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THESE 5 SCENES
from EL MOVIMIENTO represent
some of the film's main themes: the gaze and presence of the camera and
of the filmmaker in the relationship between shaman and anthropologist;
the issues brought by the varied patients who come before Don Chabo's
altar to be cured; the few who try to hire him to harm others; the young
woman who had been kidnapped and who then needed to be exorcised; patients
who need blessings before their trips over the border to find work in
the US; and the moving last statement by Bill Hanks about the passing
of Don Chabo and the continuation of his teachings.
SCENE
1: THE BEGINNING
Scene 1 introduces the collaborators
(shaman, anthropologist, filmmaker), then the town of Oxkutzcab, then
the shaman’s house, land, and altar. In the last part of Scene
1, the anthropologist, Bill Hanks (BH), teaches the shaman, Don Chabo
(DC) how to look through a movie camera and what it sees:
Close-up of Bill Hanks’
face lit by a flashlight inside Don Chabo’s house. Hanks speaks
directly into the camera which is held by Don Chabo.
BH:
This is what I want you to see. For example, look at my eyes.
I’m looking right into your eyes. See?
DC: Yeah.
BH: You see the difference
if I look here, or there? Looks off screen. Now I’m
not looking at you, but at the guy next to you. Now here comes
my gaze right at you again, see? I’m showing you this so you
will understand the effect of gaze on the camera. Because if I
look right at you like this, it’s as if I’m talking to
you. If you’re watching the film you’ll think, "He’s
talking to me." But if my eyes wander around, you’ll
feel like you’re watching something you’re not a part
of. But if I talk right at you like this, this is how it looks.
DC: OK, then you’re
talking with me again.
BH: Right!
DC: Hey! I see a
little guy in here! Could the little guy be you?
BH: Yep, it’s
he’s still me. Do you see that it’s me?
DC: Yes, I see you.BH: Listen,
even I didn’t know this stuff until recently,when Peter told
me. He says, "If you’re being filmed, look into the lens."
When he told me why, I saw it was true. Peter asked me to explain
it even if I make mistakes.
DC: Yeah. I understand.
BH: It’s more
about seeing than understanding DC: I’m looking at it,
and that makes me understand it. Now everything is clear.
SCENE
2:
TWO PATIENTS–ONE FOR SORCERY,
THE OTHER INCURABLE
Scene 2
embodies the ambiguities inherent in the film. Don Chabo maintains
that he only cures, unlike a sorcerer. The following brief encounter
between a woman (W) and Don Chabo (DC) places his stance into an ambivalent
perspective (note the sentences in bold).
Don Chabo appears at
the altar, arranges the chair, throws away his cigarette.. A woman
suddenly appears at his side:, and whispers: :
W: I just want to
talk. Woman shows her leg and points to her right eye with finger.
This is what she did to me. She did me like this. She mimes
a strike to leg. And she hit me with dirt here, right here.
Points to her eye. Right at my side, like this, she mocked
me.
DC: Did she strike
you?
W: No.
DC: A lady?
W: Yes. My neighbor.
DC: What did she
hit you with?
W: Her hand.
DC: Can't you
take it?
W: What?
DC: Because it's
really expensive.
W: How much?
DC: It's a waste.
What do you want to do to her?
W: I just want to
make her suffer like I suffered. Make her body hurt.
DC: Shakes head.
No. Here, evil is not done. It's not possible.
Go
where it can be done. All right?
W: Yeah.
DC: Where
are you from?
W: Mani.
DC: Go
there where it can be done. This job can be done for you.
Here, we don't do that. Here, we cure. Only cure.
W: Yeah, right.
DC: Looks at camera.
Continue on your way. Here, it's impossible. Because
that thing is really expensive.
W: Yeah, as it should
be.
DC: So, is that it?
W: Yeah, that's all.
DC: OK. Looks
at camera. You're free.
W: Well, I'm out
of here.
Woman and her daughter
leave the altar and exit the hut by the front door. An old man then
enters, greet Don Chabo and the filmmaker, complains of great pain
and asks Don Chabo to bless him. Don Chabo then performs a ritual
blessing. Afterwards, he confesses that he is unable to cure the man’s
incurable illness. They both mourn. The man then leaves.
SCENE
3: EXORCISM
Scene 3
represents, to our knowledge, the only exorcism by a Maya shaman ever
filmed. This exorcism also undoes the work of a Maya sorcerer.
Don Chabo
gives the the filmmaker, Peter Thompson, permission to enter the altar
room to film the exorcism. Don Chabo then performs the exorcism on
a young woman in great distress who weeps and shivers during the treatment.
Afterwards, Don Chabo gives her mother and grandmother medecine for
her and the family then carries her out into the night. In the complete
scene within the film, Don Chabo (DC) then discusses her case with
Bill Hanks (BH) and explains why the exorcism was necessary.
BH: What happened
to her?
DC: She got struck
by evil. Real malevolence.
BH: Done by another
shaman?
DC: Yup. Another shaman.
That girl was stolen, lured away.
Asks Margotte in
the next room. How many days was she gone?
MAR: Fifteen days.
DC: Fifteen days she
was under a spell.
MAR: And her family
got word that she had been kidnapped.
DC: Yeah, and then
they went to get her.
BH: Who? Her family?
DC: Yeah. It's a good
thing they did. If they hadn't, it would’ve been all over with
that guy constantly working on her. She would’ve been stolen
again.
BH: But you didn’t
finish the exorcism, did you?
DC: No. You’re
right, I didn’t.
BH: Why not?
DC: Because it was
jerking me, shaking me. Shocking me. Just like when you touch an
electric wire–zap, zap, it shoots through you.
I could feel it right
here. For the exorcism, I’ve gotten old. I can’t sustain
it any more.
BH: When you do an
exorcism like this one, is there anything you have to do to protect
yourself afterwards?
DC: Silently crosses
himself and raises both arms to the heavens. Just like that.
The lady asked me, "Tell me, Don Chabo, tell me." She
wanted to know just what had happened. But I didn’t tell ‘cause
it only causes trouble. We would get brought before the authorities
and the next thing you know, we’d be in jail. The good guys
or just the sorcerers? No, curers, too--like you and me.
SCENE
4: "SOUND & LIGHT" SHOW
Scene 4
embodies strains in the relationship between filmmaker and anthropologist.
They then leave Don Chabo’s house and go to a tourist hotel to
rest from filmmaking and then see a "Sound & Light"
show in Mayan ruins. The show idealizes Mayan life, and beautifully
counterpoints the reality of the film. Thompson and Hanks then return
in a blinding storm to Don Chabo’s house where they find the
exorcism patient (in Scene 3) who has returned for a follow-up treatment
before crossing into North America to work as a migrant laborer.
SCENE
5: DON CHABO’S DEATH
Scene 5
is the culmination of scenes in which Don Chabo and Bill Hanks come
to an explicit understanding and resolution about the fact that Bill
knows everything about Don Chabo’s shamanic practices intellectually
but has not yet received the gift of healing and therefore cannot
carry on Don Chabo’s active healing practice.
Bill,
with dark glasses, walks through thick jungle.
BH: After
Don Chabo’s death I return to Oxkuzcab. I want to visit
his house. When I get there, it’s overgrown and abandoned.
The land and everything on it has been sold but the new owner
is afraid to set foot on it because of all the spirits.
Inside
Don Chabo’s abandoned house..
The
house is unlocked, so I walk in and find the altar, covered
with cobwebs, untouched since that day when Don Chabo was brought
to the hospital, two years earlier. I wrap up the santos and
bring them to Manuel in Merida–surely his oldest son wants
them. When I get there, he tells me, "No, you keep them.
You’re Poppa’s heir, and he wanted you to have them."
So I wrap them in white cloth for the long trip home.
Clouds
shot from a plane. Then we slowly explore Don Chabo’s altar in
Hanks’ Chicago home.
The
only things Don Chabo took with him to the hospital were the
crystals and his own cross. Margotte, Manuel and the rest of
the family had cared for him as best they could, but there was
no cure for his worn-out body. No more incurable old men would
come to his altar, or women looking for sorcery, or victims
of sorcery in need of exorcism. No more babies to cool down
or people to bless before they head north as migrant laborers
in the US. Holding his crucifix and crystals, and all the years
of prayers recorded in them, Don Chabo made his crossing. Before
he died, he stitched the shawl for the cross and tied the note
to it: "Will, t’inkaatik tech le cruz yetel le sastuun.
Tech t’in curazon. Ten t’a curazon." "Will,
I want you to have the cross and crystals. You are in my heart.
I am in your heart." The hand was shaky but the words were
clear. That was the cross at the right, the one that Don Chabo
cut from the tree about sixty years ago. The one on the left
is mine. He and I cut it from a tree about twenty years ago.
Margotte made the white altarcloth to wrap it in. The crystals
came to Don Chabo one by one over his lifetime. He held them
every day and prayed for light and every day they gave it. That
was his calling, and he lived it in Ozkutzcab. Now his cross
and mine are side by side in Chicago, and my hands hold the
crystals. I don’t know if I’ll ever understand their
signs, or if they did point the way whether I could follow.
Maybe Don Chabo was right when he said that we don’t have
a path, just a few brief clearings in the woods. The rest of
the time we’re lost and looking for things that can’t
be seen. Maybe that’s what’s been so hard for Peter
to film, too, and for me to translate. So hard that it took
us ten years and strained our friendship. But the will is still
strong. The family lives on in Merida. The boys are young men.
Their sister is a mother. Margotte and Manuel struggle to make
ends meet. There will be trips north for migrant work and trips
south for reunions. We will visit the grave where we buried
their father. We will carry his song, and the life within it.
Cut to
black. His song begins. Credits.
Copyright ©
1999 by William F. Hanks and Peter Thompson All rights reserved. Printed
in the USA.
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