X-Country. Being a Wedding Between Us and the Farabundo Martí Liberation Front in President Monroe's Old House
Robert Kramer, US 1987/2022DCP, color, 144 min. English
An old friend of Kramer's marries a high-ranking activist in the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, an influential left-wing guerrilla group in El Salvador. Kramer decides to make a wedding video for the couple. Lasting several days, the summer celebration takes place at the feudal country estate of former American President James Monroe, creator of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, according to which the United States was not to intervene into European colonial conflicts. Together with Paul McIsaac and in home movie-mode, Kramer continues to grapple here with the contradictions of the (American) left. Privilege and the struggle for liberation, the rich toasting each other with champagne while the subaltern employees prepare the food. The video was also a dress rehearsal for the epic Route One/USA (1989), which began filming three months later: "Paul will be the sound man. We'll shoot this thing in video because that's what we can afford. We'll begin to taste what this Route One/USA thing is going to be like." (V.P.)
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