Lee Heidhues 8.4.2023
September 11 will be 50 years since the American encouraged Coup d’etat deposed Salvador Allende Gossens, the democratically elected socialist president of Chile and ushered in the fascist 17 year reign of terror led by Augusto Pinochet.
I just viewed the film ‘Chile ’76’ which vividly shows the fear and paranoia which gripped Chile during those years. The film is quiet, subtle and devastating as seen through the eyes of Carmen, a wealthy woman drawn inexorably into the terror of a fascist regime.
Excerpted from The Nation 8.1.2023
Like so many paranoid thrillers from the decade in which the movie is set, Chile ’76 denies its audience any measure of comfort or relief.
When Carmen (Aline Kuppenheim) orders medical supplies from a hotel pay phone, we’re never sure if the crackle on the line is Pinochet’s secret police or if there’s simply a bad connection. In another chilling scene, Carmen returns home to find her maid sleeping against the counter in the kitchen at an awkward angle. For several moments, the viewer is left to wonder whether she’s been strangled, possibly as a message to Carmen and her family. But then she rouses and the tension dissipates—if only until her employer’s next clandestine outing.
Part of what makes Chile ’76 so effective is that the violence it depicts always seems to happen just offscreen.
Carmen is writing down a list of groceries when we overhear one of the painters tell his coworker, “An army patrol picked them up, and no one’s seen them since.”
Later she has a rendezvous with Pinochet foe Elias’s comrade Silvia (Yasna Ríos), who convinces her that they’re being followed. It’s yet another false alarm, but Carmen subsequently spots the police covering a body on the beach near her home. A newspaper headline blares the murder of a beautiful young woman. Is it Silvia? Was she discovered? Director Manuela Martelli won’t tell.
Indeed, we only learn of Elias’s capture when Carmen tries to bring him a new pair of boots and discovers that his room adjacent to Father Sanchez’s church has been ransacked. A stricken servant informs her that he’s been abducted. “This is horrifying” are the only words that she can muster.
Carmen returns home with a cake for her granddaughter, and the movie ends with one of the bleaker renditions of “Happy Birthday” ever committed to film.
https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/manuela-martelli-chile-1976/
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