Invasión

Invasion was warmly welcomed at its premiere at Austin's SXSW Film Festival. It provides a retrospective look at the US invasion of Panama in 1989. It appears to be one of the first theatrical examinations of this event by a Panamanian. While the film is compelling some of its directorial choices seem surprising. It isn't really a history of the invasion as much as it is a series of interviews with Panamanian witnesses as to what they remember about what happened 25 years ago. At what point it is suggested that the film is intended to show how the invasion is remembered rather than what actually happened. This leaves open the question of whether we are hearing peoples' actual memories or those that they have reconstructed in their own minds over a quarter century. The interviewees are never identified by name or title. There is no real attempt to provide political context or narration. Surprisingly, there is no archival photography of the invasion leaving the viewer to merely imagine what it might have looked like. There is no attempt to interview scholars or journalists who covered the invasion which might have provided context, which seems particularly useful for an international audience. In another odd decision, the director uses actors to make somewhat clumsy recreations of dead civilians in the street. The exercise seems somewhat pointless when archival footage would have been easily accessible.

Still Invasion is enjoyable and informative. Some of the witnesses offer compelling first-hand testimony about the events of the invasion. Their personal witness is powerful. Their political analysis and historical context seems significantly less satisfactory. The reasons for the invasion and the extent of the casualties remain obscure and poorly defined leaving the viewer intrigued, but confused. The film is an interesting one for those interested in American foreign policy and the role of historical memory, but its limited scope feels somewhat incomplete. If documentary is supposed to bring the viewer closer to the truth, Invasion instead raises more questions than it answers.

An embarassing affair, and sometimes amazingly revealing... Abner Benaim had access to a generous budget to put Chorrilleros (people from the poor neighborhood of El Chorrillo, which was devastated by American troops during the 1989 USA invasion to Panamá) to reenact a few things of which the filmmaker was curious about... How to put a dead body in a bag, how the Chorrilleros laid down on the street as American soldiers were abusing them, how USA parachutists should have felt when they fell into slime believing it was sand, and so on... We also watch a rich elderly Panamanian husband and wife tell how moved they were by the face of a young baby-face G. I. and how they served him a steak, or a young fellow (looking very gay) candidly narrate in awe that he was guest in the nunciature residence spending a few days with the nuncio, when Manuel Antonio Noriega decided to hide there... Seeing is believing. Up to this day many Panamanians think they were liberated in the name of democracy, and this documentary seems to believe it too, unless otherwise intended but not seen herein.

It seems as if the working title of this were "Where Were You When the Bombs Were Launched?"

Simple, good, is the story of Panamanians who lived the story, I could be in that movie, telling my story, everyone who lived could tell her story and even though scientific studies claim that the human brain is not able to save much detail in this story is contradicted, that indeed there may be people who tell the truth, and can also increase the truth, but the truth is that my story is not far from the account in this movie. Do not expect action of fire, the movie is several Panamanian telling his story of the December 20, 1989. The world could say that after that time had the support of the USA to recover, but the truth is that we were ourselves what we have recovered our country, have competed against fate and have achieved good results, still need to improve a lot, but it depends on the human being who is not satisfied with the progress, but want a better country than we have.