Silvestre Pantaleón September 16, 2011

Silvestre Pantaleón is the story of an elderly man from the Nahuatl-speaking village of San Agustin Oapan, Mexico. It begins as a local curandero reads the protagonist’s fortune in the cards and diagnoses the costly remedy to his ills: a complex series of offerings to the hearth, the ants, the river, and the deceased. Silvestre Pantaleon then struggles to pull together the money needed to pay for the curing ceremony and provide for his family, dedicating himself to the only remunerative activities he knows: handcrafting rope for religious ceremonies and making seldom-used household objects that he alone still has the skills to produce. Silvestre Pantaleón —the result of a collaboration between an anthropologist who lives Oapan and a filmmaker dedicated to working in indigenous communities—unfolds with no interviews or narration. Rather, scenes from daily life are woven together in rich ethnographic detail and lingering imagery that explore a rural community situated in the shadow of a highway bridge to the international resort of Acapulco. Over this bridge pass thousands of tourists, oblivious to the village life just below yet worlds apart. The story of Silvestre Pantaleón is the narrative of an unusual man playing a familiar role in a simple though universal tale of aging. It juxtaposes the possibility of triumph (the household sustained and health recovered—through offerings to the hearth, the earth, the river and the deceased) with the certitude of reversal (the recognition that healing is but an ephemeral hiatus in the inexorable advance of time).

Discussion with both directors follows the screening.

Directors: Jonathan D. Amith and Roberto Olivares
Mexico | 2010 | 65 minutes | Nahuatl with English subtitles

Official Website: http://events.nationalgeographic.com/events/films/2011/09/16/silvestre-pantaleon/