Double Me (2018) - full transcript

- Shall we start?
- Yes, let's start.

April 6th 1954, Bogotá.

"Dear Carlos,
you arrived at your oldest age,"

"far from us,"

"fulfilling your duty to prepare
yourself for action,"

"for thought,"

"to serve yourself and serve others,"

"for the life that God
wants to give you"

"with satisfactions,
with accomplishments."

"21 years ago my eyes became wet."

"Before the wonder of your birth,"



"with your first cry,"

"and the most tender smile
of your mother."

"I want you to know
how to build your life,"

"and be prepared when defeats
or struggles put us to the test."

What else did you ask the child-God?

On a glorious day, black bearded
white skinned men

arrived on three curious ships
to the unknown lands

that would form America's continent.

When my brother died

I inherited all these boxes

but I didn't know
what was in those boxes.

You had no idea?

No, in fact the 8mm footage
was a surprise for me.

And negatives,
there were many negatives.



He took lots of pictures,
practically every day.

My father was an anthropologist.

From the beginning,

his main objective was
the indigenous cause.

We heard a loud detonation
at 2 or 3 in the morning.

We all ran outside immediately.

A bomb was dropped
at the entrance of the house,

which damaged the house,
destroyed windows

and reached part of the roof.

It was a great commotion,
not only in our house,

but in the neighborhood.

Some views pointed
to the conservative party.

Or landlords

who were upset and worried

about the indigenous campaign
that my father was running.

While listening to the words of Carlos,

I tried to think about how was his time.

How he would have been
at the time of the bomb.

Dear homeland

I have an enemy.

Drunkenness.

These Indians are like dogs.

Begin with the Doctrine.

These Indians are like dogs,

dogs.

Because they live like animals.

How do you say, I believe in God?

A bomb was dropped in the house

of Gregorio Hernández de Alba

Who were?

Who were?

The dogs.

No, it was The Birds.

Those that only appear at night.

You mean a parrot.

The land belongs
to the Indigenous people.

A few years a friend of the family,

called to tell me that he had found

the 8mm films of his father,

an ethnographer.

Gregorio Hernández de Alba.

After projecting the films

Carlos showed me the manuscripts,
the letters,

the photographs, the negatives.

All the documents that his father
kept for years in boxes.

He began to tell me
about his father's life

and each of the expeditions he made,

to La Guajira, to Tierradentro,

the trip to the Second World War,

the death of his father.

What happens next,

is just a fragment
of that conversation with Carlos.

A conversation that has lasted
for years.

Happened in different moments

and was recorded in this diary.

It begins with Hernández's
first expedition to La Guajira.

Tell me Carlos,

how was the expedition to La Guajira.

La Guajira 1935. First expedition.

La Guajira
was my father's first expedition.

He was a delegate
of the Colombian government

to work with professors
from US universities.

Dad was the only Colombian.

Field notes
of the 1935 expedition to La Guajira.

The Guajiros Indians,
drum solos and jaw harp.

"The Spanish conquerors
arrived in the peninsula"

"and went into Cabo de la Vela."

"The Indians offered them
their precious pearls."

"But as the Spanish declared war"

"the tribes armed themselves
and the battle began."

"Wayuu Indians learn
how to use the bow from a young age."

"They trained
shooting the birds and lizards."

"Due to their nature and way of living"

"they have developed
strong instincts to follow footprints"

"of animals and people."

"The heat is unbearable,"

"sometimes I want to send
everything to hell!"

"Go no further with this."

He traveled to La Guajira
as a government official

in charge of monitoring
the work of the Americans.

The Indians of Sierra Nevada
play the flute.

For Dad La Guajira was a starting point,

which he considered
very important in his life.

Observing the Americans,

Hernández learned the technique.

A true savage,

a child raised by the wolves

a wolf child.

An indelible memory came into my mind
the day of the conversation.

Just remembering it makes me
want to break this notebook.

That expedition to La Guajira
was the first one for dad.

Whilst hearing his story of La Guajira
I remembered some unwanted images

that haunt me like a shadow.

June 2nd, 2006.

Today we arrive
at an indigenous neighborhood.

Close to the border
between Argentina and Paraguay.

On a glorious day, black bearded
white skinned men

arrived on three curious ships

to the unknown lands

that would form America's continent.

We arrived at the hunter's house,

a true nomad.

He welcomed us,

but today he won't be able
to go hunting.

We should come back tomorrow.

As we had nothing to do,

we wandered around the neighborhood.

Black bearded white skinned men.

June 3rd.

Today we went back
to the hunter's house.

Once again he won't be able
to go hunting,

we should return tomorrow.

As we had nothing to do

we wandered around the neighborhood.

We arrived at Achilai's house.

He's been waiting for us for days.

As soon as he sees us with the camera,
he puts on the feathers

and starts playing
his tin violin.

He tells us the story
of a pig that travels

looking for his bird friend,
the Ipakarai.

He started drinking

and the story of the bird finished.

June 13th.

Once again he couldn't go hunting,

maybe another day.

We should come back next week.

June 8th, 11th, June 15th, 20th.

Today he told me that he was sick.

He won't be able to go hunting.

I must return next year.

He will welcome us again.

We then filmed the wedding
of the hunter's son.

On a glorious day, black bearded
white skinned men

arrived on three curious ships

to the unknown lands
that would form America's continent.

From that day new routes, knowledge
and wealth were opened into the world.

Wonderful discoveries
began to take place.

To conquer the almost indomitable land
with mountains and jungles.

Lost in that conversation

I wrote down every character
that appears in this movie.

The first one:
the ethnographer.

The second:
Carlos, his son.

The third:
Pero López.

Pero López is the shadow of your father,

and not only of your father,
Pero López is the shadow

of all ethnographers.

Your anthropologist uncle, Roberto

found inside my father's boxes

where all the documents were stored,

an audio tape with the recording
of a radio soap opera,

written by my father
called "Stamps of the Conquest."

Based on a novel he wrote in 1936.

Your uncle Roberto, the anthropologist.

That day
during the conversation with Carlos,

something happened,

that could help to understand
the spirit of the ethnographer.

My uncle Roberto,
an anthropologist and his friend,

found his father's radio soap opera

"Stamps of the conquest."

According to compilations and writings
of the Colombian ethnologist and writer

Gregorio Hernández de Alba.

The character of the radio soap opera
written by Hernández

is a vulgar Spanish
of the sixteenth century,

a common conqueror.

One amongst many
to step on the new world,

and be called Pero López.

These are the true
"Stamps of the Conquest."

The narrations that he left us
in old and blurry papers,

evidence of how he loved the Indians.

He approached their customs

and tried to understand
the reaction of their spirits.

Pero López, who was born in León, Spain,

was a prisoner
released on the sole condition

that he embarks on a ship to America.

Pero López said that when he
disembarked, some men told him:

"From now on your name
will be Pero López."

That's how thousands of Pero López
came to America.

You'll be called Pero López.

Damned Pero López!

Pero López was born in León, Spain.

The character of the radio soap opera.

The first is...

"He is dead"
"He was here"

Very good memory.
He remembered everything.

Each day, all the dates.

Then he told that to someone else
who signed as Pero López.

An illiterate,

but a chronicler after all.

This is our legacy.

Pero López.

Spanish scum.
Scum.

On a glorious day,

black bearded white skinned men

arrived on three curious ships
to the unknown lands

that would form America's continent.

Pero López obeyed the orders
of Francisco Pizarro,

and together they toured
the mountains of Tierradentro.

There he met the Paez Indians

of whom he wrote in his diary,

they are fierce warriors
who eat human flesh.

The natives of this land
are dirty and poor,

eat human flesh
and are warlike mountain people.

They fight with heavy spears
of thirty meters or longer.

In spite of this they have
great advantage over us in dexterity.

Many live in very harsh mountains,

eat human flesh
and sin in the nefarious.

We found plenty of sausages
in their houses, some were in fire.

Some local experts warned me
that were human flesh sausages.

In many places we found the figure
of the devil as a trophy.

They worshiped it as we do with God.

OK, read the other text
and make a pause at the end.

"You must know
how to protect your soul,"

"so no one touches it
unless it's to enrich it."

"Let that Kipling phrase
guide your life."

"You are a man my son,"

"a man owner and master of himself."

"Yours, Gregorio."

What is this letter?

It's a letter my dad sent me
when I turned 21 years old.

In that birthday letter Hernández
quotes a phrase from Kipling.

Kipling is influenced by his era.

Like his poem,
"The White Man's Burden."

Send to the front
the best among all of you.

To serve against tumultuous
and wild nations.

To those recently conquered
and unhappy people.

Half devil, half children.

Close to the objective
consider laziness and ignorance.

Bring hope nowhere.

Today I could relate his voice
to his image.

Hello.

It sticks in my mind.

The Colombian Amazonia.

We went with him
to most of the excavation's expeditions

or his chats with the indigenous.

His second trip.

Tierradentro expedition of 1936.

Tierradentro was the first expedition
where he took mum, my brother and me.

We had to travel two
days on horseback

to get to Tierradentro.

Strenuous days.

Dad was mainly dedicated to discovering

and documenting the tombs.

He always told me that the first day

I ran joyfully.

It was great!

Field notes on the expedition
to Tierradentro in 1936.

Probably this mysterious culture
of Tierradentro

succumbed to the bellicose
Paeces Indians.

Current inhabitants of this territory.

Hernández's hypothesis suggests
that the mysterious men

who created the tombs
and stone figures of Tierradentro,

were annihilated
by the Paeces or Nasas Indians.

Current inhabitants of Tierradentro.

Hello.

What would be the place,
where would you like to go?

Colombia, Tierradentro.

If it was the last place.

A commission of archeologists
was sent yesterday to the Cauca region.

The missing link of the Atlantis
has been found in Tierradentro.

Tribe.

Fierce.

Devil.
It's false.

It's false.

Looking for places
where there could be statues.

- Those were very busy days!
- Fossil and material remains analysis.

He became an archeologist.

What's going on?

Juan Pablo, what happened
with the Christmas tree?

It fell down.

What is the Christmas tree for?

It is for the arrival of...

Isabelita, for the arrival of whom?

- The child-God.
- Is he coming?

- Home?
- Yes.

What are we going
to do with the turkey?

We are going to
kill it on Christmas.

- Why are we going to kill it?
- To eat it.

- On Christmas eve?
- Yes.

- When the child-God arrives?
- Yes.

What are we going to
do with the feathers?

We will eat them, eat them!

- I know what we should.
- We should take them out.

A feather crown, as the Indians use.

Hello.

I don't believe in that God anymore.

I believe in God.

You name him so calmed.

Assassins!

From that day on new routes knowledge
and wealth were opened into the world.

Wonderful discoveries
began to take place.

What did you ask the child-God?

The Colombian Amazonia.

How was his relationship
with Catholicism?

Dad was born
in a very conservative family.

My grandfather was a leader
of the conservative party.

While getting involved

with his ethnology studies

he began to strongly disagree
with the Catholic church.

Mainly with the role
of the Missions in Colombia.

I found the fourth and last character.

An exota.

He who defies the unknown
is an exota.

I would like to be one.

First I have to find a hunter.

That's the first condition,
travel to the land of the nomads.

And if necessary,

your entrails will be pierced.

If you want to be an exota.

Tierradentro, September 29th, 1936.

I am sure that these wanderings
around Tierradentro,

were very fruitful since I've
learned a lot in these tricky hills.

It was worth the sacrifice
of a wild life,

when doing field work.

Fortunately it has its charms and
is often very attractive and diverse.

At the end of the letter my father says:

"Let me tell you that these
Paeces Indians of San Andrés,"

"my supposed friends,"

"made me witchcraft about a month ago."

"They made a special party,"

"they killed a pork,
there was chicha, lots of chicha."

"The sorcerer was specially brought
from Tumbichucue,"

"which is the heart of the Paez people."

"The witchcraft was meant
for the 'friendly doctor'

to get away from their lands"

"and never find
their ancient treasures."

"Hopefully, this witchcraft makes me
return back to Bogotá soon."

Professor Paul Rivet,
Director of the Musée de l'Homme.

Conversation about a war.

Conversation about nationality.

I believe in God.

Rivet asks him.

A Nazi.

The purpose of dad's trip was to study

ethnology at the Musée de l'Homme,
under the direction of Paul Rivet.

With this objective and together with
the National Center of Science Research,

we present tonight Pierre...

In this museum you will learn
that the concept of purity

is appalling.

I would say types, miscegenation.

Director of the Musée de l'Homme.

He is not looking if
they belong to a race,

the term doesn't suit anymore.

He simply seeks to determine

the percentage of
certain human types

in a given population.

In your field research
you will have to study them,

measure their heads,

record their language,

absolutely everything to understand
the origin of the American man.

Lastly you will have to show them
the flag.

We are Colombians.

Everything went quiet,

until Germany declared war on France.

The French tried to resist

but the Germans quickly defeated them.

They arrived in Paris,

with Germans everywhere.

Dad took many pictures,

of the Germans in their parades,

visiting the Arch of Triumph.

What was going on
at the Musée de l'Homme?

In the Musée de l'Homme,

all the windows were closed,

with sandbags for protection, in case
of bombing they would not be hurt.

Rivet was part of the resistance
movement against the Nazis.

When the Germans arrived,

Rivet had to escape.

A short time after the Gestapo arrived,

11 collaborators of the Musée de l'Homme
were imprisoned.

All the ethnologists
and disciples of Rivet

were imprisoned and shot the same day.

Professor Paul Rivet
Director of the Musée de l'Homme.

His theory on the multiracial

suggests that man
is a miscegenation product.

In contradiction with the purity of race
of the Nazi regime.

Inside his box I found a dream,

a dream with naked women.

The mist. Wet and dry at the same time.

As in his dreams, Gregorio suddenly

wakes up exalted
with a voice that is not his.

He begins to recite
the adventures of a miserable

Spanish soldier
of the sixteenth century.

Everything becomes dark.

The ideas of an unhappy soldier
lost in the Indies.

He appears in the middle of a desert,

spits at a Capuchin missionary.

He whispers in his ear to get away
of this continent for once and for all.

Short after he regrets and kindly
embracing him he reveals he needs him.

He shall never leave.

We took the boat. It was full.

There were many people
wanting to leave Europe.

Rivet came with us
on the same boat to New York.

Then we took a boat
New York-Barranquilla.

Do you know Tucano songs?

Yes I do, Doctor.

I know one chant

when they go to the bushes,

a hunt song.

Can you sing us one of those songs?

That song is very nice.

Can you tell me the meaning in Spanish?

Doctor, the literal translation
would be more or less the following:

"Fishermen, come on,
let's go to the river to fish."

We stop pressing the button
and it is still recording.

This is the best gift that Gregorio
has bought for his own use.

Hernández returns from war
as social scientist.

He returns
to carry out a mission.

How do you say "Winter"?

"Summer"?

"Day"?

The main purpose of the expeditions
was everything that had to do

with patriotic symbols,
the national anthem and the flag.

- How do you call this?
- Yellow.

- How?
- Yellow, yellow.

- Blue.
- Blue.

- Red.
- Red.

Yellow, blue, red.

Colombia's flag. Today
is our independence day.

Hello, nice meeting you.

Pero López, Spanish Conqueror.

How's it going?

All fine.

See you later.

They live according to nature.

They do not have any possessions,
all the goods are of common property.

They live together without a king,
without any authority.

I have met a hunter.

A footprint.

It's dry,

it must have several days.

I can see a rabbit in the distance.

I take out my rifle and without mercy,

without the least remorse,

a shot.

Pum.

They have trained us
to be sorry for everything.

Even I must give them pity.

Luckily Mr. Hunter, you were right.

Music sounding.

I stop hearing, I stop thinking.

This is the story of a rabbit.

"Of Cannibals' Montaigne's essay."

The cannibals found it very strange
that so many bearded men,

tall, strong and well-armed,

should submit
to the obedience of a king.

How come these strong men did not choose

one of them to command the group?

How come some have
luck and comforts

while some others
are hungry and full of misery?

How can these beggars endure so much
injustice and not strangle the kings?

Why don't they burn their houses?

The cannibal thinks.

Motilon Indian in the city of Bogotá.

Who created the world?

According to the teachings
of the Javerian fathers

the world was made by God.

OK, but according to the natives?

According to our catechism,

we believe it was
the God of the day.

How is he called in native language?

Estecovich.

Do you have a God that looks like
the devil of the Catholics?

Yes Doctor, we have one.

How is he called?

Itsuriboraro.

And what does he do?

He is the devil we have against us.

He takes away everything.

Bringing us diseases and plagues.

In Tierradentro

he wrote with a Petromax lamp

his field diaries
and the letters he sent.

His third and last trip.
The return to Tierradentro.

How do you say "Pain"?

Drunkenness?

How do you say

"We want to learn many things"?

The second expedition
to Tierradentro in 1942,

was from the national government.

Focused on the knowledge
of the habits of the Paeces.

Spending a lot of time
to the physical part,

measuring the skulls of the natives,

determining their blood group,

and asking them

what stories and scares they had.

That information was sent to France,
to the Musée de l'Homme,

and to the Smithsonian Institution.

300 blood tests were taken
in Tierradentro.

A great scientific contribution
from Doctor Hernández.

How do you say
"Two white men arrived from Bogotá"?

How do you say
"What do they want to do here"?

How do you say

"Maybe those whites are good"?

How do you say "The Indians
want to work the land better"?

How do you say
"The Indians also have rights"?

The land belongs
to the indigenous people.

"Dawn", "1 Year", "2 Years"?

Yellow, blue and red
is the flag of Colombia.

Today is July 20th.

How do you say "Indians are Colombians"?

He was about to lose the notion
of reality in Tierradentro.

To get lost in that world
and never return.

Belong to nowhere.

Pero López's account
of a battle in Tierradentro.

The Paeces Indians use that type of hat.

Whilst running away from horses

one of them thought
that a rider had lost his hat.

That rider is Pero López.

They will shoot at me
and steal my horse at any moment.

They are hiding nearby

looking at me.

When he heard laments,
Pero López got off his horse.

It was the indigenous Piogoanza
agonizing,

he was being torn apart by one
of the murderers dogs of the troop.

A second before getting off his horse,

calmness flooded
and mountains went silent.

Pieces of bodies around him.

Pieces of men around him.

We are killers, says Pero López.

The sound of dismembered birds.

Slitting their throats.

They threw their heads over the road.

Birds eating their eyes.

These Indians are like dogs

Bomb dropped in the house
of Gregorio Hernández de Alba

Hernández field diary on an attack.

At dawn of the 12th, this month.

More exactly at 3.15 AM.

A bomb was dropped
at the entrance of the house.

Located on the 3rd street
number 4-29 of this city.

The land belongs to the Indians.

Hernández blamed some landowners

for the "The Birds" massacre
of some Paeces indigenous.

Paramilitaries
serving the conservative party.

How do you say "birds"?

"The Birds" slaughtered
a group of natives with barbed wire.

They left their heads over the road.

Bird.

The missionaries
protected the landowners

who abused and persecuted
the indigenous.

Confronting them

brought Dad enmities.

During his last years,

he considered he didn't belong
to the church anymore.

The day your father died
what did you think?

What can you remember?

I remember when we
arrived to San Agustín,

the lying statues.

I was amazed.
I will never forget that.

We got into the river

and could see those statues.

I really don't have clear memories
about that moment, I was a kid.

It was then that I realized
it was all part of a game.

Carlos told me things
he really didn't remember.

The same way his father did.

Fables.

Monsters, snakes.

Overlapped memories.

Although I got lost in those fables,

he always told me something
that made me enter in that game again.

Dad stories were exciting.

Where Carlos also decided
to forget some things.

I believe he finally told me everything
I should know about his father.

As years passed through,

dad's figure started
disappearing.

Yesterday died the anthropologist

Gregorio Hernández de Alba.

The death ceremony or bury.

- I'm Pero López.
- Yes, Sir.

I am a Spanish conqueror
and I came to these lands

through the Magdalena river
crossing to Popayán.

I came to tell you what I saw.

Yes, Sir.

The natives of this land
are dirty and poor.

They eat human flesh,
they are warlike mountain people.

They fight with heavy spears
of thirty meters or longer.

In spite of this they have
great advantage over us in dexterity.

Many live in very harsh mountains,

eat human flesh
and sin in the nefarious.

We found plenty of sausages
in their houses, some were in the fire.

Some local experts warned me
that they were human flesh sausages.

In many places we found the figure
of the devil as a trophy.

They worshipped it as we do with God.

The war against the barbarians,

has as its purpose
the fulfillment of the natural law.

For the great good of the defeated.

They should learn
from the Christians the humanity

so that they may become used to virtue.

With a sound doctrine
and pious teachings

prepare their souls to gladly receive
the Christian religion.

As this cannot be done if not after
being submitted to our empire,

the Barbarians must obey the Spaniards.

If they reject them they can be
compelled to justice and probity.

Please, tell me Don Alberto,
what do you think about the Spaniards?

Thank you very much for coming
to visit the indigenous.

Do you agree of us being here?

Yes, Sir.

Thank you very much.

It's time to claim.

Yes, Sir.

But tell me something Don Alberto,
tell me we are crap, we are murderers.

What?

The reasonable would be
that you detest us.

Yes, Sir.

- Tell me something.
- Yes, Sir.

If I tell you that I came
for gold and for women.

Yes, Sir.

Don Alberto,
the Spaniards are bad people.

This man came to plunder.

He came for gold and women,
and leaves children everywhere.

This is a bad guy.

He represents the worst
of the Spanish conquest.

What would you say to a man like that?

He doesn't understand.

Maybe if we repeat it again,
it will be meaningful for him.

They eat human flesh,

they are sinners.

Tell Don Alberto who you are,
what did you see in these lands?

I am Pero López
and in this land I found wild people.

The truly wild.

On a glorious day, black bearded
white skinned men

arrived on three curious ships

to the unknown lands
that would form America's continent.

These people will always be reigned
by natural law

following more cultured and human
imperial and nation's rules.

There are some who are destined
to be masters and others slaves.

It's the natural law.

We bring them culture, civilization,
language, good manners.

We arrived with rifles,
cannons, swords, whips.

Everything necessary in case they do not
accept to submit to our heavy burden.

We do not like our sacrifice
to be ignored.

Or even worse,
received with disdain and hatred.

A true savage.

A child raised by the wolves.

A wolf child.

Begin with the Doctrine.

These Indians are like dogs.

A dog is a tamed wolf.

Begin with the Doctrine.

Begin with the Doctrine.

Calmness flooded
and the mountain went silent.

So many misfortunes in this land.

I still don't get why people
don't cry just by stepping on it.

Paradise at last, salvation!
People screamed from the boats.

Scum!

I know now that this new world
is an unwanted place.

You can't even imagine
what it is to disembark in a swamp.

Go through the woods
and feel surrounded by the wild.

The most complete
and absolute wilderness.

To live in the middle
of the incomprehensible,

that is detestable.

The fascination for the abominable.

This copy that I am writing

I will leave it to my descendants

as a testimony of the small
deeds of their grandfather.

The ideas of a miserable soldier
lost in these lands.

I am Pero López, a Spanish conqueror

who passed through these lands
around 1540.

I want to tell you part of what I saw.

Me?