Alsino and the Condor

Alsino y el cóndor (1982)--called Alsino and the Condor in the U.S.--is an extraordinary film about an extraordinary time. Director Miguel Littin presents the story of a young boy, whose belief is that he literally can fly. Of course, physically he can't fly. However, his heart and his soul can fly because he realizes the possibility of his country throwing off a brutal dictatorship.

Naturally, the film has rough edges. Nicaragua in 1982 was a country with rough edges. The Sandinistas had thrown off the yoke of the Somoza family dictatorship, and Nicaragua was engaged in defending itself against U.S.-financed counter-revolutionaries--the "Contras."

I traveled to Nicaragua three times in the 1980's, and can attest to the historical and political accuracy of this film. This is a patriotic film, but it's not propaganda. It's a film about a successful revolution. We in the U.S. have Revolutionary War films because we're proud of our overthrow of a tyrant. The Nicaraguans made this patriotic film to offer their story of the overthrow of a tyrant.

Alsino and the Condor works on both a artistic and political level. Check it out. (Incidentally, and for the record, King George was definitely a good old boy in comparison to Nicaragua's Somoza.)

The popular Dean Stockwell stars in this Nicaraguan movie as Frank, a US army pilot who collaborates with the National Guard of the Somoza dictatorship, against the Sandinista rebels. But Frank is a good man, and he's against the crimes comitted by the Somoza army against the peasants who have to survive between two fires. He befriends a young boy named Alsino (Alan Esquivel), who daydreams about flying and becomes a hunchback after falling from a tree. Frank invites Alsino to fly in his helicopter, which has a condor painted on it. The film is a powerful metaphor about the dreams of freedom of the Nicaraguan people, and, politics aside, i found it quite a moving experience. It shows that a picture can be quite artistic and beautiful, in spite of the budget restraints or any limitations of that sort. (6/10)

Alsin y el Condor was one of the worst movies that I have ever seen. The camera work was horrible, and the lighting made the movie worse. The simbolism and the point of the movie were illustrated well, but it didn't have a chance due to the poor quality of the tecnical aspects of production.

The story is about a boy caught in the middle of a civil war. American intervention becomes a complicated issue, and in the end causes the boy to choose a side- the guerilas. In this movie the boy discovers who he is, while the country is also searching for its identity. Overall, this movie was okay. Better lighting may have kept some people from falling asleep.

Its obvious political biases aside, this movie was terribly made and impossible to follow. Scenes were pieced together as if someone had cut up the reel, scattered the tape on the ground, and given the director only five minutes to tape it back together in no particular order. When characters were in doubt for dialogue, which was often, unnecessary profanity was used liberally. The movie didn't make sense, it preached incessantly, and it had the same entertainment value as cutting off your own finger. Alsino can keep his condor, thank you.

I actually liked this movie....but after reading other comments, I'm wondering what happened to me. Was I hypnotized? Was it because I was reading subtitles? I truly did care about the little boy in this film. And the scenes of war in this Central American country were heartwrenching. Really hit me hard. Am I a fool for propaganda? Was I being played like a violin? I also thought Dean Stockwell was great in his role as the American chopper pilot. I especially loved his drunk scene - uh, maybe because it reminded me of all the fights I used to have with my ex.....the one lighthearted moment in a film filled with heavy sorrows.