I finally got a chance to see this on Turner Classic Movies after it was selected for the National Film Registry. It offers a view of Hispanic history within the bounds of the United States from a woman's perspective.
It's an interesting and powerful presentation of a viewpoint far from the usual male-centric view of history, and a useful corrective to the distortions caused by that attitude.
Nonetheless, it is not a movie. It's an illustrated lecture, with the narrator telling the story, and a series of images. All but two or three of the images are still images. The discussion that accompanied the showing on TCM made it clear that it began as a slide-show lecture, and that it what it remains: eminently watchable, tellingly presented, but a slide-show lecture.
It's an interesting and powerful presentation of a viewpoint far from the usual male-centric view of history, and a useful corrective to the distortions caused by that attitude.
Nonetheless, it is not a movie. It's an illustrated lecture, with the narrator telling the story, and a series of images. All but two or three of the images are still images. The discussion that accompanied the showing on TCM made it clear that it began as a slide-show lecture, and that it what it remains: eminently watchable, tellingly presented, but a slide-show lecture.
