“Look at the flame.... We didn’t even start properly and it’s already flickering” a female voice whispers over a bright red screen. This is how Pablo Alvarez Mesa’s film, “Bicentenary,” begins, after a prologue composed of archival images of the 1985 attack on the Supreme Court of Colombia, a particularly bloody chapter in the fight between far-left guerillas and the government, which resulted, among other things, in the burning of the documents which constituted the country’s judicial history. We soon realize that the woman’s voice invokes the spirit of Simón Bolívar, the hero of Latin American independence, in a séance, but her phrase can also be understood as metaphor concerning the aspirations towards freedom and peace of the people from the entire continent, which have always been betrayed, ever since the founding moment represented by the liberation from the Spanish rule. The bicentenary of independence offers Alvarez the occasion to observe the permanent dialogue between Colombia’s past and present, as both temporal threads intertwine under the sign of nationalism and the cult of war. The outcome is a tragic discrepancy between legend and social reality, which results from the accumulation of static observational shots capturing glimpses of the celebrations held on this occasion in all parts of the country. Whether they constitute the movie’s soundtrack, parade as light projections on buildings, or are engraved in stone as slogans and memorial plaques, the official statements make up a glorious narrative which is contradicted by images of hardship-ridden communities which lead a precarious existence and watch the simulated fights organized for the bicentennial celebrations with a glimmer of real fear in their eyes. (Liri Alienor Chapelan)