El Silencio De Neto Sparknotes

In El Silencio de Neto, directed by Luis Argueta, Neto, a young Guatemalan boy, comes of age during a tumultuous time in Guatemala’s history. He sees the effects of American intervention on his family and daily life when his uncle Rodrigo becomes involved with the protests. He and his family have to stay at his Uncle Ernesto’s because of the bombings, his father loses his job, and his school changes. This movie shows a much different perspective of the CIA coup than what people usually learn about because it is from Neto’s point of view and that of Guatemalan citizens. Stephen Kinzer was a journalist who has written many books about the United States involvement in foreign politics. In his book Overthrow, he talks about the United States involvement

Their perspectives are different because they know the truth. Eduardo believes taking land from United Fruit was not necessary, while Ernesto believes it was (Argueta, 1:00:32). They knew that what they were doing was causing more harm than good, but the U.S. retaliation scared them. This was not something that was widely known during the time, and how it was depicted was how Kinzer talked about this. They all try to go on with life as normal, even though there is still the unknown of what will happen once the bombings and fighting begin. Ernesto’s family hears the “Voice of Liberation” and President Arbenz on the radio at Ernesto’s home stating their positions and it is obvious that it worries the family from the looks on their faces (Argueta, 59:27-1:00:08). The movie makes these events much more personal because viewers see them from an inside perspective, not an American one. Kinzer also wrote that the planes and bombings made them “more willing to believe what they heard on the “Voice of Liberation” broadcasts than the presidents broadcasts (Kinzer,

Kinzer talks about the use of propaganda in his book, and the movie shows the same use of propaganda. At Neto’s school, planes drop propaganda fliers to spread misinformation about President Arbenz and his ties to communism (Argueta, 47:19). This was exactly what they did in real life. It made the people afraid of this fake threat and people lost faith in Arbenz and the government. They also created a fake radio broadcast and army to stage an invasion in Guatemala to force Arbenz to surrender (Kinzer, 141). All of these examples were used in the movie because they are how the U.S. was able to convince the Guatemalan people that communism was in their country and spreading throughout the government. However, Bemis, an American historian, saw what they were doing as for the betterment of Guatemala while in reality it destroyed democracy. Even though it may not have been in the best interest for America to be the world police, it was necessary to contain communism (Bemis, 14). Due to the accuracy of how the propaganda and the adult’s reaction were portrayed in the movie, Bemis may disagree since it shows that there were no communists or communism in the