AllMovie

Long withheld from American audiences, this biting Argentine documentary and founding text of the New Latin American Cinema movement examines and attacks the neo-colonialism of Europe and the United States from a Latin American perspective. It is one of the single most important films from the 1960s and the tradition of critical cinema. While the film is primarily the brainchild of Fernando E. Solanas and Getino, most of the actual work and filming was undertaken by a collective of workers, peasants, and students. Hour of the Furnaces is a brutal revelation of wretched working conditions, government collusion, military repression, foisted upon the Argentinean poor and indigenous population by the plutocracy, which sells the country's natural resources to foreign interests. Part one deals explicitly with colonial injustices, Native Argentinean issues, and the quest for independence. A jarring style of montage collapses geographical distances and implicates everyone down to American teenagers in the system of colonialism. This section closes with the now famous footage of Che Guevara's death. Part two comprises a homage to exiled former President Juan Peron and his progressive labor and economic programs and examines the role Peron supporters played in the resistance to subsequent military regimes. Part three takes an unflinchingly Marxist look at the role of violence in the national liberation process and its glorification and naturalization by cultural revolutionaries. In terms of its form, Hour stands as one of the most innovative films of the last half-century. As a film about neo-colonialism, it defines the problems and goals of the struggle for Third World liberation of which we have yet to see a solution or an end.