Pamela Yates’ “Granito: How to Nail a Dictator” asks the unanswerable question of how to bear witness to genocide. Yates questions whether bringing those responsible for the crimes to justice can, at least for living survivors, lessen the pain associated with senseless violence.
The film explores the role that Yates’ 1983 documentary, “When the Mountains Tremble,” played in bringing to justice the Guatemalan military dictatorship responsible for a decade-long genocide that devastated the country in the 1980s.
“When the Mountains Tremble” documented the brutal conflict between the Guatemalan military dictatorship of General Efraín Ríos Montt and guerilla revolutionary forces in the early 1980s.
“Granito” is set in the present but looks to the past, chronicling the ongoing attempt to indict Montt in Spain’s National Court, which claims international jurisdiction. Prosecutors have compiled evidence from a plethora of sources;, including forensic archaeology, eyewitness accounts, and Pamela Yates’ footage from “When the Mountains Tremble,” which personally implicates the director in the chaos of the investigation.
Scenes from the past are intercut with images and reflections of the present, to provide a comprehensive look at how people deal, or fail to deal, with such horrible atrocities.
While the film is heart-wrenching, it stumbles in decisive places. Yates clearly has a very deep personal connection to Guatemala and its people, but unfortunately she fails to deliver a concise and coherent message. Instead, she allows sentimentality to overwhelm the narrative, making the film more about her personal experience than Guatemala’s.
The premise of “Granito” is quite clear, yet it progresses along in a disastrously unfocused manner. The whole film seems to build towards the indictment, and when it doesn’t come there is a painful anti-climax.
In addition to the fact that we never see Montt’s indictment, “Granito” feels depressingly incomplete. Yates never fully explores the complex reasons behind the genocide or its racially-motivated underpinnings. The entire 103 minutes feel like an epilogue to the far superior “When The Mountains Tremble.”
As a document of human rights in Guatemala and in the international sphere, and as an exploration of the utility of documentary film to capture the truth, “Granito” succeeds. But it is an amateur work of art.
Yates has clearly demonstrated that she is a documentary filmmaker of the highest caliber, someone willing to sacrifice mind and body to capture a story on film that she feels the world deserves to see.
“Granito” unfortunately just does not rise to the standard of her previous work. It is important, but not necessarily well done or worthy of its potential.
Yates is currently working on a new ending to accommodate Montt’s recent indictment, though his trial has yet to occur.
Whether the eventual punishment of an 85-year old ex-dictator can save the film remains to be seen, but at the moment, “Granito” lacks the subversiveness, clarity, and raw authority that we have come to expect from Yates.