El chacal de Nahueltoro

This movie has haunted me for over 30 years--since the one and only time I have seen it. The images that I recall were black & white in a straightforward documentary style, but much stronger than most due to its unflinching eye. The camera watches a grindingly poor Chilean "indio" meet a destitute widow and her several small children who have been evicted from their hut and cast into the street. Later, in a drunken rage at his own inability--and what seems to be his recognition that they will come to nothing better--he brutally murders them (the title is from a tabloid headline, I think). While awaiting execution he is cleaned-up, learns to read, and begins to have an inkling of consciousness of the world beyond. And that is the supremely powerful and heartbreaking irony: he has become the opposite of "The Jackal of Nahueltoro"--a good citizen.

I almost never run into anyone who has ever seen or even heard of this film, but in its own small way, it is a masterpiece.