SIMÓN BOLÍVAR IS CELEBRATED IN THE LIBERATOR
Biopics can provide fascinating personal background information, and The Liberator is no exception. To make the film enjoyable, director Alberto Alvero even has Bolívar (played by Édgar Ramírez) naked a couple of times to stress his charisma with women as well as men, but flashbacks to provide personal context are rather confusing. Most of the film is about his dream of unifying South America by expelling the Spanish, who ruled tyrannically for some 300 years. His teacher clearly mentored him to think about liberation in Rousseauian terms. Thomas Jefferson is also mentioned as an inspiring influence. But Bolívar’s concept of equality is racial equality, and he recruits the native population, mestizos, and Black slaves to fight for him. While in Spain, Bolívar hires a famous general to lead the struggle against Spain, only later to learn that the renowned military hero is incompetent. Accordingly, Bolívar becomes the general in charge of the revolution. An Irish mercenary contingent also joins his cause. Later, Bolívar has to deal with “special interests,” including those who want to kick the Spanish out so they can grab power rather than bring about Bolivaraian power for the people. Bolívar, financed all long by a fictional English banker, Torkington (Danny Houston), later rejects his proposal to set up banks because he will not countenance foreign economic control of the Americas. Misconstrued is a confrontation in 1825 between Bolívar, who wanted a strong presidency, and a faction preferring constitutional rule. The film fails to mention the Congress of Panamá of 1826, which was attended by all South American countries but Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Paraguay, but does stress that the quest to build nationalism in separate countries was at odds with Bolívar’s dream of a union of South American countries that would have created a league of American republics, a mutual defense pact, and a supranational parliamentary assembly similar in some respects to the later Pan American Union and current Organization of American States. Yet even his country later split up. Bolívar died in 1830, but the film leaves open the question who was behind an assassination that is more hypothesis than fact. MH