Rejtman’s documentary addresses the wave of Bolivian immigration to Buenos Aires. This relationship between Bolivia and Argentina is at once close and distant. Spanish is the lingua franca between the two countries and the north of Argentina which borders Bolivia is, culturally, similar. But Bolivians retain a fierce identity in their music, dress and traditions which marks them apart. There has been a steady stream of immigration from the Andean country to Buenos Aires. A Bolivian man shows his almanac with photos of an early Bolivian community established there in the sixties. Rejtman films in Bolivia, Buenos Aires and, in the closing sequence, on the border. It’s an observational doc, made of long sequences which show Bolivians dancing or processing. The complexities of immigration aren’t addressed: this feels like a Porteño spying on a secret world that exists within his city. There could be said to be a cross-reference here to the Bolivian labourers in César Aira’s novel, Ghosts. The distance which the camera imposes means that its subjects remain mysterious, semi-alien beings, walking the streets but carrying a different flame in their chests.
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