Educational Media Reviews Online

This Spanish language film with English subtitles (including for the songs heard) documents the life and work of an aged Venezuelan cowboy, Juan de los Santos Contreras, whose nickname, ‘Carrao,’ is the name of a bird from the El Llano plains that sings through the night, and whose wings rattle when in use. Carrao won Venezuela’s National Prize for Popular Culture in 1998. In 1965, he sang the part of the devil in an epic song set by Jose Romero Bello to poetry by Alberto Arvelo Torrealba (Florentino and the Devil) and the recording made him famous. In the film he insists that he is no devil himself, and points out that his name includes the Spanish word for ‘saints.’ Shown performing in clubs and in open air, Carrao is depicted as the last of his breed – a folk artist singing his heart out, with no cultural progeny. Since 1965 he has recorded over 40 albums, and he says his favorite songs are cowboy work songs. Though he is shown feasting at a long table with apparent kinfolk, the soundtrack at that point consists of Juan telling us he is a ladies man and always needs a backup woman, ‘just in case.’ (Carrao died in December 2002 at age 74.)

A good mixture of documentary and archival footage is artfully employed in this video, but an overabundance of ‘spooky music’ is used for effect when Carrao complains that his critics call him ‘Juan of the devil’ and when he relates having had a mystical experience. Overall, the effect of this video is one of a dramatic documentary.

The film would supplement library collections in South American music and culture. The subject may well have been the last of his kind, so Carrao: Singer of the Plains is valuable for preserving the folk tradition he represents.