"The Europeans' conquest of Mexico left the Indians a defeated people, and sometimes a defeated people prefer to go unnoticed. They become one with darkness, wishing to be forgotten so as not to be struck once more. [...] The Indians became part of a terra incognita; nobody, at any given moment, knew where the Huicholes, the Coras, or the Tarahumaras really were; nobody, notes [Fernando] Benitez, really cared whether they existed or not.
"There is a memorable scene in a film by Rubén Gámez, 'La fórmula secreta' (about the formula for making Coca-Cola), in which a Mexican tries to place himself within camera range so as to be photographed, but each time, the camera moves away from him, always leaving him outside the frame. It is as if this character wishes to win for himself the identity of the picture and as if the camera repeatedly denies him that wish."
-- Carlos Fuentes, from "Indian Mexico: A Trip to the Center of the Origin"
"The Europeans' conquest of Mexico left the Indians a defeated people, and sometimes a defeated people prefer to go unnoticed. They become one with darkness, wishing to be forgotten so as not to be struck once more. [...] The Indians became part of a terra incognita; nobody, at any given moment, knew where the Huicholes, the Coras, or the Tarahumaras really were; nobody, notes [Fernando] Benitez, really cared whether they existed or not.
ReplyDelete"There is a memorable scene in a film by Rubén Gámez, 'La fórmula secreta' (about the formula for making Coca-Cola), in which a Mexican tries to place himself within camera range so as to be photographed, but each time, the camera moves away from him, always leaving him outside the frame. It is as if this character wishes to win for himself the identity of the picture and as if the camera repeatedly denies him that wish."
-- Carlos Fuentes, from "Indian Mexico: A Trip to the Center of the Origin"