Peruvian Art Film On A Shoestring Budget: “La chucha perdida de los incas”, directed by Fernando Gutiérrez, aka “Huanchaco.”

If you were in Santiago de Chile (Chile) last November (2018) and visited the Isabel Aninat Gallery, you could have had the opportunity of watching what could be considered a 90 minutes mockumentary according to common movie standards but, due to its intricate weave of touchy Peruvian middle class issues, it could be classified also as contemporary Latin American magic realism film, the hurtful kind for those of us who keep a sadomasochistic relationship with the region as a consequence of different circumstances.

While thematically and visually you can find parallels to Paul Verhoeven’s Total Recall (1990), Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979) or even Stanley Kubricks’ 2001: A Space Oddysey (1968), this one isn’t an output achieved by the desire to imitate those movies but the result of working with a subject matter known as Peru, the territory and its society, its economy and social relations. Even the title of the film would be sort of outrageous or otherwordly, at least, if you were a person who has learned good manners because in Spanish, the word “chucha” is a very inappropiate way to refer to the external parts of the female external genitals and having this term used in a movie title is much less than encourageable. Naturally, as a project, the documentary was a winner in a national contest. In August 2016, “La chucha perdida de los incas”, under that title, received a monetary incentive granted by DAFO, an institution that is a branch of the Ministry of Culture of Peru. Well, this is what The Ministry of Culture does in a Latin American country, doesn’t it? Rationalizing slang under the guise of artistic freedom…

Well, Peru has a recent tradition of “vulgar slang” in film titles, like “The frigthened tit”(La teta asustada) (2009) directed by Claudia Llosa and renamed “The milk of sorrow” for the American market. In fact, the original title is translated in Wikipedia as “The frightened teat”, recurring to the British English. In 2013, the movie Asu Mare was well received by the audience in Peru, even though the expression is an abbreviation of a number of words that refer to someones’ mother’s genitalia. The expression is so widely used that no one is thinking about its meaning. I feel guilty about it, after all, I appear with “Huanchaco” in a movie made by one of his heroes: Leonidas Zegarra, the Peruvian Anti-Communist filmmaker. The title of the movie is Chesu Mare (2014) which is a more clear way to refer the whole phrase used to insult others in Peru. Chesu Mare is Leonidas Zegarra’s autobiographical movie. It wasn’t released in Lima, the Peruvian capital because, according to one of the local programmers “this is not the kind of movie that I want in my theater.” But Fernando Gutiérrez, aka “Huanchaco,” is an admirer of all the movies made by Mr. Zegarra and Chesu Mare was exhibited on September the 2nd, 2016, at the Contemporary Art Museum – Lima, located in Barranco (Lima, Peru) while the Leonidas Zegarra Museum prototype was being exhibited there, too. “Huanchaco” has told many times that after watching a movie made by Leonidas Zegarra he decided to produce his first shoestring film. The result was that his superhero 40 minutes tv show pilot introducing Superchaco (“Huanchaco” disguised as a lazy and opportunistic Latin American superhero) was considered “trash” by many film critics (probably the ones that hate everything made by Leonidas Zegarra) and “Huanchaco” never projected the pilot in public again. In fact, a couple of years ago he gave his DVD copy and told me clearly that I shouldn’t upload it to YouTube.

“La chucha perdida de los incas” is a movie made when “Huanchaco”’s friends had time to record material and there was a camera available. This is the reason why there are several video formats in the movie. Depending on who was lending the camera, the visual quality would vary. Obviously, while in Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers (1994) this is a stylistic choice, in “Huanchaco”’s or Leonidas Zegarra’s movies, this is imposed by the production conditions.  The storyline itself has been changing along the time depending on budget contrains and the reality itself. I remember “Huanchaco” telling me that since the beginning of his project in the Peruvian jungle, he was broke most of the time. He even required that I should allow my beard to grow, so I would be in his project, which I did, because I know that “Huanchaco” always manages to develop his artwork. Therefore, after months of not shaving, I had the longest beard I ever had, and “Huanchaco” didn’t mention the documentary but invited me to the inauguration of one of the exhibitions in which he was participating, at the Peruvian-American Institute and Cultural Center in downtown Lima on February 2014. After that, I shaved because I had something else to do and I didn’t hear about the documentary proyect anymore. Anyway, one month ago, before traveling to Chile, “Huanchaco” allowed me to watch “La chucha perdida de los incas.”

The plot summary is deceptively simple: Mario Poggi, a former sculptor who has studied diplomacy in Europe shows the tools he has developed to apply his psychological treatments. Also, speculates that there is an ancient place in the Peruvian jungle used for male fertility rituals. “Huanchaco”, his patient, travels to the Peruvian jungle in order to explore the region and find the location of the place described by Mr. Poggi. “Huanchaco” identifies where the ritual was practiced and returns to Lima, the Peruvian capital. Mario Poggi has passed away and his wife dreamt that there were mysterious lights above their house. “Huanchaco” contacts a local institution known as “Alfa y Omega”, that has an extraterrestrial origin according to its leaders. Traveling with them to a beach famous for being visited by UFOs, “Huanchaco” decides to sent a radio signal to the space and wait for an answer. Something strange happens the night “Huanchaco” has the encrypted message sent into the atmosphere. “Huanchaco” thinks that his question was answered and tells so to me community that frequents “Alfa y Omega.” In the Peruvian jungle the ancient ritual is repeated by “Huanchaco” using Mario Poggi’s mummy. When he returns to Lima, the “Alfa y Omega”’ leader is dead and the Peruvian President has been impeached. At the streets, there are demonstrations and a man whistles a whistle, after that he disappears in the streets.

“Huanchaco” told me to watch “La chucha perdida de los incas” up to the point it was edited because he wanted to know if “it could be understood and someone who is into conspiracy theories has practice identying non evident narratives.” Therefore, for him I am a “conspiracy theorist” but, as I know, most of them are just plain conspiracies, not theories at all. And, of course, while watching the movie I have identified many hidden conventional signals, subliminal messages, and symbols, but I won’t mention them or you would think that I’m a bit off, unless you receive previous preparation to listen to what I can say.  What I can share right now is that the movie was projected in Chile sponsored by the Embassy of Peru in Chile (Isabel Aninat Gallery, November 13 – December 28, 2018) and it is an art film. The very first time I met “Huanchaco” was in 2010 at the Cultural Center of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Peru) where he wanted to develop a homage to Leonidas Zegarra and he needed my approval because Mr. Zegarra wouldn’t open his archives if I didn’t recommend “Huanchaco” to him. I very much liked the project and it was exhibited there. Since then, “Huanchaco” thought that I should be the appointed curator of the Leonidas Zegarra Museum, a project he imagined while developing his first homage to Leonidas Zegarra. I thought it was fun and underwent doctoral studies on the History of Art at the National University of San Marcos (Lima-Peru) the years 2012 and 2013. Nowadays, I’m writing the final draft of my doctoral thesis, that studies one of Mr. Zegarra’s movies, María y los niños pobres (The Blessed Virgin Mary and the poor children) (2010), shot in Bolivia, edited in Lima, and exhibited in both countries, Bolivia and Peru. So, I can state now that La chucha perdida de los incas is art, actually, based on the Institutional Theory of Art developed by George Dickie because 1) the movie is an artifact; 2) it has been presented to an artworld public. Is it good art, bad art, terrible art? Well, that depends on you and your taste. I recommend that you watch the movie by yourself when you have the opportunity. I like it a lot!