Subcomandante Marcos lights his pipe and says straight into the camera, "You've still got a lot of research to do. I don't know what you have been doing all this time. How long have you been in Chiapas?" "Five months," replies filmmaker Nettie Wild. "Hmm..." says the military commander of the Zapatista uprising, "....I've been here 12 years and I'm barely starting to understand."
Marcos is a pipe-smoking, charismatic contradiction. He's a "mestizo", a Mexican of mixed Spanish/Indian blood. He's an intellectual from the city who is the military leader and spokesman for an indigenous guerrilla army.