Let me start the year with an attempt to write about all the films I will see throughout the year, again. I tried doing this back in 2008 but I wasn’t able to sustain it, largely because I got too busy with law school and student council activities. This time, I’ll try doing my commentaries with themes and motifs.

MACHUCA (2004). In the early 1970′s, Chile was under leftist President Salvador Allende. Exclusive schools were opened to poor families. The elite were complaining against their socialist leader. This movie is about the experiences of three children in a time of great socio-political upheaval. A rich kid becomes great friends with a slum boy, along with a teenage girl with activist tendencies. Through his two friends from the slums, the boy acquires new experiences that challenges his understanding of himself, his family and the society. This film is ultimately a coming-of-age movie set in a political backdrop integrated in a subtle but strong way. (4/5)

MISSING (1982). This film won the Palme d’Or and a Best Actor Award in Cannes in 1982. Like Machuca, Missing is set in Chile during the political upheaval that saw the military overthrow of the country’s democratically-elected socialist leader. An American expat disappears a few days after the coup d’etat, while the entire country was in martial law. Unlike Machuca, this film exposes political issues more blatantly, particularly the covert involvement of the United States in planning the regime change (which they do all the time in many other countries with leftist leaders). This film was banned in Chile during the term of Augusto Pinochet. Lawsuits were even filed by the American ambassador to Chile at the time and the US State Department even issued disclaimers because of the film’s depictions of American military and intelligence officials.

I found it particularly brilliant how the film framed outdoor and street shots, which always included commercial billboards of American brands and multinationals on the background amidst the sound of gunshots and the sight of bloody corpses lying on the streets, reinforcing the message and the fact that the chaotic social climate had been sustained with the condonation and the support of the US.

Beyond the political tones, this film is a tragic and harrowing story of a father searching for his only son, and a wife yearning to reunite with her husband. The powerful acting of the two main leads almost perfectly captures all the emotions without resorting to the usual hysterical wailing and screaming. This film is based on a true story. (4.5/5)

LA NOCHE DE LOS LAPICES (Night of the Pencils) (1986). Like Missing, La Noche de los Lapices is about people who disappear under oppressive and fascist military dictatorships. This film is particularly about seven high school student activists in Argentina during the coup d’etat which installed the Argentine military junta of the 1970′s. The film starts with the students’ successful campaign for student passes on public buses and moves on with their violent kidnapping and the torture they endured under military captivity. (Thousands of people disappeared in the 1970′s during Argentina’s military dictatorship which brutally suppressed all things leftist, imagined or real.)

Despite its political backdrop, the film was able to focus its genuine depiction of the complex characters of the students, their families, and their relationships among each other, which made the characters more endearing and final scenes more tragic.

The film however, sort of, avoided any deeper political discussion of issues surrounding the political upheaval (the students’ primary campaign was really just on free passes on public buses). Like Missing, La Noche de los Lapices is based on a true story. (3/5)