Powerful Chief (Manco Cápac)

"Poweful Chief (Manco Cápac)", a film by Henry Vallejo, starts with a very particular image, with an imposible angle of vision of the magical eye... That wonderful and unusual magical eye that will accompany the protagonist of this story for the rest of it, allows us to see a boy named Elisbán (Jesús Luque) curled up in a fetal position, sitting on the small platform that is the middle part of the stairs that connect the first with the second floor of a bus; the boy lies next to the window and the door of that bus, in which he is arriving in the city of Puno. In the reflection of the glass window, in which, by natural law, the magical eye should be seen, but it cannot be seen because it is magical and invisible; instead of it, we see the city and the bustle in it: cars waiting for their turn to make the crossing, a few people dressed in costumes of some kind of typical dance, one or another passerby, and the musicians who accompany with their melody the modest and at the same time triumphant entrance of Elisbán in the city, as if by "divine" design, such musicians had been there "coincidentally" waiting for Elisbán, a boy who clearly shows that he is of very modest status, better said, a homeless person... The image of the city, reflected in the glass of that window oriented towards the unknown, it crosses Elisbán, superimposing itself on him as if what we are going to see next were being briefly described in this awesome first scene...

Like a creature in a mother's womb, which is the world and its incomprehensible oddities, which has to be born because it has to be born, Elisbán gets off the bus and is born to the darkness of the city in broad daylight. Elisbán goes in search of his friend who had told him that he would wait for him to provide him with essential support during his stay in the city.

Elisbán, for reasons he doesn't understand and neither do we, can't find his friend. It is a very delicate moment for Elisbán, it seems that he wants to cry and scream in desperation, but he stoically restrains himself. He explores the city a little, which to his surprise is in what seems to be a patron saint's party.  He goes back to the bus station to see if someone can help him get back the way he came, but they refuse him the favor; Elisbán feels in his bones the awe of such annoyance. Reality hits him head-on and he realizes that he has no choice but to face an uncertain destiny in a city he doesn't know, while he observes it from the window of the singularity of his being.

No money, no friends, the boy who is the protagonist of a story that looks very realistic, but at the same time it acquires at times certain inexplicable touches of an incomprehensible "magic" that does not leave the attentive and unprejudiced viewer indifferent; the boy goes deeper and deeper into the city to interact with one or another character and inhabitant of it. Some take pity on him, other simply continue on their way, unintentionally hitting Elisbán's sensitive cheeks with the blows of indifference, although those cheeks are willing to harden themselves in the tenacious desire for survival.

Each day that passes becomes eternal and every hard for Elisbán. The scourge of the cold at night forces him to seek shelter. During the day, he insists on looking for his friend a few more times; while at the same time he tries to earn a living with different temporary unstable jobs for which he never receives fair payment, and in which he brings out his creative talents and his willingness to work. In the midst of a large crowd of people who seem insensitive as stones, he finds himself alone in the world although surrounded by thousands and thousands, millions and millions... in an individualistic world that has forgotten what it is to live in tribe, community, nation and humanity.

Elisbán; silently, in front of the mysterious lake, flooded with myths and legends; he begs to the heaven of his own soul for help and answers, for some inspiration that always and forever exists in that ideal and imagined heaven, in that parallel universe so vastly filled with spirits evoking remote pasts and futures that coexist inexplicably with a simple, plain and boring present. Elisbán knocks at the door of the mysteries which answer him by whispering in his ear, with a whisper interspersed with the subtle lake breeze and the songs of the birds. The spirits suggest that he go through the wooded tunnel of hope, him walking against a flow of vehicles whose passengers only live in their present, inconsequential souls that lack noble ancestors to honor and distant futures full of glorious and sublime promises... Elisbán advances with faith and determination, against everything and everyone, against all prognosis, he advances in search of his destiny...

From the rubble of a failed civilization, he seeks to reconstitute the original civilization, like a Mighty Phoenix. A humble and modest boy who believes in himself, who also believes in the hidden greatness in every human being in this world, he believes such a greatness must be awaken somehow; a nonconformist who has never given up, the hero who is about to be born in the universe of the evident and humbly knows that he himself is relevant in the world.

Once again, Elisbán fetches his lost friend... and nobody knows if he will see him again. He re-enters the city through The Arch Of The Independence in search of his personal and economic independence, and in addition, in search of the reaffirmation of the independence of a nation, and perhaps, in search of the independence and liberation of the whole world from the slavery at the hands of a sort of evil entity that survives in the nature of man which finds strength in the darkness of ignorance and prejudice... and thus, passing through the arch of independence and freedom that is also de triumphal arch, he is on his way to his truth, to show it, facing the city once again, and this time, more prepared than before, to definitely conquer it, to remember it and give it in return a valuable lesson forgotten for a thousand years.

Elisbán, with dignity, will receive shelter and food from the cosmic father of his couture whose almost extinct memory will reach Elisbán as the point of dawn of its rebirth; a fast-food vendor announces it to Elisbán.

The real world and the fictional world intertwine and merge into one. Celebrations for the birth of a new man and hero, but he goes unnoticed, nobody knows that the celebrations are in his honor.

Our hero emerges from the shores of the mysterious lake. He recognizes that he was always one with his Mother The Earth, he merges with Her; and with the approval of his Father The Sun, our hero is who he is, and although fragile and vulnerable because of being no more than a human being, he invites the new generations to imitate and practice his virtuous way of life.

Powerful Chief (Manco Cápac): A story that explores the beauty of simplicity, that unites distant times and worlds, and that is implicitly magical and legendary.

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