Beyond Populism: Action Cinema in the Informal Sector of Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, Ecuador Páginas

Abstract

This article analyzes the emergent low-budget cinema of Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas in Ecuador. What unites the productions of this audiovisual sector is that, unlike the low-cost filmmaking of other Ecuadorian provinces, Santo Domingo’s consists mainly of action films. Our central claim about these action movies is twofold. First, drawing on the work of Jerry White, we argue that given the ontological conditions of the santodomingueño, characterized by ambiguity about whether the province belongs to Ecuador’s coastal or highland region, these films are best understood through the theoretical lens of a “composite”, in which national cinemas must be understood ecumenically. This means that not only “peripheral cinemas”, but also cinemas that do not deal directly with “the national” are part of “national” cinemas. In the second part of our argument we maintain that to the extent that these popular action movies serve as part of Santo Domingo’s attempts to negotiate this composite, they go beyond the populist baggage associated with the Hollywood action genre. Using the work of Yvonne Tasker, we note that given its simplistic and Manichaean way of telling stories, action cinema has historically been an ideologizable vehicle. This is not the case with Santo Domingo’s cinema,
where the objective is simply to articulate the voices of an often-forgotten people. Santodomingueño filmmakers also use the action genre to narrativize critical issues that plague this province, principally narcoviolence.