I wanted to illustrate Latin America’s difficulties through the example of this great seaport, now dispossessed of the prosperity it enjoyed when it reigned as the gateway to the Pacific. Valparaíso was then what Panama is today, but it was dethroned by the canal in 1910s. Poverty overtook the city as its role as an international port declined, although still today it maintains a certain vitality as a local port. The city is built on a series of hills and I was fascinated by its countless steep stairways and funicular railways. Everything has to be carried up. Life is tough and tiring. But people want to live. The rhythm of the funicular in a strange way sets the rhythm for living. Something is going on at every level in this strange, terraced city, with its contrast between poverty and false wealth. I saw Valparaíso as a symbol of what animates Latin America and of what was about to happen to Panama. I had just seen an odd caricature at the National Library in Santiago, showing Uncle Sam driving a nail into a map of Panama. I held on to this image, which was to prove prophetic. They said I had ‘a nose’ for the future. In fact, if a documentary wants to arrive at the heart of the dynamic development of the story it is telling, it needs to go beyond the topical events and delve into its history. History is my major screenwriter.

Joris Ivens, Avec Joris Ivens à la chasse au Mistral, interview with Michel Capdenac, “Les Lettres françaises”, n. 1034, June 18, 1964