When left-wing coalition leader Gabriel Boric was elected Chilean prime minister in 2021, he was 35 years old. When, a few months later, he was sworn in as the youngest president in the nation's history — also the world's youngest state leader — revered Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán was 80 years old. protest movements that contributed to the rise of Boric. And while in formal terms it's more of a standard reportage-based documentary than any of his recent essays, it's also the rarest of projects: one in which a revered member of an older generation of political activists communicates a fervent admiration for his youngsters. counterparts and a profound and grateful optimism for the future they are building.
It begins—in the more personal register that fans of Guzmán's filmography of recent days are accustomed to—with a brick. The filmmaker narrates in his warmly melodic and provocative ASMR Spanish how those bricks and stones were ripped from the sidewalks of Santiago for civilian protesters to use as defensive weapons against police tear gas and rubber bullets. It also reminds him of the quickly and brutally suppressed riots that followed Pinochet's 1973 seizure of power. The rise of that military junta forced Guzmán into an exile from which he has never fully returned, preferring instead to visit and revisit the subject of the history of their country from the perspective of the heartbroken and eternally nostalgic expat.
But this also meant that Guzmán was not a first-person witness to the massive and impromptu civic mobilization that occurred in 2019 in reaction against growing inequality, the skyrocketing cost of living, and the political corruption and cronyism of contemporary Chilean society. Chris Marker, an early proponent of Guzman's work, once told him, "When you want to film a fire, you have to be where the first flame will appear." When Guzman apologetically admits that he wasn't there for the tinderbox this time, it's almost as if he's confessing to a dereliction of duty.
Director: Patricio Guzmán
Writer: Patricio Guzmán
Perhaps that's why the filmmaker largely retreats from the narrative and instead uses contemporary reporting, including some amazing footage of meandering column hovering drones of up to 1.2 million attendees, and his interviews. with key witnesses, to tell the story. His previous films shed light on philosophical inquiry into his own relationship with his country, not only Chile's politics, but also its skies and deserts, its coastline and waters, and its long Andean backbone. Here his attention is focused on the leaders of this new revolution. Which is easier said than done, given that one of the things that distinguishes the so-called “social outbreak” from other civil protest movements is that, as Guzmán points out with undisguised astonishment, it was a “leaderless” movement.
Perhaps it is more correct to say that the journalists, writers, civilian doctors, photographers, academics, and students whom Guzmán interviews are representatives of the multitudinous citizenry rather than its principals. In any case, they are an inspiring selection: Not coincidentally, they are all women. There is a student who was part of the group of schoolchildren whose spontaneous and loud refusal to pay the newly increased subway fare in 2019 triggered protests across the country. There is a photographer who was partially blinded in clashes with police, one of hundreds whose severe eye trauma as a result of overzealous crowd dispersal tactics made covering one eye the movement's most eloquent symbolic gesture.
One commentator speaks of leaving her daughter every morning, in full knowledge that he risked leaving her motherless at night; another reflects eloquently on a strange and sudden flash of empathy for one of the riot police on the other side of the barricades. In all cases, the choice of spokespersons demonstrates in an undemonstrative way that, however much the malaise stemmed from economic frustrations, those frustrations were inseparable from a patriarchal status quo whose most committed opposition came from women of all social backgrounds and ethnic.
Guzmán is not so naïve as to suggest that it was all about joyful casseroles and songs of solidarity. There were instances of looting and fighting and, perhaps inevitably for such a long campaign, periods of calm as well. But with Boric's casting, he has the opportunity to round out his movie on a positive note and he seizes it.
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