AGUIRRE THE WRATH OF GOD (wk 7-8)

This movie is about the trip of the Spaniards into the Amazonian jungle looking for the native leyend “El Dorado”. Their crazy leader Aguirre, who overthrows the former leader when he orders to retreat and surrender because of lack of food and fatigue. Aguirre continues the trip, in which plenty die and many natives escape.
The man who writes a diary about this, is a priest who was present in all that happened and made the fact that this story is known as reality.

In the trip, many question Aguirre’s power and are afraid the leader kills them, so they have to obey him in everything, because any mistake can be fatal and can come into an abrupt end because anyone that objects, thinks or does things differently is killed. Besides the lack of food, they also have to carry a carriage because the wife of the ex-emperor and Aguirre’s daughter decide to join him in his trip. When the wife of the former leader asks the priest for help to save her husband`s life, he responds saying: “the church is always in the side of the strong”.
The movie explains that the Europeans also suffered because there were constant native attacks, and they couldn`t see or touch the enemy, because the natives knew the jungle more than anyone, but, in contrast, the Europeans didn`t know anything about it. They were very lost, and most of them died of hunger, cold, or tiredness. Besides, in that time the estimation of life was very short period of time, caused by viruses, heart attacks, etc.

The director of the movie is Werner Herzog, and after this movie he became very famous and one of the best directors in his country. This successful movie, with very deep and detailed investigations, plus good actors and based in a real story, was made in December 29 1972. This movie also explains that the Europeans also suffered in their trip to Colombia a lot. It was a success because it was very original and shoed things from a different perspective.
The director was also a producer, actor ,and opera director. He has been married three times (Martje Grohman 1967-1987, Christine Marie Edenberg 1987-1994, and Lena Herzog 1999-present). Herzog was born in 1962, in Munich, but his full name is Werner Herzog Scitepic, and he is also famous for other movies, participating as director, producer, and actor.

In my personal opinion, I see that this movie is very useful for learning, so I like it because of that, but in general the movie is a little slow, but very original because it is seen differently.
I recommend the movie to people who want to learn from a different point of view about the colonialism, but in other circumstances, I would suggest something else.
My least favorite parts of the movie are when they show the same image for too long, because it can bore the public. My favorite parts are when they say interesting things and show all the hard work they put on the successful movie.
This movie is very related to history because it is based on real facts, and, as we can see, the European trip to America did happen, but it was never showed like that.

FROM PROTECTED SHELTERS TO TOWNS (wk 6a)

In this chapter we will make a deeper investigation about in which aspects, who participated, and how Colombia changed when the spanishmen arrived. Even though, as spoken before, the spanishmen changed many things for bad, there were some things that improved Colombia very much. Colombia was also opened to new things and different worlds: “…La gran explosion que siguió a 1492 dejó una y permanente constucción de mundos”. Book Colombia, imágenes de su diversidad (1492 a hoy) pg 77. We could also see things from the spanish point of view, and discover new stuff.

During the spanish arrival to Colombia, they lost a lot of money, people, and food, but when they arrived they took the lands, the gold, part of the Colombian culture, and gave unfair jobs to workers.
These employees worked unfairly and were payed in very small amounts with very hard work and too much hours of it. The Spaniards also took the lands and gave them to different people no matter who the original owner of the land was or what they needed. They also took the better lands (with the best weather, the bigger space, and the best ) to them.

As a conclusion, we can see that the Spaniards also lost a lot of things in their trip to Colombia and in some ways changed this country for better. But it also took away our culture and our habits, so we can see that these changes were hard to make for the spanishmen and hard to take for the natives.

THE CITIES (wk 5a)

Like the natural facts, the inhabitants of the cities and their ways of living, are also important for the Colombian history, like the natural facts, the inhabitants of the cities and their ways of living, etc, and that is going to be the theme for this essay. When the colonialism started, new habits and points of view were established, but these points of view were not unique, because they were already established by the Spanishmen, but this is something that we will see later. So we will mostly learn about how the cities and its inhabitants worked during the Spanish colonialism.

The cities had most power than many other places, because they were the center of the State and what defines from which part of Colombia you are from and also defines the important parts of our country, and how it is divided. But the capital city has even more power, because it is the “heart” of the country, and the place were everything in the country is handled. The inhabitants of the cities are sometimes complicated, and and use the city for a different purpose. The white people arrived to Colombia and took the black people as slaves, and thought they were keeping shipping of contraband in their houses.

We can say that this is true because Hermes Tovar talks about this subject: “…Hizo presumir a las autoridades que los esclavos escondían en sus casas mercancías de contrabando” (Colombia, imágenes de su diversidad, pg 66). We can conclude that the cities had plenty of power, but its inhabitants used it for another purpose, and that there is a lot of history unseen about them.