Movie review: ‘Granito: How to Nail a Dictator’ loses urgency with studied tone

Guatemala’s long, violent civil war pitting its right-wing military leaders against the country’s poor, indigenous peoples was given a world-shocking airing with Pamela Yates’ 1983 documentary “When the Mountains Tremble,� in which the government’s Mayan genocide was first exposed.

When her interview footage of notorious generals and shots of the military’s policies in action became essential to later war-crimes investigations, Yates turned on her camera again to revisit the tragedy, its aftermath and her part in it. The result is a sober if only intermittently effective follow-up, “Granito: How to Nail a Dictator.�

Though ostensibly an examination of the power of film to further social justice, Yates’ insertion of herself – either in “Mountains’� outtakes or carefully composed shots of her at an editing bay or with the Spanish prosecution team — too often feels awkwardly self-serving and conventionally arty.

“Granito� is tonally stronger when focused on the nuts and bolts of bringing a brutal regime (with a death count of 200,000) to light, including the discovery of a treasure trove of police records, interviews with human-rights activists and an archaeological dig unearthing bodies of the disappeared.

But there’s a naggingly studied tone to the whole enterprise that makes it feel like history class rather than a complex, urgent reckoning.

“Granito: How to Nail a Dictator.� No MPAA rating. In Spanish and English with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 43 minutes. At Laemmle’s Sunset 5, West Hollywood.