Childhood innocence is at the forefront of Chilean political upheaval in Andrés Wood's sobering Machuca, says CALEB STARRENBURG.


THE CHILEAN coup d'état of September 11, 1973 was a watershed event in the history of Chile and the Cold War. Salvador Allende, who won his presidency with a plurality of just 36.3% of the vote, was opposed by sectors of Chile's society and the United States, which placed diplomatic and economic pressure on his government.

On September 11, 1973 the Chilean military (possibly backed by the CIA) overthrew Allende, who died during the coup. A junta led by Augusto Pinochet assumed power. Historians and partisans continue to wrangle over implications of this event (yes I had to google this information, I was pretty young during the Cold War ). As such, Machuca is a film alive with contemporary resonance.

In Machuca, Chilean director Andrés Wood uses a child's moral innocence to investigate the political upheaval, which took place during 1973. The director has apparently based the film on his own experiences of the coup, during which time he was an eight-year-old upper middle class child attending a Santiago prep school.

Admittedly Wood's protagonist, Gonzalo (the cherubic Matia Quer), looks a little older than eight. Gonzalo befriends Pedro (Ariel Mateluna), a poor indigenous child admitted to his exclusive school on a scholarship. Pedro becomes Gonzalo's window into the abyss separating Chile's social strata.

Why the film is called Machuca, I am unsure. Machuca is the family name of Gonzalo's friend, Pedro. However, the part of Gonzalo is the central one, so either his family name, Infante, didn't sound like a particularly appealing title, or the underprivileged character better fits the film's political tone.

Wood's sympathies are clearly with the victims of Pinochet, yet he never attempts to teach ideological lessons. Instead, Wood tries earnestly to understand the events of September 1973, although as the film reveals, even this is indefinite: at one point Gonzalo joins the socialist Machuca family as they hawk flags to pro-capitalist demonstrators.

Throughout the film you remain aware Chile's military coup lurks on the horizon, which lends a certain sense of dread to goings on. Intimations of the September incident occur casually on television sets and are overheard in conversations, yet Gonzalo remains blissfully unaware of his rapidly changing environment until the film's sudden climax; a brutal adolescent awakening.

However, it is as a coming of age drama that the film is at its lightest. Wood's script (co-written with Mamoud Hassam and Roberto Brodsky) is occasionally forced, and the film's pace reserved. The plot is revived by the fiery Silvana (played magnificently by Manuela Martelli), a sexually frank shantytown girl who entices the boys with a curious combination of kissing and condensed milk. Silvana's arrival provides the crux for a bittersweet love triangle and helps propel the leisurely narrative.

Ernesto Malbran is also excellent as Father MacEnroe, the heroic Catholic priest whose attempts to integrate shantytown boys into his school ultimately seal his fate. In a sense, MacEnroe represents the films redemption – the only character that reacts definitively to his country's attempts to tear itself apart. Machuca: a sobering examination of a piece of history, not often visited on film.