Chili 1976

What should have been a tense, claustrophobic look at life in 1976 Chile shortly after the overthrow of the democratically elected Allende administration and the imposition of the hard-line Pinochet regime is, unfortunately, a watered-down, meandering, unfocused tale that never fully attains its goal. Writer-director Manuela Martelli's story of a middle-aged doctor's wife who risks her own safety to care for a wounded insurgent in hiding never really catches traction, filling its narrative with endless, unexplained, underdeveloped plot incidents and a woeful lack of character development, including that of the protagonist, whose motivations are never adequately explained but merely hinted at with such subtlety as to be virtually meaningless. By the time viewers reach the film's end, they're more left with an unsatisfying "Oh" rather than a throat-clutching "a ha!" A true disappointment given the subject matter this production had to work with.

Chile, 76 follows the lines of The Official Story, an earlier film that also traces the transformation of an Upper middle class woman who slowly is awaken to the atrocities of the fascist coup. To people who think that is not enough explanation, it would be good to read up on the assassination of Allende aided by the CIA. To folks who don't understand why the leading character changes her political position, if you know the history, its clear. She begins to understand that her privileged lifestyle is built upon the backs of the poor, her husband is involved in the rooting out of communists at the hospital, and for once, she feels that she is doing something useful, treating the young man who was shot for his political position. For a woman who grew up in a patriarchal society in which she could not be a doctor, whose life was restricted to acts of charity, this is a game changer. If you are familiar with Chilean films made of this period, you know that the Pinochet regime was based on not seeing, not seeing your neighbors disappear, simplistic explanations, violence, abuse. Its not meant to be an American thriller, so if you want a though provoking film, this is it.

Manuela Martelli has directed a wonderfully paced suspense film featuring a superb leading performance by Aline Küppenheim as Carmen, a chic upper class grandmother who gradually - and terrifyingly - perceives what's happening in her country. There is a touch of Hitchcock in the way it builds tension, aided by the powerful, intentionally intrusive score composed by Maria Portugal. For most films, this score would be too much. But here, the music mirrors Carmen's growing comprehension, not only of what is happening around her but also that her actions on behalf of someone fighting the regime have put her in peril.

This movie features an excessive amount of of little scenes that hint at, or foreshadow, something sinister, but that are never referenced again later on. They open a "plot thread" in the viewer's mind (e.g. "this person is suspicious", but since that person will never appear again to confirm or refute the viewer's initial hypothesis, the loose thread is never tied). It's the accumulation of these that makes for a frustrating experience by the end. It's as if the director expected the viewer to have forgotten most of those little occurrences by the end... shame on the director for underestimating the audience.

The protagonist's motives are never really explained and her personality is barely showcased, making for a flat main character that the viewer doesn't really empathize with. She comes across as just a generic, blasé, and cold rich woman that does the things she does because... reasons.

The scenes sometimes feel poorly connected to each other, with sudden jumps in time that skip over important things that (presumably) happened, but which are never shown, leaving the viewers to have to fill the gaps themselves. "Discontinuous" is perhaps the word I'm looking for.

A decidedly disappointing experience.

Director Manuela Martelli quickly and nicely establishes that we are in Chile during the 1970s with news headlines from black and white tv's pointing to the country in turmoil. We meet a well-dressed Carmen who is planning to redecorate her family's summer house while her husband, a doctor, is away for work. When the local priest asks her to help care for a young man with a gun wound, she accepts without question, lies to get some antibiotics and gets in deeper over her head the longer she helps out. Aline Küppenheim gives a subtle performance for what evolves into a complex character that travels around in a world filled with paranoia. There's a theme with shoes throughout the film whether it's Carmen's expensive high heels splattered with paint or one found with a hole in its soul/sole that contrasts class differences. We know it's during the Pinochet regime and though the danger is rarely if seen at all, there's always a sense of mystery and fear surrounding everything. Carmen doesn't know who to trust or if anyone around her is secretly watching her. You could almost say that the tension is Hitchcockian since we've seen a variety of shoes and don't know exactly when the next one will drop.