Underplayed Gems

The Hour of the Furnaces (1968)

The Hour of the Furnaces poster
Original title
La hora de los hornos
Directed by
Octavio Getino, Fernando Solanas
Genre
documentary film, historical film, propaganda film
Country
Argentina
Runtime
4h 24m
Rating
6.9 of 10 from 32 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

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The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

This documentary trilogy examines the history and politics of neocolonialism in Latin America, arguing for liberation through revolutionary violence. It combines found footage, title cards, and voiceover to build a case against foreign domination and local oppression.

politically chargedconfrontationalessayisticintensefragmenteddidacticurgentanti-imperialist

What happens

The Hour of the Furnaces (Spanish: La hora de los hornos) is a 1968 Argentine political documentary film directed by Octavio Getino and Fernando Solanas. 'The paradigm of revolutionary activist cinema', it addresses the politics of the 'Third worldist' films and Latin-American manifesto of the late 1960s. It is a key part of the 'Third Cinema', a movement that emerged in Latin America around the same time as the film's release. The work is a four-hour trilogy, divided into chapters and united by the theme of dependency and liberation. The first part - "Neo-Colonialism and Violence" - is conceived for diffusion in all types of circuits, and is the one presented at Cannes Classics. In a survey of the 100 greatest films of Argentine cinema carried out by the Museo del Cine Pablo Ducrós Hicken in 2000, the film reached the 22nd position. In a new version of the survey organized in 2022 by the specialized magazines La vida útil, Taipei and La tierra quema, presented at the Mar del Plata International Film Festival, the film reached the 6th position. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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