Death of a dream

Movie: Chile, Obstinate Memory
Year: 1997
Director: Patricio Guzman

Imagine if everything you knew about your country was a lie. If not an outright lie, then at least a lie of omission. Imagine friends, family members, teachers, classmates who simply "disappeared" at one point, never to be seen again. Imagine asking questions and never getting any answers. The truth is out there, but how to get it? How to know?

That is the crux of "Chile, Obstinate Memory." Twenty-plus years on from the making of the epic political documentary "The Battle of Chile," Guzman returns to his native land to screen the film and see what has changed. Frighteningly, in some cases, not much. We are told early on that even 25 years after the coup that ousted and murdered president Salvador Allende, Chilean distributors are afraid to touch "Battle." The movie is almost like a myth in its own country--often heard of but rarely seen.

We see the impact that the coup has on Chilean society today through the people we meet. Guzman himself is an central character as we see him returning to the Estadio Nacional soccer stadium were he was interred for a time after the coup. We meet the doctor friend who treated Guzman ("I remember you asked me to reassure your wife.") We meet one of the guards who survived the death battle at La Moneda on Sept. 11 and watch as he returns to the palace disguised as a member of Guzman's crew.

Strikingly, we meet Allende's widow Hortensia Bussi (who died in July of 2009 at the age of 94), who shares her sadness. All she wants is for her family keepsakes to be released, perhaps so that she can give her grandson a sweater or a tie belonging to his grandfather. Predictably though, the release will never come. We meet the 80-year-old father of cameraman Jorge Muller Silva, who was "disappeared" like so many others and whose despair is palpable.

Perhaps most interesting are the reactions of the younger generation, those who weren't even born or who were too young to remember the events of Sept. 11, 1973. We see a group of female students arguing whether the government was right or wrong to overthrow Allende, while their teacher confesses her shame at having been a member of the right back then. We see the profound despair of another student, who breaks down in uncontrollable sobs while recounting that for him, Sept. 11 was just a day to miss school. In a film with many powerful images, perhaps he is the most vivid, the most haunting.

The central question in "Chile, Obstinate Memory" is what is a memory, exactly? Is it what we are told or what we know? If you come from a dysfunctional home, you will easily recognize this conflict. And in a sense, Chile is a dysfunctional home, with some covering up the truth while others scream to be heard. Just 58 minutes in length, the film powerful reminisces with the dark, troubled Chilean past. Ultimately, we are left feeling hopeful though as the students who finally get to know what really happened seem determined to keep fighting the good fight so that dictators like Allende's successor, Pinochet, and his torture rooms and prison camps are never allowed to flourish again.

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