APRIL 19, 2020 – Last night I reached episode 45 (of 60) in my binge-watch of the Netflix series, Bolívar. As with most any film treatment of historical figures, Bolívar includes much material that opens the work to criticism by historians—everything from inaccurate details to over-emphasized character strengths to under-stated character weaknesses to politically motivated “spin.” Then, of course, there are the film critics, who assail direction, dialogue, acting, editing, and so on.
I’d recommend Bolívar only to viewers with the requisite stamina and ability to see “forest through trees”—and who are both curious and ignorant of “The Liberator,” Simón Bolívar, and the many characters critical to his story.
When my parents took a Caribbean cruise back in the 1970s, one of their ports of call was Caracas. They took a shore excursion that featured many sites of interest. An inordinate number, apparently, featured a plaque or statue honoring The Liberator, who, it turns out, was a native of Venezuela.
Upon returning to cold Minnesota to report on their travels, Dad lampooned the guide in Caracas. “Everything,” Dad said, was about ‘SEE-moh BO-lee-va-a-h-r-r-r’!” In pronouncing the hero’s name with an exaggerated Spanish accent, Dad stood up and mocked a soldier saluting. “We’d be taken to some park, then marched to a statue, and told, “Here again is, SEE-moh BO-lee-va—a-h-r-r-r!’! Then it was to a stop along the highway so we could get out and take pictures of yet another statue of SEE-moh BO-lee-va—a-h-r-r-r!” Dad got quite a charge out of the guide’s obsession with The Liberator.
Outside of Dad’s parody and until the Netflix series, my only other encounter with South America’s George Washington had been limited to Bolívar’s mug (in some cases, along with the years of his birth and death) on the postage stamps of Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, and, of course, Bolivia that had found their way into my boyhood collection.
Now, with plenty of distortions, I’m sure, I know far more about this fascinating, inimitable character, Simón Bolívar and supporting cast. Bonus information: details about the geography of South America and Spanish colonialism, slavery and class structure in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Much of the story is about raw avarice, power struggles, Catholicism, economic feudalism, political corruption, unimaginable physical hardships, bloody military campaigns, and good ol’ devastating disease—smallpox, “cerebral fever,” and tuberculosis.
As the triumphs and tragedies of Bolívar’s life unfold, the viewer is forced to ponder the interplay between human will and pure chance. Moreover, the viewer must grapple with standards of measure. Specifically, how does one assess laws, mores, habits, conventions, influences of an era so different from one’s own? With the benefit of another 200 years of social, political, economic, and technological evolution, much of which has been revolutionary, only with abundant biases and arrogance can we judge the past.
Which leads to a corollary: with the inescapable myopia that clouds any view of “the present,” only with naiveté and ignorance can we guess at the future.
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© 2020 by Eric Nilsson
