Blame it on Fidel
Encyclopedia
Blame it on Fidel is a 2006 French
drama film directed by Julie Gavras
.
. Her Spanish-born lawyer father Fernando (played by Stefano Accorsi
) is inspired by his sister's opposition to Franco
and by Salvador Allende
's victory in Chile
; he quits his job and becomes a liaison for Chilean activists in France. Her mother (played by Julie Depardieu
) a Marie Claire
journalist-turned-writer documenting the stories of women's abortion
ordeals, supports her husband and climbs aboard the ideological bandwagon. As a result, Anna's French bourgeois life is over. She must adjust to refugee nannies, international cuisine and a cramped apartment full of noisy revolutionaries.
The film covers an array of philosophy and ideology - everything from Communism
to Catholicism
to Greek and Asian mythology
- which Anna must reconstruct from confusion into her own set of beliefs. As she negotiates her way through this ideological maze and ultimately internalises her parents' well-meant (albeit ad-hoc) objectives, she must deal with stereotyping, misinformation
, the potential hypocrisy of ideology
and the potentially false hope of idealism
.
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
drama film directed by Julie Gavras
Julie Gavras
Julie Gavras is a French film director and writer. She is the daughter of film director Costa Gavras. Her first feature-length fiction film Blame it on Fidel was released in France in November 2006....
.
Plot summary
A 9-year-old girl, Anna de la Mesa (played by Nina Kervel), weathers big changes in her household as her parents become radical political activists in 1970-71 ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. Her Spanish-born lawyer father Fernando (played by Stefano Accorsi
Stefano Accorsi
Stefano Lelio Beniamino Accorsi is an Italian actor.-Early life and background:Accorsi was born in Bologna. He graduated from Bologna's Theatrical School in 1993, and acted in the theatre for several years before moving to cinema....
) is inspired by his sister's opposition to Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
and by Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America....
's victory in Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
; he quits his job and becomes a liaison for Chilean activists in France. Her mother (played by Julie Depardieu
Julie Depardieu
Julie Marion Depardieu is a French actress who has appeared in a number of successful movies.She is the daughter of Gérard Depardieu and Élisabeth Depardieu, and the sister of the late Guillaume Depardieu—all of whom are also film actors...
) a Marie Claire
Marie Claire
Marie Claire is a monthly women's magazine first published in France but also distributed in other countries with editions specific to them and in their languages. While each country shares its own special voice with its audience, the United States edition focuses on women around the world and...
journalist-turned-writer documenting the stories of women's abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
ordeals, supports her husband and climbs aboard the ideological bandwagon. As a result, Anna's French bourgeois life is over. She must adjust to refugee nannies, international cuisine and a cramped apartment full of noisy revolutionaries.
The film covers an array of philosophy and ideology - everything from Communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
to Catholicism
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
to Greek and Asian mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
- which Anna must reconstruct from confusion into her own set of beliefs. As she negotiates her way through this ideological maze and ultimately internalises her parents' well-meant (albeit ad-hoc) objectives, she must deal with stereotyping, misinformation
Misinformation
Misinformation is false or inaccurate information that is spread unintentionally. It is distinguished from disinformation by motive in that misinformation is simply erroneous, while disinformation, in contrast, is intended to mislead....
, the potential hypocrisy of ideology
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
and the potentially false hope of idealism
Idealism
In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...
.