History and Cinema "We who are here, we wait for you"

How many critical films about the 20th century can we say that cinema has produced? In a quick memory clipping, we remember films like Forest Gump, a romantic and brilliant film about the recent history of the United States of America; Apocalypse Now, based on Joseph Conrad's book, "Heart of Darkness", which portrays past existentialist issues within the US military during the Vietnam War; and some movies about Second World War.

A film that makes a complete historical cut of the great moments and characters of the last century, with real images and a critical view of the events, had not yet reached the public.

This is what the intelligent 72-minute documentary “We who are here, waiting for you” shows us, a rare collection of striking images from the 20th century, both artistic and political, directed by Marcelo Masagão and co-scripted with Eduardo Valadares, the film makes use of the work of historian Eric Hobsbawm, “

The Age of Extremes”, highlighting the contrast in the history of a century involved in two World Wars, economic declines and rises. Of the 40 years that add up to the two world wars, the so-called Age of Total War, to the economic abyss that occurs between these wars.

The political and economic plans of trying to restructure the world crisis, the totalitarian regimes that emerge rocked by the people. The cultural and social revolutions, the Cold War that shaped our contemporaneity and influences conflicts until today. The arts until 1945 and post-avant-garde after 1950, the so-called “third world” and revolutions, the end of socialism and hope for the next millennium.

See too: The Crisis of Socialism in Eastern Europe

This is not a simple documentary about history, the film reveals that it is possible to make history through cinema. By subtly working the paradoxical theme present in various times of the 20th century, the film invites the viewer to reflect on everyday concepts and themes; how not to smile at the image of the “old” Yuri Gagarin looking at a lit lamp and contemplating electricity for the first time in 1931?

And how not to be scared to see right after, the image of Yuri Gagarin “son”, three decades later, being the first man to travel through space. Men at War and women, mothers, making bombs in the great war industries. The script of images works with the spectator's feelings in an oscillating way, but which always ends in a thin and melancholic cutting irony.

The excellent work of Pernambuco director Marcelo Masagão is sealed with a beautiful soundtrack produced by Wim Mertens, and the music is largely responsible for the “sentimental” conduction of the film. The historical irony reaches us in an acidic, depressive way and the film's musical direction leads us to a reflective melancholy about the great events of an Age of Extremes.

Awarded at the Gramado Festival and winner at the Recife Festival in the film, script and editing categories, the The film is recommended to all educators and students who believe in the reconstruction of humanism through History.

Carlos Beto Abdalla
Historian and Master in Literary Studies