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What Films can Tell Us
about the countries they come from

I´m what people call "a cinema goer." I like to see movies and I watch films on TV. I learn a lot from them but I don´t think they can tell us very much about the countries they come from. Let me explain why I say that:

• Film makers do what the public wants them to do. For example if people like romantic films then they produce a romantic film more based in dreams than in reality. So films are more likely to be our fantasy.
• Film makers (producers, directors etc.) can´t be objective enough to show us what reality is, which means they introduce their own point of view in each scene. The result is that we see just one side of the whole truth.

• Of course the main goal of producing a film is to get the greatest amount of money so films are quite commercial nowadays, and that was also true in the past.
• Actors and actresses are very interested in making money so they also don´t represent the common people because they are pretty busy watching their bank accounts. They also live a very artificial life, so the characters they would play are more likely to be the characters that will leave them with much more money.

Although all I have written above, the more common mistake is to put everything and everyone in the same bag. By that I mean that we don´t have to generalize.

There are good films, good actors and actresses, and also good directors. There are films based on true histories they can show us how the situation was.

Of course we can see a standard type of living from a given society represented by the country from which the film comes. We can see pictures from that country and hear standard thoughts. We can see how people used to dress and what they used to eat and drink. Also we can begin to learn their language, listen to their music, and begin to appreciate their culture.

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Last updated: June 26, 1999 in Word 97