisition of goods, services, and even more money. This moral indignation is, therefore, not culturally specific. It could just as well take place in Brooklyn as in Montevideo.

Not One but Many "Pantis"

As Bingham noted in class, the version we saw of Captain Pantoja is shorter than the one originally screened in Latin America. This led me to search for alternative versions of the film. Despite claims in imdb.com for the existence of a 2hr 55 minute print, the one that is generally mentioned in the web is 144 minutes (2hr 24 minutes). There is a 137 minutes version available in you tube. http://www.youtube.com/user/pestegoriko#p/u/15/s9kwe3coFlc However, the only other version I have been able to watch is a 131 minute one.

At least in the 131 minute version I saw, the additional minutes (or better said the minutes that had been cut) served to flesh out scenes that were abridged or, sometimes, completely eliminated from the subtitled version we saw. For instance, while there is no moment in which rape is depicted, as was suggested in class, there is, however, a scene in which pregnant local women are brought face to face with the soldiers who had raped them and asked to choose one for marriage (starting 7:00-7:50 in the youtube version). Thus the need for the service is brought in a somewhat humorous but still more pointed manner. Secondary characters are introduced in a clearer manner. Alicia, for instance, is introduced as a neighbor rather than simply popping up in the plot without any explanation. The relationship between Pantoja and Bacacorzo is developed, as is the one between Pantoja, Chuchupe and Chupito.

Personally I found the longer version more efficient than the shorter one in that the relationship between Pantoja and “la Colombiana” does not overshadow the other aspects of the movie. While one can understand some of the cuts for the US market—there are a couple of scenes where gay stereotypes are mildly mocked –most of them privilege the romance or soap opera aspects of the movie over those that actually make the characters more believable or htat explain the “service’s” creation and ultimate closing.

Vargas Llosa: Humor and Politics

The first novel written after Mario Vargas Llosa’s public break with the Cuban Revolution in 1971, Captain Pantoja and the Special Service has been described as marking his “discovery of humor.” Vargas Llosa’s earlier novels were characterized by their searing seriousness, by their ruthless, perhaps even exaggerated, foregrounding of the corruption of Peruvian and, implicitly, Latin American societies. However, Captain Pantoja and the later Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter are two novels in which humor predominates. What makes this discovery of humor of interest is that the topic of Captain Pantoja is, in some ways, as revealing , if not more so, of the country’s profound corruption and immorality than those of his earlier novels.

Prostitution is, after all, a “serious” social problem. It frequently originates in the conjunction of social inequality and patriarchal structures. It is a specifically patriarchal form of exploitation. Moreover, by having the army become involved in the business of prostitution, he brings together the institution that, at least in The Time of the Hero, represented patriarchy at its most naked and brutal. Thus Captain Pantoja had the potential to become an expose of patriarchy, the exploitation of women, and, of course, of corruption in the army.

Moreover an important subplot in the novel is that of the cult of Brother Francisco, As we know, this is a religious cult that practices ritual crucifixions, not only of animals, a gory enough activity for my taste, but, on occasion, even of humans. Their rituals, which include the drinking of the blood of the beings crucified, could easily have been part of one of his earlier novels. One can easily imagine one of his “telescopic dialogues” in which prostitution and crucifixion would be juxtaposed presenting women as Christ-like victims and men/the army as crucifiers.

Vargas Llosa with great mastery manages to turn all of these potentially dramatic, even tragic, elements into an outright comedy rather than another direct denunciation of Peruvian society.

It has been argued that this “discovery of humor” is linked to a loss of faith in socialism. Caught between the earnest belief in the possibility of revolution, which had characterized his earlier novels, and his later belief in the need for neoliberal reforms, the Vargas Llosa of Captain Pantoja had necessarily to turn to humor in order to face, and enable the reader to face, the brutality depicted. That said, the problem with this view is that his earlier novels, while brutally honest in showing the failings of Peru, do not show any alternatives to the corrupt society depicted. Socialism or, better said, the possibility of socialism is kept outside the narrative. Vargas Llosa only shows the problem and scrupulously avoids showing any possible solution in his novels of the 1960s.

The same case can be made about Captain Pantoja. Again Vargas Llosa brilliantly depicts Peruvian patriarchy, fanaticism, and the irrationality into which military rationality can easily transform. However, as in his earlier novels, the actual solutions to these problems are never intimated. But by transforming his earlier anger into humor, the narrative no longer arouses in the reader the need to find a solution to these social problems. Subcomandante Marcos, in an interview with Gabriel García Márquez, pointed out the role of literature and, specifically, that of The Time of the Hero, in his personal political development. It is doubtful that he would also single out Captain Pantoja.


*In the photo, Vargas Llosa directing his film adaptation of Captain Pantoja