Machuca (2004) (Chile)

[hengcs]

This movie was submitted by Chile to the Oscar. ;)
I think it was screened in some film festivals too.
Anyway, it is available on DVD.

September 11 ... this day stirs a deep emotion among Chileans ... it is the day whereby Pinochet's military seized Allende's presidency in a coup d'etat...

The movie began in 1973, Santiago, Chile. Two kids (Gonzalo Infante and Pedro Machuca) became the most unlikely friends from two vastly different social classes. Predictably, you are going to witness challenges to the friendship, differences in lifestyles, etc ... In the end, will their friendship survive the chaotic political upheaval?

There are a number of thought provoking and interesting/realistic scenes:
-- at the rightists demonstration, the kids readily take side with the demonstrators ... at the leftists demonstration, they readily switch sides to be with the demonstrators ... ;P
-- Pedro's father's harsh reminder to the two kids what they will be many years down the road ... "You (Gonzalo) will go to college, you (Pedro) will still clean the toilet!" ... " You (Gonzalo) will work in your father's corporation, you (Pedro) will still clean the toilet!" ... "You (Gonzalo) will own your father's corporation, you (Pedro) will still clean the toilet!" ... ;(
-- Gonzalo's mother, "It is not about racism, class division, etc etc etc ... we are just different ... why do you insist on mixing apples and pears ... they are just different ..."
-- Another parent, "Why do you want to introduce them, they never need to know one another ..."
etc

Although the director tries to be fair in portraying both sides of the stories, it is evident what his stands are regarding the issues. Watch it and you will know. Moreover, he seems to paint a more dysfunctional upper/middle class in contrast to a more lively and soulful lower class. Despite these issues, it is not starkly skewed.

Noteworthy, the movie does not dwell too much on the politics (you will not gather much from the movie) but more on human and relationships ...

Regarding casting, scenes with Silvana (Pedro's neighbor) are always fun to watch ...
;)

Conclusion:
... Above average film
... Chileans who have gone through those tough tumultous times would definitely find it very personal and unforgettable!
;)

[arsaib4]

Good review, hengcs. I agree that the "Chileans who have gone through those tough tumultous times would definitely find it very personal and unforgettable!" However, I think it could be an experience and a lesson for all of us.

[Howard Schumann]

MACHUCA

Directed by Andrés Wood (2004)

“Over and above all things, the Chilean armed forces are professional and respectful of the constitution and the laws.” - Salvador Allendé

In 1973, the Chilean military, under the direction of General Augusto Pinochet and backed by the CIA, overthrew the shaky socialist government of democratically elected President Salvador Allendé. The coup led to the murder of 3,000 leftist Allendé supporters and the detention of an estimated 250,000 political prisoners. Set against the background of the political instability that led to the crisis, Andrés Woods' Machuca is the moving story of the friendship between two boys from different sides of the social spectrum. Voted the most popular film at the 2004 Vancouver Film Festival and a major box-office hit in Chile, the semi-autobiographical film succeeds on both a human and a political level, the different elements coming together in a final conflagration.

Gonzalo Infante (Matias Quer) is a chubby, red-faced 11-year old who attends St. Patrick's private school. He lives in a wealthy neighborhood where his security is unquestioned, even though he knows that his mother Maria (Aline Kuppenheim) is having a long-standing affair with a well-to-do Argentine businessman. Gonzalo is shy and unexpressive and is often bullied at school. His life changes, however, when Father McEnroe (Ernesto Malbran), the priest who runs the school, opens St. Patrick's to those who are unable to pay, and Gonzalo develops a friendship with Pedro Machuca (Ariel Mataluna), a youngster who lives in a nearby shantytown. The inclusion of the marginal students causes unrest at the school. Fights break out between the two economic classes and parents hastily call meetings to voice their opposition to the "communist" priest. Gonzalo protects Pedro from the bullies and later visits Pedro in his home.

Aware of how much he has, Gonzalo accepts his status without feeling superior, though Pedro's family refers to him as "the snob." In a subplot, Pedro's seductive young cousin Silvana (Manuela Martelli) gives both boys an introduction to sexual pleasure. Though the relationship between the two boys develops naturally and their innocence allows them to see past the developing turmoil, the disturbing layers of adult events slowly begin to threaten their friendship. To pick up some extra money, the boys attend political rallies and sell Chilean flags to both the Nationalists and the Communists, but soon emotions escalate and street fights break out between far-left and far-right militants. The onset of revolt is signaled by the arrival of two jets flying towards the Presidential Palace, a seminal event in Chile's history that marked the end of their short-lived freedom.

One of Chile's most successful young filmmakers, Woods lets the facts speak for themselves, and Machuca makes its points with an emotional power unencumbered by bias or simplistic messages. While the upper middle class is shown as elitist and disdainful of the working class, Pedro's family is also not portrayed in glowing terms. In a drunken rage of victimization, the father tells his son that in a few years, "He [Gonzalo] will be working for Daddy....You'll be cleaning toilets." The children are portrayed as simply children without the false glow of larger-than-life heroism. Although Machuca may ultimately have more of an impact for Chileans who experienced the coup directly, its theme of young people caught in the swirl of events beyond their understanding resonates far beyond the details of this single tragic moment in history.

GRADE: A-

[hengcs]

Hey,
for those who are interested, it is now showing in SF
;)

[Chris Knipp]

hengcs and Howard Schumann have really covered this film very well. However, I have a somewhat more critical take on it, so I will post my review of it shortly, having seen it last week in Berkeley.

I'm a little surprised you guys didn't note the parallel with Malle's "Au revoir les enfants" and the scene that borrows from it. French viewers have frequently noted the relationship.

The material is important and compelling and demands to be seen. But I think the film could have been better done than it was.

[Chris Knipp]

Andrés Wood: Machuca (2004)

An uneasy relationship between two boys and a coup

Review by Chris Knipp


* * * * w a r n i n g: * * * p o s s i b l e * * * s p o i l e r s* * * * *

An uneasy relationship between two boys and a coup

Santiago, Chile on the eve of the Pinochet coup of September 11, 1973: a pudgy, redheaded eleven-year old from a well-off family, Gonzalo Infante (Matias Quer) attends Saint Patrick's, an "English" prep school. Inspired by Allende's leftist government Anglophone headmaster Father McLaren (Ernesto Malbran) introduces some poor neighborhood boys into Gonzalo's class. Thus Gonzalo meets charity classmate Pedro Machuca (Ariel Mataluna).

Machuca shows an uneasy mutual attraction of rich and poor at a crucial moment in Chilean history: Gonzalo helps Pedro with his English, lends him his expensive hardbound Lone Ranger comic books, and brings him to his posh home. And in return Pedro defends Gonzalo on the frequent occasions when he's bullied by other boys and introduces him to the new world of his family and his shantytown life.

The movie draws a cold-warm contrast along with the rich-poor one. Gonzalo's father isn't very present, and his mother (played by Aline Küppenheim) is often absent messing around with a an Argentine businessman of a certain age and a certain wealth. She's a skinny clothes horse who drags the boy to her assignations. Her pet name for him is the condescending "Gordito," "Little Fatty," and he, rather too obviously, has little use for her. The right wing is sneering and hostile, perpetually pissed off at the Allende government. "Gordito's" older sister has a fascist boyfriend who spouts anti-socialist talk and menaces Pedro with nunchucks. Somehow he and Gonzalo's slick, boyish dad are very Seventies. The film's subtly expert at evoking period and place. The clothes and haircuts, the drab colors and amber filters are all firmly in character.

One day instead of riding home with his mom Gonzalo gets in a truck with Pedro's uncle and meets the Machuca family, including the uncle's daughter, the vivacious, exaggeratedly hard Silvana (Manuela Martelli), who later trades kisses for rationed cans of condensed milk. Gonzalo joins them in selling flags at both right and left wing demonstrations and jumping up and down to mock "commies" and "mummies" alternately. They don't care which, except they join in a bit more for the leftists, and so does Gonzalo, who's enjoying a whole new forbidden world of humanity, politics, and risk. Poverty and underdevelopment on the one hand and bourgeois discontent -- with Allende and boring lives -- on the other are on the edge of the story throughout. The film intercuts family scenes on both sides of the tracks with school scenes.

It would be unfair to say the contrasts are too easy, though sometimes they're a little obvious. The Machuca household's no picnic or love-fest. Though Pedro's mother is pretty and sweet, his dad's a useless alcoholic who comes by only to ask for money. Silvana's a good contrast to Pedro, because she's less in awe of Gonzalo's life. He can't get over the closet full of clothes and the Adidas tennies in Gonzalo's bedroom. She's savvy and political enough to see Gonzalo's class as the enemy.

Meanwhile there's a vociferous meeting of parents of the Saint Patrick School where the loudest mouths are anti-liberationists who damn headmaster McLaren and call for the removal of the charity students -- and him. Outside in the streets we often see political slogans, and the big marches where the kids sell flags reflect the political ferment that's in the air.

All this is very interesting -- despite a certain desultory quality in the action and the weakness that neither Gonzalo nor Pedro, believable though they are, is particularly compelling as a character or charismatic as a person. But Machuca exists primarily for its bitter, cynically realistic finale in the terrible CIA-led Golpe de Estado and its aftermath, which we briefly see from the point of view of Gonzalo and the Machuca family. The news comes on the tele. The left-leaning Father McLaren is immediately replaced by a military officer, and children whose parents were close to Allende are removed from Gonzalo and Pedro's class. In a startling scene the Father comes back to the school chapel during service and rapidly consumes all the communion wafers, thereby declaring the chapel no longer holy, and the boys, led by Pedro, bid him a fond farewell. "Goodbye, children," he says, echoing and perhaps ripping off the moving end of Louis Malle's 1987 masterpiece Au revoir les enfants -- which Machuca obviously parallels, though Jewish persecution and World War II hover over the two schoolboy friends in Malle's film instead of poverty and a right wing coup.

Most dramatic of all, Gonzalo is in Pedro's neighborhood during the murderous military purge and sees Silvana killed as soldiers take people away. Terrified of being linked with them and taken away himself, Gonzalo denies any connection with the people there, pointing to his Adidas. It's perhaps ironic to us to think that for several decades in America such shoes are trophies worn by ghetto kids, at times stolen from rich boys to do so. Here they can only mean you're rich.

Gonzalo rides his bici away and walks right into the luxurious home of his mother's lover, seeming to embrace for that moment the worst aspects of his own background out of fear. He's scared "right," as it were. The boy who was displaced earlier to put Pedro next to Gonzalo in class is back in what was Pedro's desk. But when he asks for answers to a test Gonzalo writes "ASSHOLE" (in most excellent English) on the paper and gives it back, turning in his own test with no answers -- as the boldest and coolest of the poor boys had once done -- and walking out.

The material in Machuca is undeniably important. The volatility of the situation it chronicles can be seen today in what's happening in Venezuela, though Chavez so far has been impossible for the CIA to oust -- perhaps because his government has been more truly socialist than Allende's and consequently has a stronger popular base. Many scenes in Machuca work, but the lack of charisma is a flaw, and the screenplay and direction aren't quite tight enough to prevent a few longueurs. The filmmakers aren't entirely up to the demands of their compelling material. But the result is still essential viewing.




David Walsh has discussed the historical and political aspects of Machuca on the <a href="http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/oct2004/vff2-o21_prn.shtml">World Socialist Web Site.<a/> Walsh argues that Wood can't decide what he thinks about the working class people in the film -- or about the Allende regime -- and may not really understand either..

Posted on Chris Knipp website. (http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?p=452)

[hengcs]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
The material is important and compelling and demands to be seen. But I think the film could have been better done than it was.

I agree that the film could have been better ...
that was why I only gave it an "above average" ...
;)

Anyway, I think the film (as a whole) does not have sufficient propelling power ...

[Chris Knipp]

I wanted to be kinder to it, but I had to be truthful. I know that the material is tremendously important to Chileans, who may read whatever they need to into it. I think Walsh's analysis on the World Socialist Web Site (he's an excellent critic) is very significant. Most people who are uncritical of the film's faults also are vague about the political history. Walsh isn't. If you look at Au revoir les enfants, you can see how such a story can be made into a truly great film. The relationship between the boys there is so much more richly conceived, and the emotional effect is both more subtle and more powerful.

[Howard Schumann]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
If you look at Au revoir les enfants, you can see how such a story can be made into a truly great film. The relationship between the boys there is so much more richly conceived, and the emotional effect is both more subtle and more powerful. I know that's one of Howard's favorite films. Curious, how would you know that since I have never discussed it and it does not appear on my list of favorites? As a matter of fact, I do not like it.

[Chris Knipp]

I've corrected the error.