The most powerful image of My Imaginary Country is the street demonstrations in Santiago, Chile, which began in October 2019. Hundreds of thousands of Chileans took to the streets at first to protest the subway fare hike. Demands sweeping changes to the economic and political order of the country. They were met with tear gas, batons, and plastic bullets aimed at their eyes. Some fought back with cobblestones cut from the street and threw them at the police.
Seeing such scenes in documentary films, and on social media for that matter, is a strong sense of déjà vu. It feels like an echo. In Tehran in 2009 (and this week too). In 2011 in Arab capitals such as Tunis, Damascus and Cairo. in Kyiv in 2014. In Paris at the height of the yellow vest movement in 2018.
The exhilaration these photos can bring comes with a premonition. In most cases, these rebellions ended in defeat, disappointment, stalemate, or worse. The vibrant democratic promise of Cairo’s Tahrir Square has been crushed by a decade of military dictatorship. Ukrainian democracy appeared victorious after the Maidan “revolution of dignity,” but has since faced internal and external threats from Vladimir Putin’s military.
Jehane Noujaim’s ‘The Square’ and Evgeny Afineevsky’s ‘Winter on Fire’ are excellent moment films about Tahrir and Maidan, and ‘My Imaginary Country’ belongs in their company. But there is also a resonance unique to Chile, and a resonance unique to the career of its director, Patricio Guzman, who brings a unique and powerful historical perspective to the country’s current situation. Having seen events like this before, there is reason to hope that this time might be different.
Guzmán, now in his early 80s, could be described as Chilean biographer and cinematic conscience. His first documentary, the footage featured in this video captures the early years of President Salvador Allende, beginning in 1970 in a climate of optimism and defiance and ending three years later with a brutal U.S.-backed military coup. It was about a few months. Guzman’s account of Allende’s downfall and subsequent repression is in three parts. “Battle of Chile” Completed during his exile in France, it is one of the great political films of the last half-century.
More recently, in another trilogy such as Nostalgia for the Light, Pearl Buttons, and Cordillera of Dreams, Guzman explores Chile’s unique cultural and geographical identity, and explores ecology, demography, and more. , about the intersection of politics, is lyrical and essayistic. In My Imaginary Country, he cites French filmmaker Chris his Marker as a mentor, sharing a spirit of critical humanism and a habit of searching for historical meaning in minute experience. increase.
It’s a first-person documentary, but the director provides the narration to express poignant humility and patience to listen.Guzman weaves demo footage into interviews with participants. Most of the participants are young and all female.
The revolution culminated in a referendum calling for a new constitution, with Gabriel Boric, a leftist in his thirties, elected president of Chile. This stemmed from financial dissatisfaction among students and workers. But Guzmán and the activists, academics and journalists he speaks to make it clear that feminism has always been at the center of the movement. It argues that women’s equality is the foundation of all egalitarian politics.
“My Imaginary Nation” will join a new Constituent Assembly, including many veterans of the demonstrations, to create a new constitution that it hopes will finally wipe out the legacy of Augusto Pinochet’s long dictatorship. finish. After the film was completed, voters rejected the first draft. This is a throwback to the radical energy Boric and Guzman’s films capture and celebrate. Whatever the next chapter is, you can count on him to be by your side to document it.
my imaginary country
Unrated. Spanish, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 23 minutes. at the theater.