Machetero

Printed in Left Turn Magazine

Directed by Vagabond
Running time: 80 minutes

By Walidah Imarisha

Machetero. Taking its name from The People’s Boricua Army, aka Los Macheteros, a clandestine radical military organization in Puerto Rico fighting against colonialism, this film is a challenge, an interrogation on struggle, a call to arms. Designed to make people question, to make people uncomfortable, and above all to make them think, New York native Vagabond’s new release explores the concept of terrorism, violence and freedom in a post 911 world. Armed with a soundtrack by Puerto Rican punk band Ricanstruction, who says their music is only as loud as the bombs the u.s. military dropped on the island of Vieques, Machetero demands to be heard.

The film tells the story of Pedro Taino, a Puerto Rican “terrorist” who uses violence as a weapon against the colonization of his island. The film is tied together by the disembodied dialogue between Pedro (played by Not4Prophet, lead singer for Ricanstruction) and French journalist Jean Dumont who comes to interview him while he is in prison. Jean is played by Isaach de Bankole (The Keeper, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, Coffee and Cigarettes, Mandalay). The interview is the common theme throughout the movie, often as voiceless voices over harsh and beautiful shots. Jean and Pedro meet face to face on screen in the middle of the film, and the confrontation, the back and forth, the begrudging respect that grows, is captivating.

Underneath this is the story of a young drug dealer/rebel (played by Kelvin Fernandez in his first starring role) who is inspired by Pedro’s example and his journey to understanding and self-discovery. The film is broken into three parts: past, present and future, and flash back and forth between them to weave a story that is timeless and timely. Pedro’s character and the young rebel’s often blend together in a way that questions how much things have changed in the world for oppressed people of color.

Even though the vision for Machetero was conceived several years ago, the assassination of Los Macheteros leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios Sept. 23, 2005 by FBI agents outside his door has lent the film a frighteningly prophetic and profound relevance. He was wanted for the 1983 robbery of a Connecticut Wells Fargo armored truck which netted $7 million for the revolutionary organization. Rios, 72 years old, was left to bleed to death on his doorstep.

In the wake of Rios’ murder, the FBI has targeted over 400 people who support Puerto Rican independence from the U.S., and in early February, the FBI raided the homes of numerous independentistas on the island.

In this context, Machetero, which depicts scenes of police raids, brutal interrogations, imprisonment of freedom fighters and the criminalization of young Puerto Ricans, blends fact and fiction together in an eerie and haunting creation that links the genocide of the Tainos, the original inhabitants of Puerto Rico, down to the “commonwealth” colonial status the island languishes under today.

One aspect of the film that adds heavily to that blurring is the role of Pedro’s mother, played by former Puerto Rican political prisoner of war Dylcia Pagan. Pagan, who served nearly 20 years for seditious conspiracy and who herself is a filmmaker, offers a gravity to the film. The shot of her on the beach of Puerto Rico, staring out as her young son plays on the beaches yelling “Our beach!” speaks louder than the soundtrack.

Vagabond said about the film, “The theme of the film is centered on the unending cycle of violence. The recent events of 9/11 and the refusal of the corporate controlled media in this country to critically look at the situation were the inspiration of the film. Terrorism is not something that grows up in a vacuum. There is a cause and effect like anything else in the world. The word terrorist and terrorism are thrown around to easily without any context or understanding of the situations that create terrorists or terrorism.”

Machetero pushes not only people’s perceptions of politics by addressing controversial material, but also subverts the medium of film itself.

Machetero, which Vagabond calls “an allegorical narrative,” is one part cinematic innovation, extended music video, political education class, manifesto (or anti-manifesto, in the words of Pedro Taino) and history lesson. It is a Puerto Punk opera with a cast of mostly non professional people whose realness is both heartfelt and immediate. The filmmaking style is a mix between professional filmmaking and DIY. It sabotaged linear time lines and smudges characters. The anti-manifesto that Pedro wrote scrolls across scenes, burning its political rhetoric into the audiences’ retinas.

Interwoven through the film, the score is a mosaic that combines songs from Puerto Rican punk band Ricanstruction’s first album Liberation Day and original music created for Machetero. Lyrics flash on the screen like stop signs, forcing the viewer to reckon with songs such as “Jihad Seeds” and “Pedro’s Grave,” with begins with the line, “Pedro’s got a pipebomb/set for the 4th of July.” Vagabond alternates complete silence and then splices in a loud ass punk song that creates a soundtrack as jarring, disturbing and captivating as the film.

The film ends with a Puerto Punx Matrix scene: the young revolutionary jacks into the telephone box and places a call to the Office of Homeland Security to deliver his own anti-manifesto, ending with, “This is where your death is our beginning. This is where recompense is redemption.”

Machetero is an incredibly necessary film. For the content it unflinchingly explores, for its interrogation of who exactly is the terrorist in these daze and times, for the innovations in film techniques that blur the line of reality and fiction -- because for oppressed people, our fiction is often our reality. Machetero offers no simple answers. It doesn’t even ask simple questions. It does demand both a recognition and a reckoning, and it must be answered with something.