Alsino and the Condor (Movie Review)

Film Title, “Alsino, y El Condor” (note: most bootleg copies have a typographical error on the video box, listing the film as, “Alcino as the Condor”, as opposed to “Alcino, and The Condor”); c1982 ; Un-rated international film ; Dialogue in Spanish ; Running time, 89 min. ; Directed by Miguel Littin. An INCINE production (Instituto Nicaraguense de Cine). Award-winning, modern-day, and politically-aggressive telling of the classic Latin American folk tale, of the boy who dreamed/believed he could fly. A remarkably good film.

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Chilean-exile Miguel Littin (appointed by Allende as head of Chile’s National Film Industry in 1970, only to be exiled after Allende‘s overthrow 3 years later) directs this modern adaptation of the Nicaraguan folktale (the boy who believed he could fly). It is reputed to be the first full-length motion picture shot in post-Somoza Nicaragua.

The picture takes place during the “war” with Honduras. The boy, Alsino (Alan Esquivel), lives under the brutal Somoza dictatorship - then at war with Sandinista fighters. Though his life is in the ruins of his country, Alsino nurtures his dream of flying, literally, flying; his is a quest to fly above the poverty-stricken lives he sees every day.

He is awestruck at the sight of helicopters used in the Honduras-Nicaragua struggle, promoted by the U.S., and symbolized in film by a military strategist named Frank (Dean Stockwell). He later is given a ride in a helicopter, by a U.S. military advisor, and this ride, while momentous, does not satisfy his desire to soar, freely. He continues to envision his personal flight, as “The Condor”.

It is while in one of his uncontrollable dreams of flight that, while climbing the ancient tree near his home, Alsino leaps from a tree, resulting in a torturous fall to earth. Though he does not die, he is rendered a cripple. As a hunchback, he is left a portion of his former self. The life-changing injury fails to change his life (least as one might expect), or at least his dream, and he doesn‘t even attempt to hide the facts surrounding his injury; he still wants to fly, as does the condor, and openly admits so.

As the military presence grows, his village becomes a “base” for select operations. The base brings with it the things all military bases tend to bring with them, in particular, drugs and prostitution, and Alsino briefly enters both worlds. His disillusionment is brought to the forefront when a local U.S.-backed military operation goes horribly wrong. His desire for freedom fully merges with his life-long quest for flight. His physical regeneration from handicap takes form only when he joins a guerilla outfit, at war with the current, corrupt, U.S.-backed, Somoza-government, then controlling Nicaragua.

The film is a parable, and is best understood from within a poetic frame of mind (quite appropriate for Nicaragua, at least at the time the film was shot), as opposed to a typical Western drama with political overtones, which this film surely is not. The metaphors are unmistakable, irrespective of one’s views on Somoza, or the Sandanistas. The film was Special Prize winner at the 1983 Moscow International Film Festival, and was nominated for an Academy Award for “Best Foreign Language Film” in 1983.

January, 2002.