Can’t do it in Europe 2005
Distributed by First Run/Icarus Films, 32 Court St., 21st Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201; 800-876-1710
Produced by Ana Klara Ahrén, Charlotte Copcutt, Anna Weitz, Luiz Chaname Zapata, Eliana Garnica
Director n/a
VHS, color, 46 min.
Sr. High - Adult
Latin American Studies, Labor Relations, Political Science, Social Sciences, Social Work, Sociology, European Studies
Date Entered: 04/23/2007
Reviewed by Holly Ackerman, Duke UniversityClaustrophobics be forewarned, do not attempt to view this documentary much less repeat the experience of vacationing in a Bolivian silver mine. Can’t do it in Europe records a group of twenty nine tourists who pay $10 apiece for a guided tour of a Potosí mine whose working conditions have remained essentially unchanged since 1545. The Bolivian official in charge of tourism says they tried selling the tours on weekends when the miners weren’t working but no one would go. Evidently today’s tourists want reality not a sound and light show.
The guide who comes highly recommended by Lonely Planet promises, “After this tour you will love your job.” He delivers on that pledge by taking them deep into an unlighted, unbearably hot, polluted mine to observe people who do this every day to subsist and die early from black lung. My asthma kicked up just watching it. One participant confesses, “I just wanted to get out the whole time.” The film’s primary effect is to raise questions about the motivation of the reality tourists. Are they cultural seekers? Ghouls? Dilettantes? To a lesser extent it documents the plight of the workers as well as those who escape the mines by acting as tour guides. A difficult film to watch.