Fire from the Mountain (Film Review)

Note: This is a documentary film, not a major motion picture.

Fire from the mountain ; c1987 ; 58 minutes ; Spanish, with English voiceovers ; directed by Deborah Shaffer ; derived from the book of the same title, by Omar Cabezas (Cabezas voiceovers are done by actor Tony Plana). A semi-autobiographical examination of the revolutionary spirit, experience, and history, as told by and via Cabezas, who offers a look into the Sandinista mind-set, via a history of the conflicts in Nicaragua over the more than previous 50 years.

Shaffer set about this project at the height of the revolutionary struggle with the Contras. It is a film about U.S.-Nicaragua relations, but primarily a celebration of the spirit of Sandino, as interpreted by then-modern revolutionaries.

Personal perspectives are the focus of the story. Footage and recollections from various key events are incorporated (Anti-Somoza revolts, 1968 Student Uprisings, 1969 Government crackdown on Universities, the birth of Sandinista training camps, etc.).

Among those interviewed are Omar Cabezas; Leonardo Cordorba (a farmer, who met Sandino as a young man); Rosario Altamarino (congresswoman); Alan Bolt (playwright); Jose Mendienta (government official); Pilar Monzon (farmer), and others.

The combination of direct interviews and archival footage ads a certain authenticity to the project, irrespective of one’s views on Cabezas, whose story is told from that of a youth living under Somoza, to that of an underground fighter. The film includes some amateur motion-picture footage of life in the earliest days of the guerilla camps, and it is footage rarely if ever seen in other documentaries.

While the film is not better than the book, nor is it a substitute for it, it does offer significant audio and video footage, and powerful first-hand accounts of the struggle. The film is well done, but sadly it comes in at only one hour, when the subject and subject matter appear to have afforded perhaps double the time awarded.

The film won the 1988 Award of Merit, from the Latin American Studies Association, and was 1987 Blue Ribbon Winner, at The American Film Festival.