Talk:Balseros (film)

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[edit] Length

Someone changed the length to 1 hour 20 minutes and then someone else changed it to 120 mins. My version is 1 hour 45 mins, so I changed it back to that. The second change may perchance be inclusive of commercials. The first one, I haven't a clue. Any explanations? Are there different versions? DirkvdM 20:49, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

the asnwer is 120 min.

look at any reviews using google, the length of the docu is 120 min... 2 hours... if you got a short version is probably because you downloaded it from the net.

I didn't download it but recorded it from tv. I'm curious now. Where do you have the transition from Cuba to the US (very distinct, with the little girl throwing her hair forward and a plane landing). I have it at 45 minutes. DirkvdM 08:12, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Facts

I changed some bits that were not accurate, so better not to say than miss inform. No one "decided to go there, and got too late"... they worked for a documentary program on TV called 30 minuts and where there for work at first... then finished it with more footage later on, and made a movie out of it (more or less). the Russians going down was no the reason to leave, Cuba was poor for much longer than that... the reason they left was that Castro let people leave as they wished during the "Periodo especial" (special period) when 30.000 cubans fled... that was a way of putting the USA government in a tight spot. because they use to greet the few scaped Cubans as heros... but 30.000 is way too many.

now I think the article is fine... so leave it as it is please.

Leave it as it is? You've got to be joking. This is Wikipedia! And it's little more than a stub. Of course the Período Especial and the exodus were a result of the collapse of the USSR (not Russia - whether the Russians 'went down' after that is a different matter :) ). Why did you remove the 7 year bit when you added that yourself? That also explains the time gap 1994 - 2002. And could you sign your postings please? DirkvdM 05:35, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

"so leave it as it is please". AS IN stop reverting it back to what you posted before

and adding a line about the USSR going down and making cuba so poor that people wanted to leave is loosely related to the documentary... people wanted to leave the place even before Communist Russia went down, the balseros massive exodus was triggered by the Periodo especial,

Ah, but now you touch on something Bosch specifically addresses, namely the reason for leaving. If he emphasises that at the beginning it's certainly relevant for this article, irrespective of what we think. But apart from that, an explanation for why people left is certainly in place. Last night I watched 'the Killing Field' and was somewhat irritated by the fact that so little background information was given. Of course one could say the story was about the journalists and it could have been any war setting (although I'm not sure the makers would agree). But that's a film, where some 'mystery' may be used (or whatever), but this is an encyclopedia and when talking about an exodus it certainly makes sense to point out the reason for it.

More in general, add rather than substract. The article may be expanded quite a bit and then leaving out a central bit of info like this would look silly. As another example, your addition that they weren't stopped by the Cuban government is relevant too, so I'll leave that. This might also be expanded upon, explaining why they were allowed to leave (or enter the US for that matter), being illegal emigrants. One reason might be, as you put it, to put the US in a tight spot. But considering the relative population sizes (with the US having a 20 times bigger population) the impact was much greater on Cuba. Maybe the Cuban government let them leave because fewer people means less consumers for the scarce food. But even for Cuba it was only 0.5% of the population who left, so that won't have made much of a difference. It was probably a political game. But all this is speculation and can't be put in the article. Which doens't mean we can't discuss it here.

One little last thing. The "build "Balsas" (ie making rafts)" thing looks very odd linguistically and doesn't add anything to what was already stated, that 'Balseros' means 'rafters'. DirkvdM 08:20, 17 December 2005 (UTC)