Since mid-April, Eleanor Wachtel has been hosting a series of interviews with Mexican writers on her weekly show, Writers & Company on CBC Radio 1: “Much of what we know about our NAFTA partner is cloaked in stereotype. This four-part special series on Writers & Company cuts through those clichéd images and looks at Mexico through the eyes of its writers and filmmakers; at how history informs the present and politics penetrates daily life.” Interviewees include(d) journalist/author Elena Poniatowska (13 April), journalist Juan Villoro and “Crack” writer Jorge Volpi (20 April), historian/novelist Paco Ignacio Taibo II (27 April), and this week novelist Carmen Boullosa and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga (4 May).
I don’t listen to W&C regularly but I appreciate it when I do. From what I know, Wachtel was one of the first feminists on air in Canadian radio and pretty senior in the CBC hierarchy from her years of experience (I remember listening to her in the car with my mom since ever). Poniatowska’s interview was the only one I’ve caught from this series so far, but they’re archived in RealAudio here and here. She speaks about “the Night of Tlatelolco” (La noche de Tlatelolco), as she titled her 1971 work, for which she is most famous. On 2 October 1968, thousands of students and other protesters demanding legal reform for freedom of expression were massacred at the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, Tlatelolco, Mexico City. I don’t know it well myself, so I’d rather recommend the interview with Poniotowska for better details. Alfonso Cuarón has a film in pre-production, México ’68, to be penned by award-winning screenwriter Vicente Leñero, which will deal with this event. Mexico 68 also refers to ongoing student movement which itself had a number of ideological considerations.
Fandom for the director and the “Mexican scene” aside, I’ll probably be listening to that interview again, and maybe getting my hands on a translation of her book. It seems relevant, considering the upcoming Beijing Olympics, and the hopes the IOC had for requiring of the PRC better human rights standards, especially in the realm of free speech. I took a class on New Korean Cinema this past semester – one of our assigned films was Chilsu and Mansu (1988) produced on the cusp of ’88 Soeul Olympics. It deals with a number of things going on in the 80s in Korea both tangibly and psychologically (that sometimes we forget about because they’re so economically advanced with their shnazzy mobile phones) among which human rights and the student movement were a big deal. It’d be too much to say to talk more about it now, but the film is special because it marked a major step forward for freedom of expression (especially political criticism) in the South Korea. And it’s relevant here, I think, because the decision to hold the Olympics in any given country, and the costs (financial and otherwise) required are so massive – maybe especially in these countries called emerging markets (after all, they only matter for their market-relevance of course /sarcasm) – and now I’m wondering again about BJ, China. I was there last summer… and it felt weird somehow, standing in a square that’s barely a square (in the traditional sense), but really…
These are such happenin’ times…
For additional information on the interviewees: Continue reading →
Tags: 1968 Summer Olympics, 1988 Summer Olympics, 2008 Summer Olympics, Alfonso Cuarón, Beijing 2008, Carmen Bullosa, CBC, China, Eleanor Wachtel, Elena Poniatowksa, freedom of expression, freedom of speech, Guillermo Arriaga, Gwangju Massacre, human rights, Jorge Volpi, Juan Villoro, Korean New Wave, Latin American literature, México '68, Mexcio City 1968, Mexican literature, Mexico, Mexico City, Nuevo cine mexicano, Olympics, Paco Ignacio Taibo II, Park Kwang-su, Soeul 1988, South Korea, student movements, The Night of Tlatelolco, Tlatelolco massacre, Vicente Leñero, Writers & Company
An Alfonso Cuarón Archive 