Cinema
Los Shapis en el mundo de los pobres
Juan Carlos Torrico · 1985
Synopsis
Los Shapis in the Land of the Poor: two young musicians leave Huancayo, in the central sierra, for Lima, where they found their band. The record companies at first reject their music, chicha, which the capital's public despises as the music of provincials, and the dialogues constantly warn against the danger of becoming a Limeño. The film opens on the star Amparo Brambilla, who dances to a chicha tune in front of reluctant spectators.
Context
Julio Simeón, known as Chapulín, and Jaime Moreyra, the two Shapis, play themselves, surrounded by Amparo Brambilla and Haydeé Cáceres. The Asmont company proposed the film to the group after a sold-out concert at the Alianza Lima stadium in 1984, and it was released the following year. Pablo Salinas links its form to the television humour of the eighties; noting that critics have kept it out of serious analysis, he sees in it the first filmed representation of an urban culture of Andean origin, but reproaches it for turning that culture into a caricature.
Who it is for
In Spanish. Chicha, the Andean tropical music of the capital's migrants, is its subject as much as its soundtrack.
Prizes and reception
A box-office success, and according to La República the first Peruvian film built around a musical group; Chapulín maintains that it drew more admissions in Peru than Rambo II.
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