To George Gershwin’s well-known music, the camera films the Colombian capital’s frenetic rhythm, day and night, nestling in the narrow streets or in front of newly built modern buildings. An utterly crazy kaleidoscope, Rapsodia en Bogotá reminds us of Walter Ruttman’s Berlin, Symphony of a Metropolis or Jean Vigo’s A propos de Nice. It is not without irony that the film broaches American culture: seemingly singing the grandeur of Bogotá’s industrialisation and rapid modernisation, it lifts the superficial layer of American urbanisation and the global mimicry of the 1960s.
M.M.
