Eldorado XXI

Eldorado XXI is an evocatively haunting and viscerally compelling documentary film directed by Salomé Lamas in 2016. The film provides a stirring visual exploration and intimate portrait of the harsh conditions faced by gold miners in the Peruvian Andes.

Set in La Rinconada y Cerro Lunar, the highest-altitude human settlement in the world, Eldorado XXI unveils the harsh lives of the people who work tirelessly in extraordinarily grim circumstances, braving health hazards, human rights abuses, and environmental degradation in their quest for gold. The director masterfully forces the viewer to inhabit the arduous world of these miners–providing a hard, but necessary, glimpse into a rarely seen slice of humanity.

Lamas utilizes an artful cinematographic approach effectively as a tool for visual communication. One of the film’s standout aspects is its impactful single-take sequence of the miners descending into and ascending from the subsurface mine as they start their workday—a scene that paradoxically blends the mesmerizing beauty of the Andean landscape with the gut-wrenching reality of the miners’ labor. The style, most importantly, lends the film a raw, unvarnished immediacy.

While the movie doesn't rely on the conventional narrative storytelling techniques, it brings about an original narrative footprint through extensive observational shots, anthropological curiosity, and sparing use of ambient sounds. Eldorado XXI captures the harsh sonic reality of this landscape, with the crush of boots on snow, the rattle of metal drills, heavy breathing and the eerie echo of the bone-chilling winds of the high Peruvian Andes. At its core, Eldorado XXI is a film of contrasts, between silence and noise, between the vast natural beauty and the intruding, destructive human activity.

The narrative of the film is also governed by the juxtaposition between the human figures and the gigantic landscape, which results in highlighting the enormity of the Andes and the insignificance of the miners. Shooting mostly at a long distance makes the laborers look like ants against the monstrous, pitiless mountains. The film harnesses this imaginative, telescopic imagery effectively underscoring the profound scarceness and isolation of the miner’s existence.

However, Eldorado XXI is far from being devoid of emotion and humanity. Throughout the characters’ grueling routines, Lamas intermittently interjects with their personal anecdotes, dreams, and fears, conveyed through an invisible radio, a common communication device in such remote locations. Her subjects speak generously about their daily lives, struggles, and hopes—giving the otherwise visually dominated movie a robust human interest angle. This provides the movie its heart, as this “ghost radio” serves as a stark reminder that these are real people, and their stories bear witness to a system that forces them to endure abject poverty despite the valuable metal they extract.

Moreover, the film does not shy away from exploring the socio-political undertones of this grim scenario. Gold mining in the area operates under a system called “cachorreo,” which prompts the miners to work unpaid for thirty days, and in exchange, they are allowed to keep whatever gold they find on the thirty-first day. This exploitative system—overlaid with the constant danger of landslides, lack of safety measures, and debilitating high-altitude physical effects—lends a damning critique of the neoliberal machinery. Eldorado XXI, thereby, becomes a stark visual testament to the grim consequences of rampant capitalism and environmental destruction.

Lamas’ approach is profoundly relevant, not only in the socio-political commentary but also in the fundamental ethical dimension of filmmaking. She challenges the onlooker to confront the realities of an unseen world and compels them into questioning. Essentially, the viewer is forced into an uncomfortable position of the voyeur, a spectator to hardships returned by the ruthless search for El Dorado—the legendary city of gold.

Eldorado XXI is a powerful, thought-provoking cinematic odyssey that explores the brutal paradox of extracting the glittering symbol of wealth from the very bowels of poverty. Its stark, unfiltered observations are testament to the harsh reality of a forgotten populace, making it a must-watch for anyone interested in true cinema that goes beyond mere entertainment. The film resonates long after its haunting images and echoes have faded from the screen.