Blog 4: “Carla’s Song”

My group and I watched the film “Carla’s Song” for an in class presentation. Our movie and presentation were quite different than the majority of the other presentations because “Carla’s Song” was historical fictional while many of the others were documentaries. The movie contains the fictional story of a Nicaraguan expat, Carla, who meets the protagonist George far away from her home in Nicaragua. As the two get to know each other and fall in love, the audience learns that Carla was a supporter of the Sandinistas and left Nicaragua due to the Contra Revolution. She convinces George to come back to Nicaragua with her to find her ex-lover and fellow resistance fighter, Antonio. In Nicaragua the two get embroiled in the conflict and their relationship changes. At the conclusion of the film Carla realizes that her place is in Nicaragua with Antonio and George returns home to Scotland.

Although this film was fictional, my group and I still found it very informative. Because of America’s involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, we were much more familiar with the Contra side of this conflict. “Carla’s Song” gave us a look into the lives and viewpoint of the Sandinistas and humanized their side as well. As we researched information about the film such as the director and its background, the choice of this lens made more sense. The director Ken Loach is British and he and his screenplay artists Paul Laverty met in Nicaragua while working at a human right’s organization during the 1980’s. Loach is known for a socially-critical directing style and his socialist leanings so it made perfect sense why he would choose to feature the Sandinistas.

Our group had a mixed review of the film. It was quite lengthy and spent over half of the film setting up the romance and actual conflict of the film which clouded the purpose of it for some of us. We also felt a lack of character development for most characters, especially Carla, which we missed but also admitted that this may stem from our bias as American film-viewers. On the positive side, we definitely thought this film connected with pathos and the viewers’ emotions well. Furthermore, we appreciated the use of storytelling conventions like flashback to humanize the story and also convey the contentious situations. The film also featured native Nicaraguans on the cast and crew, most notably the actress Oyanka Cabezas as Carla, so this gave the film ethos in our minds as well. Overall we thought that the film was pretty successful in giving an authentic portrayal of the situation, experiences, and emotional state of the people in the conflict. Furthermore, we appreciated how the film told a different story of the Sandinista-Contra conflict and that we were able to learn about it both from a historical but also humanistic side.