Synopsis

Rage Against the Machine perform in a cramped brick-walled space while documentary footage connects the band's fury to the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico. Images of indigenous people, soldiers, weapons, protests, and rural laborers are intercut with statistics about the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. The video also uses stark morgue imagery and a film projector to frame the song as an indictment of political violence, poverty, and foreign intervention. Its confrontational montage turns a compact performance clip into a fast-moving piece of protest filmmaking.

Factoids & Trivia

• The video draws heavily on the Zapatista movement, the subject of the song and a cause strongly supported by vocalist Zack de la Rocha after visiting Chiapas.

• Its black-and-white images of indigenous workers and vaqueros come from Sergei Eisenstein's unfinished film "Que Viva Mexico!", shot in the early 1930s.

• The original version includes graphic images of an indigenous worker being buried and trampled, along with bodies shown in a morgue. MTV aired an edited version that replaced some of this material with military footage.

• Statistics about the Zapatista cause are projected onto a screen inside the morgue scenes, giving the video the form of a political documentary as much as a music clip.

• The video was included on the band's 1997 home video release, "Rage Against the Machine: The Video," alongside live performances and the group's earlier promotional clips.