Hit Venezuelan Film on Netflix Shares the Images and Emotions Behind the Headlines of Anti-Maduro Protests

After stealing the presidential election last week, Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, is sending his police this week to ferret out opposition activists. The late night raids are nicknamed “Operation Knock-Knock.” To cut communication between dissidents, Maduro went on national TV last night and showed “patriotic” Venezuelans how to uninstall WhatsApp.If you want to see what happens next, watch “Simón,” a gripping Venezuelan political drama that fortuitously came out on Netflix a few weeks before the July 28 presidential election. “Simón” is set during the aftermath of the protests against the last election that Maduro stole, in 2016.The film follows a university student leader, Simón, who leads street protests until he falls into the clutches of Mr. Maduro’s Bolivarian National Guard. The plot places the hero, Simón, “safely” at Miami. I put “safely” in quotes because Simón, played by Venezuelan actor Christian McGaffney, is tormented by flashbacks about his treatment at the hands of Maduro’s police. The movie is framed by Simón’s trauma over his imprisonment and his guilt over abandoning the fight against the dictatorship to pursue asylum in America and the easy life of Miami. In his asylum interview, the American immigration officer explains that if granted asylum he cannot go back to Venezuela.The hero’s name, Simón, was chosen to evoke the opportunity for every man — or woman — to play the role of Simón Bolívar, the 19th Venezuelan statesman and military officer who liberated the Andean part of South America from Spanish rule. Mr. McGaffney plays a Simón wracked by doubt. In the flashback scenes, Franklin José Virgüez does a masterful job playing the role of a corrupt and scary National Guard colonel. It is hard to believe that, off screen, Mr. Virgüez is a Miami-based Venezuelan actor specializing in comic roles.For many Americans, Simón offers an introduction to who could be your new neighbor. Mr. Maduro’s misrule of what once was South America’s richest country has been so devastating that 8 million citizens — one quarter of the population — have fled. About 10 percent of these emigrants made it to America. Venezuelans are now the fastest growing Latino group in America.During the Trump Administration, Washington supported a coup attempt against Mr. Maduro. It came within a hair of succeeding. On Monday, Trump told the Kick live streaming platform with a grimace: “I know it very well. Venezuela is right now being run by a dictator.” With Maduro digging in his heels — or, more accurately, his claws — for a third 6-year term, another wave of migrants is starting north. Traveling overland, they should start arriving at our southern border this fall.Filmed on various locations in southern Florida, “Simón” gives a convincing picture of Venezuela’s quandary today. The names of the lead actor, Mr. McGaffney, aged 35, and the director, Diego Vicentini, aged 30, evoke Venezuela’s go-go years of the 1950s and 1960s, when the country was a magnet for immigrants from Europe.The movie had modest beginnings. Mr. Vicentini made a short version for his master’s thesis at the Los Angeles Film School.The reception was so positive that he raised $35,756 through crowdfunding and did a full, 99-minute version. Although the film gives a harsh picture of the Maduro dictatorship, the filmmaker successfully rebuffed legal challenges and managed to release it last September in 34 cinemas nationwide. By year’s end it was already one of the highest-grossing films in Venezuela of the last decade.In February, “Simón” was one of four Latin American films nominated to compete for Best Ibero-American Film of the Goya Awards, Spain’s equivalent of the American Academy Awards. It did not win. After its release on Netflix, though, it has scored a 94 percent approval rating on the American film reviewing site Rotten Tomatoes. This is believed to be the highest rating ever for a film from Venezuela.With subtitles in English, it is easy to jump over the film’s language barrier of Caribbean Spanish. For American viewers, it gives the images and the emotions behind the headlines coming out of Venezuela.At the same time, in a time of a big prisoner swap between America and Russia, “Simón” has a universal relevance. At home, in Russia or Venezuela, dissidents often beat their heads against walls. In exile, the solution preferred by dictators, they are often reduced to impotence.

Hit Venezuelan Film on Netflix Shares the Images and Emotions Behind the Headlines of Anti-Maduro Protests

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