GUADALUPE

When weaving narratives, the result always ends up somewhere between reality and myth. Documentary filmmaking is no exception, the result is never 100% real. From the moment a subject and a camara position is chosen, bias comes into play; there is always a certain degree of manipulation on the filmmaker’s part, no matter how minimal. Later in the process the subjective persuasion effort is absolute (as it should be) when editing the film. To explore in depth this gray area between fiction and reality in documentary filmmaking I decided to embrace three entirely different filmmaking narrative styles within the film.

In addition to capturing ‘reality’ such as indigenous rituals and religious pilgrimages using an ethnographic narrative, I also deliberately staged historical texts with actors. These staged scenes are based on real events, and every one of the actor’s lines can be rigorously traced to historical texts endorsed by historians. But still, in the end the use of actors implies representation, and I became concerned this may lead the audience too far astray from our documentary film and into the realm of fiction.

Hoping to avoid this, I decided to make it clear to the audience during the earlier part of the film that these scenes with actors were based on 16th century historical events in Mexico, they are not fiction. In addition, I staged them without attempting to realistically represent its setting: Tenochtitlan and New Spain in the decades after the fall of the Aztec. Instead, I approached the staging of these historical texts with a significant amount of creative liberty, the result being more akin to an experimental artistic representation rather than a lifelike or realistic recreation.

Obviously, this artistic staging with use of actors is experimental to some extent compared to typical documentary filmmaking. Nonetheless, I believe it meets one of the main purposes of this documentary: to better immerse us in the dialogue which sheds very valuable light on the events surrounding the birth of a new hybrid culture during the 16th century.

It was important for me the audience achieve a sufficient ‘Brechtian’ alienation when witnessing these scenes with actors. I hoped they would reflect on the sociocultural content presented rather than getting lost in the ‘make belief’ of representation. To achieve this, we revealed to the viewer the whole of the film set where the scenes took place, and we did so before each of the scenes with the actors and immediately afterwards. This behind-the-scenes documentary style viewpoint is a recurring element throughout the film.

As a third narrative style in the film, we also documented the process of preparing and making the film itself: the actual casting sessions, the rehearsals, interviews with the actors, the film set construction. I believe this narrative approach is a direct influence from the great filmmaker Agnes Varda, whose films I admire.

The main topic of the film is, of course, the miraculous apparition of the virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico in the 16th century. However, the use of these different narrative styles in the same documentary film grants it an additional discourse that allows the viewer to also reflect on the nature of storytelling itself as documentary filmmaking is used to capture reality from different perspectives. This exploration is not new, it has always also been a part of storytelling one way or another, be it in myths, religion, or our efforts to document history itself.