Warning: spoilersLeer en español Before I came to Mexico, I had seen Roma once on Netflix. (Once all the way through, that is, but in three parts, three nights, three sessions.) And before that, I was aware of the film. A few months ago, I had glanced at the news of its appearance at the New York Film Festival, just glancing, as I usually try to do with a film I haven’t yet seen, trying to gather […]
(from my notes, a moment that occurred sometime in 2012) I’m sitting near the stroller rental kiosk and its candy machines, watching the family that maintains them: a square-jawed Russian-looking man, his raven- haired wife, and their kid, a skinny teenager, probably grew up in America, crew cut with mohawk ridge, slack-shouldered, bored but patient. Father and son try adding candy to the machines from a big plastic bag. It’s an awkward business. The father pours […]
As a foreigner, I had no idea what happened at Bojayá, so for me this play was about learning, not remembering. Here’s a quick version: in late April, 2002, paramilitaries from the AUC group had occupied the riverfront town of Bojayá, in Choco, the poorest departmento of Colombia. The FARC guerrillas also wanted the town, to control Atrato river for both military and drug-trafficking reasons. FARC invaded the town, the local residents, mostly Afro-Colombians, took refuge in […]