Customer Reviews

Venezuela

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The Venezuelan revolution is unique and full of contradictions. Even among those of the left, the figure of Hugo Chavez has caused great debate and division as he has certainly achieved great things, stood up to all of the powers of the global North, and transformed Venezuela...while at the same time he is part of the military and he has also tried to draw ever more power into his own hands. What I loved most about this documentary is that it is a frank and sometimes critical look at Venezuela, combining a broad and unique set of voices ranging from street vendors to community organizers to cooperative workers to academics. It manages to show a panorama of Venezuela's realities that achieves both width and depth at the same time, and never enters the realm of propaganda.

It starts with broad enough information and background to be interesting to those who really know nothing about what has been happening there, yet also gains good depth through the interviews, making it enlightening for those who have been following events there closely. Its effectiveness comes from its broad picture view of what has happened there on a national level, moving down to an extensive look at what is actually happening on the grassroots level. The multiple interviews of Venezuelans doing the hard of work of building alternative community and economic organizations are both candid and inspiring, making it particularly useful for people doing community work here in the US.

On a final note it has subtitles in both Spanish and English so it is accessible in both languages, and as someone who is bilingual, I'd also like to say they really did an amazing job with the translations.

This documentary breaks new ground in getting the truth out about the grassroots revolution in Venezuela. Cutting through the smoke screen of misinformation put out by much of the US media, Clifton Ross documents the exhilarating social transformation taking place in Venezuela based on cooperatives and community self-help. This video has a deep integrity, and will change the way you see the forces transforming Latin America.

Before watching "Venezuela: Revolution from the Inside Out," I thought had a pretty good intellectual understanding of Hugo Chavez's rise to power and the ways his kind of participatory democracy made it possible for many more kinds of people to engage politically than the representative form of democracy we have in the US. However, after watching this film, my understanding of what such engagement meant in people's lives grew much deeper. The film's wide range of interview subjects speaking with such candor brought the Bolivarian revolution to life for me. I found this film moving and inspiring, and I strongly recommend it for anyone who wants to know more about South America in the twenty-first century. It also would be an excellent addition to the library of any educational institution, as it offers a perspective on Latin American politics that is often suppressed in this country.

'Venezuela from the Inside Out', (2007) is Clif Ross's sympathetic but balanced update on the Bolivarian revolution led by Hugo Chavez Frías, seen as a grassroots movement from the bottom up. Ross is a poet and translator and long-time Berkeley leftist who has traveled extensively in Latin America and has made use of today's readily accessible, affordable digital filming and editing tools to produce a vivid, exciting documentary about Venezuela today, the "revolution from the inside out." Ross did on the spot interviews in Venezuela's schools, rural lending banks, and cooperatives and talked to campesinos, leaders, and American scholars to provide an in-depth study of the movement. This film, which I learned about from Ross himself, whom I've known for a decade, has rarely been shown in theaters but is available from Amazon on DVD or for rental from Netflix. It's provided with both Spanish and English subtitles, as needed. Most of it is in Spanish, but there's an excellent perspective provided through interviews in English with a number of American and other experts, advisers, and scholars. These include Dr. Steve Ellner of Universidad de Oriente, Puerto La Cruz; José Sant Roz of Universidad Socialista del Pueblo, Mérida; Jutta Schmitt of Universidad de los Andes, Mèrida; Roger Burbach, Director of the Center for the Study of the Americas, Berkeley, CA, and Christene DeJong, of the Center for Latin American Studies, University of California, Berkeley.

Revolution from the Inside Out is valuable addition to the documentary film literature on Latin America and deserves to be seen along with the recent political documentaries about Argentina by Fernando E. Solanas, The Dignity of the Nobodies (2006) and Latent Argentina (2007) and Kim Bartley and Donnacha O'Briain's 2003 Chavez: Inside the Coup.

Clif's particular focus is the cooperatives, which the film depicts as the flawed but essential institution of the Bolivarian revolution. On one level they help eradicate poverty--one of Chavez's major aims--by giving people work. On another, they are training programs providing job skills. On still another, they reshape the culture by developing a sense of cooperation, of the nation and the people as sharing a common, altruistic endeavor based consciously on socialist ideals. "We are here for a purpose," Humberto Morales, a worker in a farm cooperative out in the country, tells Ross's camera. "How do you feel working in the cooperative?" the filmmaker asks. "Happy. Delighted with life," the young man answers. "Producing for the people. When these potatoes are produced, they'll be sold all over the country. We're all family here. A family working together."

But another smiling young man, this time in the city of Mérida, talks frankly about the lingering bad habits that Venezuelan society has to overcome before it can move decisively forward. And the film points out with commentary and examples that the Venezuelan cooperatives aren't utopias. Some succeed, but many fail. Some of them don't work so well because of trouble finding trainees and organizing the work. And some organizers are unwilling to share; they become bosses and the cooperative destroys itself, or turns into a capitalistic enterprise like any other, when it is designed to be socialistic. John Curl, in Berkeley, and Steve Ellner, who lives and works in Venezuela--both Americans who know the country--comment on the problems. Cooperatives are like small businesses, and and two-thirds of them fail in the early stages, as small businesses do. An additional factor is the persistence of cultures from the time of the ruling oligarchy of the rich: the laziness, indifference, cynicism, and corruption the young man in Mérida refers to.

But importantly, some cooperatives have developed revolutionary socialist structures, says George Ciccariella-Maher, and have transformed institutions and people in the process. The film gives comments about the Frente Nacional Campesino and ends with the Zamora Vive cooperative, a particularly rigorous and idealistic one. We have heard from Javier Bolanos, its president about his with that Venezuela should achieve "food sovereignty." An older man with bright eyes and missing teeth--the unforgettable final closeup--says now "the old darkness disappears," and now, thank God, "even children see clearly." Ross has put together a rich 85 minutes. He leaves you wishing for more.

I found this to be a wonderful film, and could change your pre-conceptions of negativity about Venezuela.

This documentary has quite a few gems inside it, like the 'up and personal' style of interviewing collective members, the adventures in a car, walking along with farmers as they work, meetings of socialist community boards, and more.

** If you live in the USA, much of the information you get about Hugo Chavez and Venezuela is false. Period.**

This video delivers truth from the source. Please don't listen only to the media companies, like CNN, NBC, CBS, feeding you their wealthy corporate agendas -- why not give a listen to common people speaking about their lives and their dreams.

Having traveled to Venezuela myself in 2008, I was quite surprised to learn that this supposed "left-wing dictator" was Democratically elected multiple times, and that the 'leftist revolution' (that capitalist USA fears so much) is a socialist movement which has as a foundation making sure all people share in the bounties of society; namely food, water, shelter, education, and health-care.

While I did know vaguely what was going on in Venezuela before watching the film, I was deeply moved to see farmers speaking about what it would mean for them to work land and be able to collectively share the benefits of their work. Farmers and workers (of all ages) speaking about their dreams -- to keep the benefits of their labor.

Frankly, I hope many North Americans have a chance to see this DVD. This information is not 'revolutionary' from my perspective, it's common sense. What many could realize from watching this video is how far to the Right the USA has moved that the Left wing can no longer use language to talk about the theft of excess profits from workers ... even as we all recently experienced a trillion dollar (theft) bailout, the taking public funds and giving them with little over-site to the richest tier of US society.