The Wage

Directed by Ciro Durán

In the Colombian-Venezuelan Andes, a peasant works the land under exploitative conditions to ensure his family’s survival. His son is ill, his wife is pregnant, and he himself perpetuates the violence that surrounds him. With no money for medical treatment, one night he gets drunk and is arrested. In jail, in a burst of rage, he rebels against the town’s political boss in the only way he can. The Wage was a pioneering work of social and political cinema in Latin America, released the same year as Barravento, Glauber Rocha’s debut film, and anticipating movements like Third Cinema. Influenced by Italian neorealism and Soviet cinema in its aesthetics, form, and ideological approach, the film uses archetypal characters and the social forces they represent to denounce the exploitation of the peasantry, drawing from the director’s childhood experiences.