And that is the (hi)story

This is a very subjective review on the documentary El Bogotazo: la historia de una ilusión ("El Bogotazo, the history of an illusion"), which premiered Wednesday night on Colombia’s Caracol TV and History Channel Latin America. You can watch some excerpts of the documentary at El Espectador’s multimedia special on Gaitán’s murder 60th anniversary by clicking on "Videos"

I think Natalia París is a smarter, more settled down woman than the cliché may suggest. She’s our local, postmodern Jane Mansfield, so it does not fit with her role if she answers correctly questions as what’s the error on truncating a Maclaurin series in the nth term? That is why is also naïve to expect that a Caracol TV, a broadcasting network, production in association with The History Channel comes full of accuracies or wise lectures, or at least made up coherently. That would be like getting blood out of a mountain. But for purely aesthetic reasons, I allow myself to question last night’s blunder.

The thing starts citing three times that at the moment of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán’s murder the Pan-American Conference was being held in Bogotá and that nobody wondered that the 20th century was going to break off. Well, not the thing but the narrator was no other than María Cecilia Botero, an Anthropology deserter from the University of Antioquia, leading woman from several telenovelas since those deplorable 1970s, the Sándalo Daza of one soap opera starring Pacheco, heiress of the Charlot acting academy, presenter of the abominable talk show María C contigo and -above all, and this should be on her epitaph- the Peter Pan of a Colsubsidio Theatre revue. Her fragile, weak voice constitute the basso continuo of this production. Adding to her lowness, an ensemble of lousy actors disguise their voices to fill the gaps in the phonographic files: "they killed doctor Gaitán", "eh, powerful reasons, sir."

Using a CGI animation, the possible locations of the origin of the shots that impacted the caudillo are re-enacted (is there a single doubt that he was killed by a gun?), assuming as the location of the facts the place where the commemorative plaques stand, next to the Avenida Jiménez. Two George Clooney clones come to the scene, speaking with spotless diction and accurate vocabulary to contribute their forensic skills. With one of those laser pointers they use in lectures, they look around the victim’s jacket (wore by a dummy inside a showcase), they come out with a measure tape which lean against the glass. Then they conclude, based on what they read from the report written at the time of the investigation. Loose scenes of the riots, audio clips, old people statements, speculations on if Gaitán should have been invited to the conference (maybe they ended taking him out from the shot range of his murderers or bribing him with a snack or a nice folder).

The biographical segment was the less squalid thing, and then it came the pompous conclusion. First, Gaitán’s death caused the violence and from there the Llano guerrillas who became the FARC, and later corruption and drug trafficking appeared in Colombia and then, as an answer to guerrilla’s abuses, the paramilitary self-defences were created and this country became full of ills caused by both parts. Then, the counter-factual ending: what would happened if the man who offered the Nation’s moral restoration and all that stuff wasn’t murdered? Voilà, fortunately the Colombian society is starting to awake and through massive demonstrations is rejecting the actions of the violent ones, wherever they come from, and the light at the end of the tunnel and all that stuff (if the World Cup qualifiers instead of the 4-F demonstrations were marked in the agenda, at least they would came up with more ingenious forced associations).

Globally, and content with some academic interest, the editing was dreadful and the rhythm, fearful and unexciting. The casting turned out to be irrelevant (football narrator William Vinasco or entertainer Hernán Orjuela would have done more) and the overall experience was pitiful. I need "perucable", soon.

This article was originally published on the blog Vuelo al desecho. Translated from Spanish by Julián Ortega Martínez

Tags: 9 April 1948, Bogotá, Caracol TV, Colombian history, Colombian Liberal Party, Colombian politics, documentary, Fernando González Pacheco, Jane Mansfield, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, María Cecilia Botero, Natalia París, review, The History Channel

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