| The Battle of Chile | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Patricio Guzman |
| Release date(s) | 1975, 1976, 1979 |
| Country | Chile |
The Battle of Chile is a documentary film in 3 parts, directed by the Chilean Patricio Guzman: The Insurrection of the Bourgeoisie (1975), The Coup d'état (1976), Popular Power (1979). It is a chronicle of the political tension in Chile in 1973 and of the violent counter revolution against the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende. It won the Grand Prix in 1975 and 1976 at the Grenoble International Film Festival. In 1996, Chile, Obstinate Memory was released and followed Patricio Guzmán back to Chile as he screened the 3-part documentary to Chileans who had never seen it before.[1]
Contents |
The film opens in March 1973 with reporters asking people how they intend to vote in the coming congressional election. The election is taking place after Allende has been in office for over two years and has been trying to reorganise society along democratic socialist lines. His Popular Unity coalition was put into office with only a third of the popular vote. His efforts to nationalize certain industries have met with internal and foreign opposition, and Chile is suffering economic deprivations. (Narration is provided in English - a source of criticism in The New Yorker review of the film by Pauline Kael - " The film seems to give us only the public actions - and none of the inner workings. Those are supplied by an English narrator ( a woman) who keeps interpreting for us. There may be considerable truth here, but this kind of thing can drive one a little crazy. She gives us a strict ideological account - in which everything that happens is the result of the imperialists and the industrialists strategy." [2]
In the election Allende makes gains , to 43.4 per cent of the votes, though the opposition bloc is strong too, up to 56 per cent. The film has street interviews, speeches, the violent confrontations, the mobs and meetings, the parades with workers chanting. Part One finishes with newsreel footage from a Argentine camerman Leonardo Henrichsen [3] who was photographing street skirmishes. A soldier takes aim and kills the cameraman, and the image spins skyward.
Part Two - The Coup d'état begins with the right wing violence of the summer of 1973 against the government. Army troops seize control of downtown Santiago - but the attempted coup is snuffed out in a few hours. "The film leaps from one group to another..It shows the different elements in the explosive situation with so much clarity that it's a Marxist tract in which the contradictions of capitalism have sprung to life. We actually see the country cracking open. Step by step, the legal government is overthrown." [4]
Everybody in Chile seems to know the coup d'état is coming and talk about it openly - yet the people who have most to lose can't get together enough to do anything. Allende's naval aide-de-camp Arturo Araya is killed, and the camera moves around the funeral attendees - General Pinochet among them. In July , the truck owners, funded by the C.I.A., begin their long strike, which paralyzes the distribution of food, gasoline, and fuel, and there is a call for Allende to resign. Instead Allende holds a rally - around 800,000 people arrive, but they have no weapons. On September 11, the Navy institutes the coup d'état, and the Air Force bombs the state radio station. The palace is bombarded from the air. And then the chiefs of the junta on television are seen announcing they'll return the country to order after three years of "Marxist cancer".
In Chile, Obstinate Memory, Guzmán explores the idea of identity and memory as it relates to the Chilean public. As opposed to The Battle of Chile, Chile, Obstinate Memory focuses more on the personal reflections of th filmmaker on returning to his home country. Whereas the original documentary is in the form of cinema verité, Chile, Obstinate Memory is a personal essay film[5] Guzmán interviews people involved in the making of The Battle of Chile, speaks with Allende’s former guards, reflects on his own time being held by the military government, and overall focuses on the individual experiences under such a regime.[6] The film explores the identity of the Chilean people in regards to the political changes of the nation during and after the Pinochet regime.[7]
Tim Allen in Village Voice - "The major political film of our times - a magnificent achievement." Pauline Kael in The New Yorker - " How could a team of five - some with no previous film experience - working with...one Éclair camera, one Nagra sound recorder, two vehicles..and a package of black-and-white film stock sent to them by the French documentarian Chris Marker produce a work of this magnitude? The answer has to be partly, at least; through Marxist discipline..The young Chilean director and his associates had a sense of purpose. The twenty hours of footage they shot had to be smuggled out of the country..the cameraman, Jorge Muller, hasn't been heard of since his imprisonment. The others fled separately, assembled in Cuba, and together with a well known Chilean film editor Pedro Chaskel,...worked on the movie... Aesthetically, this is a major film, and that gives force even to the patterning of its charges..It needs to be seen on public television, with those [U.S.] government officials who formed policy toward Allende explaining what interests they believed they were furthering." [8]