The theme of leadership is difficult to convey, especially in another culture, in which outsiders often do not recognize subtle cues and implicit understandings that play so important a role in the exercise and acceptance of authority. This film helps viewers, even if they have no prior familiarity with the Aymara, to appreciate the ways in which a young man manages to minimize conflicts, resolve disputes, and generally promote the social welfare in a community where age and experience have traditionally been highly valued.
This bold venture in ethnographic filmmaking attempts to convey the meanings and methods of a theme that most people consider inherently abstract, and to do so in a document brief enough to be used in the classroom. Beyond that, it imaginatively combines the techniques of slow motion, instant replay, and freeze-frame in ways that vividly show how body language, conformity to local norms of kinship and propriety, and other factors interact as we watch a self-taught master of conflict management at work.