So I have this thing about cults, especially ones that incorporate group chanting/dancing to their worship repertoire (this is kind of all of them.) My unprofessional opinion (I’m an unlicensed, practicing therapist) is that this is because I grew up in a decidedly dogma-free household and community, and now crave restrictions, belief systems forced on me, and community-wide demonstrations of religious ecstasy.
I also like revolutions because, well, let’s face it, who doesn’t love a good revolution?
And world music.
So all these things kind of come together in this movie The Dancer Upstairs, directed by John Malkovich (him, too, I like) and released in 2002. The movie wasn’t critically lauded but I found it quite compelling. It takes place in some hypothetical, EveryCity, Latin America, and is centered around a detective, portrayed by Javier Bardem, as he tries to track down the leader of an ephemeral revolutionary party named Presidente Ezekiel. Ezekiel likes to quote communist philosophers and Kant and Nazi politician Hermann Wilhelm Goring (responsible for the title), and is also a fan of guerrilla and terrorist warfare, including suicide bombings and dog slaughterings. Bitchin’.
IMDB says…
The story is inspired by the Maoist insurgency in Peru known as the Shining Path. Its leader Abimael Guzmán, who was known by the nom de guerre President Gonzalo, was captured in an apartment above a ballet studio in the capital Lima in 1992. The ballet teacher Yolanda was based on Maritza Garrido Lecca, the woman in whose apartment Guzmán was found. Bardem’s character was inspired by Benedicto Jimenez and General Antonio Ketin Vidal, the leading figures responsible for Guzmán’s capture.
So there are a lot of things I really like about the movie, one being that everything is so misty and unclear the whole time. There are sinister forces at work in this provincial Latin American capital, invisible wires buzzing all the time, sending out Maoist aphorisms, creating secret societal connections, developing plots. I’m sort of the opposite of many movie goers, I think, in that I prefer not to be spoon fed everything; I appreciate a little mystery, even at the end of the day. I savor discomfort, I guess. Your every day cinematic masochist. In this movie, things are teased out well, but the majority of the action, at first, is shrouded in darkness and lit only by fireworks (the guerrilla group is fond of turning off the city’s power and then setting off fireworks), and I find it really interesting.
Any way, at one point Detective Rejas (Bardem) and another detective find a tape that a devotee is leaving for Ezekiel in a pre-determined drop off location. They intercept the drop off, grab the tape and examine it. It seems to be innocuous, until during the credits, the screen flickers (like the film has been cut) and it cuts to a party of people dancing joyously to a song that I have been TRYING to track down for ages. There’s a group clapping part, so I was SOLD! Once I found the name of it, I had to find an MP3 online, and now I pass it along to you. Enjoy yourself some Egyptian hoopla. Fuck Monday. Start a revolution.
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