The Settlers (2024)

Direction: Felipe Gálvez Haberle
Country: Chile / Argentina / other

Felipe Gálvez Haberle's directorial debut, The Settlers, delves into a dark chapter of Chilean history, chronicling a harrowing journey undertaken by three men from Tierra del Fuego to Argentina with the sinister aim of exterminating Indigenous peoples across the pampas. 

Set in 1901, the narrative revolves around Segundo Molina (Camilo Arancibia), a young mixed-blood tracker and skilled marksman, who joins forces with Alexander MacLennen (Mark Stanley), a ruthless English Lieutenant, and Bill (Benjamin Westfall), a prejudiced American mercenary. Both men are hired by Jose Menéndez (Alfredo Castro), a wealthy landowner who disposes the Indigenous people from their land to profit. Along their journey, they bump into a competitive Argentinean captain and a despicable Scottish colonel, carrying out their mission with tenacity. Interrupted by a seven-year gap, the two-part narrative culminates in the visit of Mr. Vicuña (Marcelo Alonso), an intellectual nationalist working for the Chilean president, to Menéndez, in the last corner of the Earth. 

Inspired by real characters, the film effectively captures the poignant brutality of the genocide perpetrated against the Selk'nam Indians in Chile. Its portrayal of a primitive environment tinged with political upheaval and savage acts evokes the spirit of classic westerns, here infused with shades of Herzog and Jodorowsky’s filmmaking styles.

Haberle keeps sentimentality away and doesn’t spare us to violence. The film’s heartrending conclusion may leave viewers feeling somber, with a sense of pure intoxication. Despite its bleak topic, The Settlers is elevated by its stunning location shots and the sharp cinematography of Simone D’Arcangelo, who previously showcased his talent in the exquisite The Tale of King Crab (2021).

Rotting in the Sun (2023)

Direction: Sebastian Silva
Country: Chile 

While relaxing in a Mexican gay nude beach, Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Silva meets American comedian and social media influencer Jordan Firstman, who is a fan of his movies. Despite Silva’s initial reservations, they agrees to an artistic collaboration. The two personalities feast on caricatural portrayals of themselves and mock death in this shaggy-dog meta-narrative called Rotting in the Sun. The true standout in the movie is Chilean actress Catalina Saavedra, who skillfully reprises her role as a morally-resistant maid - a character that garnered critical  acclaim in Silva’s second feature, The Maid (2009).

The film unfolds in two distinct halves, and unfortunately, neither proves satisfying. The first part comes off as gratuitous, fixating on the visibly depressed director engrossed in Romanian author Emil Cioran’s book The Trouble of Being Born while contemplating existential struggles and suicide. It’s also pelted with drawn-out, unsimulated sex scenes that add absolutely nothing to the plot. The second part takes a bleak turn, dealing with real death and disappearance, and adopting an investigative and slightly more thrilling tone. However, it fails to shake off the programmatic nature that plagues the narrative.

Silva's direction falters while striving to shock the audience at every juncture, and the repetitive scenes never compensate the lack of ideas. What could have been a provocative satire ended up feeling excessively simulated, derailed by an uncontrolled impetus that only makes it further rigid and cold. In the end, the uninspired director delivers a poor reality-fiction hybrid that proves challenging for the audience to engage with. Unapologetically unpleasant, the film feels stale, like it has been left to rot in the sun.

El Conde (2023)

Direction: Pablo Larraín
Country: Chile

Acclaimed Chilean director Pablo Larraín continues in biopic mode with El Conde, a film centered around Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, following cinematic idiosyncrasies such as Jackie (2016, about Jackeline Kennedy), Neruda (2016, about Pablo Neruda), and Spencer (2021, about Lady Diana). This time, Larraín ventures deep into surrealism, transforming Pinochet into a 250-year-old vampire in a fable that is both somber and facetious. 

Drawing from German Expressionism (Nosferatu and Vampyr are references) as well as absurdism, the director creates a sinister black-and-white world of fantasy to denounce real sinners and their indelible sins from the past. A mysterious British woman, whose identity is revealed by the end to our surprise, narrates the story of Pinochet (Jaime Vadell), a mediocre royalist French soldier turned oppressive commander and vampire. Years after committing atrocities, he now seeks death. His wife, Lucia (Gloria Münchmeyer), betrays him with his loyal slave and master of torture, Fyodor (Alfredo Castro), who is also a vampire. The scenario is further complicated with the arrival of his five greedy children, and Carmen (Paula Luchsinger is phenomenal), a sweet and sly nun disguised as an accountant and secretly assigned to exorcise him from evil. Unexpectedly, in love, the weak count just needs fresh blood (or a human heart smoothie) from young people to rejuvenate. He no longer wants to die.

Equipped with daring shots, classical arias, religious chants, and a fair dose of madness, the ultra-hype El Conde is delirious and violent. It’s carried out with audacity and virtuosity, showcasing the filmmaker’s mastery of his art. The film is far from making a fully formed organic statement, but that wasn’t Larraín’s intention. Fearless of the result, he focused on satirizing with imagination and scathing black humor, metaphorically condemning the man while also providing entertaining.

The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future (2023)

Direction: Francisca Alegria
Country: Chile 

Employing magic realism, The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future, can be haunting at times as it languishes in an oppressive atmosphere that goes beyond superstition. Symbolism and dreamy sequences help to extract depth and meaning from a story that fuses past, present and future, while touching on topics such as family, death, forgiveness, generational damage and trauma, and environmental concern. 

Intriguingly, a woman called Magdalena (Mia Maestro) emerges from the polluted river where fish are dying. Arriving barefoot and with a helmet on, she seems to know exactly where to head. Her daughter, Cecilia (Leonor Varela), a respected surgeon in Santiago, returns to her childhood home to visit her father, Ernesto (Alfredo Castro, who worked with Pablo Larraín in some of his best films). He had a cardiac episode after seeing his dead wife. Burdened by the past, Cecilia brings her two children with her, including her trans son Tomas (Enzo Ferrada), who doesn’t hide a special kinship with his long-lost grandmother.

The beauty of the story lies precisely in how to overcome fragility, doing it with both realistic and supernatural quests that will take you out of your comfort zone. Debutant director Francisca Alegria co-wrote with two others, maintaining the lyricism intense in a non-linear film that will divide audiences. Yet, one can't help wonder if that's not exactly what the director was looking for. What is unquestionable here is that: understanding in order to repair and heal applies both to family and our mother Earth.

Chile '76 (2023)

Direction: Manuela Martelli
Country: Chile / Argentina

Chile ’76 is a slow-burning political drama thriller that shapes into a moody spying conspiracy. Actress-turned-director Manuela Martelli captures how it feels to live under the authoritarian regime of Augusto Pinochet, and how some privileged upper-middle class folks risk their lives to protect political resistants. She makes her directorial feature debut with this film.

Carmen (Aline Kuppenheim), the anxious wife of a renowned doctor in Santiago, takes a break from the city by spending a few days in the small village where she has a summer house, now under renovation. Not without surprise, the local priest, Father Sanchez (Hugo Medina), asks for her help with a severely wounded young man (Nicolás Sepúlveda), an opponent of the regime, whom he’s been sheltering in secret.

Growing fond of this sympathetic dissident, Carmen agrees to make the bridge between him and his group, so he can return safely. A scary and dangerous task that includes meeting points, signals and precise instructions to be followed. 

The film takes its time to build, advancing steadily and surely but never expanding outside its atmospheric cocoon. We have the perfect sense that eyes are everywhere, even where least expected, and Martinelli plays with that factor. However, she misses the opportunity to create that type of tension that makes us shiver and sweat with fear. Preferring the cold approach, the sharply observed Chile ’76 carries off a readable merge between the personal and the political.

Immersion (2022)

Direction: Nic Postiglione
Country: Chile 

Immersion is a qualified low budget thriller that focuses on unfounded fear, class gaps and bourgeois prejudice. The debut feature of Chilean Nic Postiglione benefits from a simple but intelligent script as well as an effective direction, but couldn’t have been taken to an above-the-average level without the stunning actor Alfredo Castro. The latter, who showed superior acting skills in the past through films such as Tony Manero (2008), Post Mortem (2010) and White on White (2019), plays a biased middle-class man whose attitudes of superiority and mistrust - typical of a cultural zeitgeist in Chile that discriminates against the indigenous Mapuche people - lead to implacable consequences.

Ricardo (Castro) takes his two daughters - Tere (Consuelo Carreño) and Claudia (Mariela Mignot) - in his yacht to spend the day in the remote lake house where he spent his youth. While navigating the calm waters of the lake, he spotted three men on a small boat that appears to be sinking. He ignores their pleas for help at first but then goes back and agrees to help them.

The constantly tense atmosphere and dark tones of the film are stressed by the unfailingly rigorous lens of cinematographer Sergio Armstrong (a regular choice of the acclaimed director Pablo Larraín), and the sometimes unsettling, sometimes sad sound design of Mauricio López. Being discerning and direct to the point, the film is also measured in form, but it comes with an important message about fear and prejudice.

Ema (2021)

Direction: Pablo Larraín
Country: Chile

The Chilean Pablo Larraín is a fabulous director, but his newest film, Ema, leaves one with a sense of anticlimax and dissatisfaction, especially after the ridiculous finale. The filmmaker maintains the dark undertones that characterize his films but forgot the sardonic humor in this icy tale of guilt, cynicism and lust that loses consistency with time.

The story, co-written by Larraín, Guillermo Calderón (who worked with director in The Club and Neruda) and Alejandro Moreno, follows a heartless blonde dancer, Ema (Mariana Di Girolamo), who faces widespread social contempt for having returned the Colombian child she adopted with her sterile and inflexible choreographer husband, Gastón (Gael Garcia Bernal), to the social services. Since then, guilt has been consuming their hearts, not to mention that their relationship was heavily affected. Hence, it’s not that strange that love, blame and forgiveness blur with hazy boundaries throughout the film. The plan devised by Ema to reach the child years later is carried out too easily, making us doubt its credibility.

Things can be viscerally painful in one moment and openly voluptuous the next, but it’s clear that the intensity of the performances, especially Di Girolamo in her first leading role, is what pulls the film out of mediocrity. 

Another positive aspect is the soundtrack by Nicolas Jaar, which fits hand-in-glove in the type of mood envisioned by its creators. Pity that the zaniness of the plot prevented Larraín from succeeding this time.

Note: this review was also published on UK’s Flickfeast website

Too Late To Die Young (2019)

Direction: Dominga Sotomayor Castillo
Country: Chile

Chilean writer/director Dominga Sotomayor Castillo became the first woman to win the grand prize for direction at Locarno Film Festival with the coming-of-age drama Too Late To Die Young. That feat was not achieved by mere chance since she has an extraordinary gift for portraying adolescent femininity with subtleness and deep feeling. Avoiding the common trappings associated with the genre, Sotomayor also contemplates the influence of the milieu and unresponsive family relations by making them relevant aspects in her story.

The film’s backdrop is rural Chile in 1990, right after the cease of Pinochet’s dictatorship. Sofia (Demian Hernández), an autonomous 16-year-old, is living in a community in the woods with her father, Roberto (Andrés Aliaga). The community has no power and their members hardly find drinkable water in the summer. This type of environment offers all the liberties to the youngsters, including smoking and drinking alcohol.

Despite willing to live with her mother, a celebrated singer whom she eagerly expects to join the group for a New Year’s Eve party, Sofia seems unworried as she keeps flirting with the guitar-aficionado Lucas (Antar Machado), who is her age and has a huge crush on her. However, when the slightly older Ignacio (Matías Oviedo) arrives at the place in his cool motorbike, an instant chemistry blossoms between him and Sofia. Emotional complexity installs and, in the end, frustration and disillusion hold sway, making almost impossible for us not to bare a jot of pity. The final scenes, centered on a dog that runs away from the community while a wildfire consumes the hills, somehow makes an uncanny parallelism between confinement and the freedom of choice.

Everything is strangely inward in mood in this keenly observed, affectionately articulated tale where the episodes unfold slowly toward a tough, inevitable, and definite conclusion. After all, this is more about the familiar and less about the forbidden. Sofia emanates that unpleasant sense of being trapped and one can’t escape that associative feeling too. No words are needed as both the look and behavior of Sofia put us across the emotional turmoil she’s in.

Focusing on giving a sincere portrayal of adolescence, Too Late To Die Young professes a turbulent intimacy with controlled pace and assured narrative construction.

A Fantastic Woman (2018)

Directed by Sebastián Lelio
Country: Chile

Strongly anchored in the priceless acting skills of Daniela Vega, the Chilean drama “A Fantastic Woman” paints a modern portrait of struggle, independence, confidence, and resilience. 

The film’s central focus is Marina Vidal (Vega), a transgender woman in her late thirties who works as a waitress during the day and sings in a nightclub at night. She suffers a deep emotional blow when Orlando (Francisco Reyes), her 57-year-old partner, dies at the hospital from an aneurysm. The incident occurred on the same night that she moved into his apartment in Santiago. Thus, Marina has no place else to go, which motivates Orlando’s rude son, Bruno (Nicolás Saavedra), to insinuate she might have something to do with his father’s death. Bruno’s pugnacious mother, Sonia (Aline Küppenheim), is very explicit when stating that her ex-husband embarked on a perversion, forbidding Marina to attend his funeral. Among the members of the family, only Gabo (Luis Gnecco), Orlando’s benevolent brother, accepts Marina, even saving her from additional imbroglios with an inquisitive police officer at the hospital. However, he couldn't prevent an unsmiling female police detective (Amparo Noguera) from stalking her and demand humiliating physical exams to clarify a hypothetical suspicion of aggression. 

Throughout this oppressive journey, she gets some help from her sister, Wanda (Trinidad González), but didn't gain the sympathy of her sarcastic boyfriend, Gaston (Néstor Cantillana). The real support comes from her singing teacher (Sergio Hernandez), who finding his emotionally torn student in pain, offers a friendly shoulder.

Argentinean-born Chilean director Sebastian Lelio, who gave us the memorable “Gloria” last year, composes the picture with depressive tones, a slow and steady pace, and a few redundant scenes, which, clearly intending to define the character’s personality, ended up more strained than reasonable. On one of them, Marina forces a man out of a taxi, justifying the demeanor with an emergency, while in another, the wind blows so forcefully that she can barely walk, a symbolic yet dull representation of the stagnancy that dominates her life at this point. 

The screenwriters, Lelio and Gonzalo Maza, created a mysterious, opaque fog around the core of the story that simply didn’t work. Their vain supernatural suggestions, planned to make the difference, revealed to be ineffective, even time-consuming.
 
Ferociously punching the air to release the stress, Marina shows an insusceptible inner strength and self-determination in the face of prejudice, vexation, and loneliness. And yet, despite bending on many occasions, her self-identity was never put in question. This is the strongest aspect of a film that, unlike "Gloria", and despite the best intentions, is not going to be missed.

Endless Poetry (2016)

Directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky
Country: Chile / France

Celebrated cult director Alejandro Jodorowsky looks at his turbulent young adulthood in Chile with the usual combination of emotional weight and provocative posture. His second autobiographical drama, “Endless Poetry”, is as overwhelming as its prequel, “The Dance of Reality” (2013).

Like happened in the preceding film, the director uses a rich color palette to depict his past misadventures, staging the scenes with gusto and populating the indecorous settings with occasional stylized choreographies and a few bizarre characters, so commonly associated with his body of work.

This slice of life takes us to his parents’ home in Matucana, where the young Alejandro (Jeremias Herskovits) discovers Garcia Lorca, and almost immediately decides to be a poet. His austere father, Jaime (Brontis Jodorowsky - director’s eldest son), becomes highly discontented since he already had envisioned a career in medicine for his only son. We see that Alejandro’s intentions/choices were systematically castrated by his father, a merciless punisher who defended that poetry was for homosexuals. Even during a strong earthquake, the poor Alejandro was encouraged to hide his fear and forced to react ‘like a man’. Conversely, his mother, Sara (Pamela Flores), was a sweet person, but not strong enough to go against her husband’s authoritative decisions and biased ideas. All her speeches are sung like an aria, a way that Jodorowsky found to tell us how much comforting sounded her voice in those difficult times.

Acquiring as much strength as necessary to oppose his “shitty family”, as he used to say, and following his most basic instincts, the now adult Alejandro (Adan Jodorowsky, the youngest son of the filmmaker) treads his own individual path, leaving his parents behind without notice. His world will change when he falls for Stella Diaz (a double role for Pamela Flores), a mundane red-haired poetess of whom he becomes insanely dependent.

Throughout this journey of self-discovery, he briefly meets with creative fellows such as Nicanor Parra and Andre Breton, and becomes the best friend of Enrique Lihn, the most bohemian of those poets, who loved to challenge the limits of possibility.
 
A few unforgettable scenes are engraved in my memory like the one that Alejandro was almost raped by a bunch of wild men in a sinister nightclub, or when he had sex with a dwarf woman when she was having her period, or when he impersonates a clown in a circus and tries to convince himself he’s not guilty.

Alongside the eccentric imagery, the superior narrative flow is never ambiguous but persistently fascinating. The unabashed artistic world of Jodorowsky is like this: offbeat, dramatic, poetic, phantasmagoric, humorous, atrocious… Even so, I found “Endless Poetry” more poetic and less visceral than his previous cinematic creations.

In a couple crucial scenes, the director, in person, comes into view to console and advise his young persona, to call him to reason, trying to compensate that huge emotional gap caused by frustration, anger, and lack of forgiveness. 

At the end, Jodorowsky ekes out a better existence for himself by absolving his father from everything that went wrong. This was the touching finale he needed to accomplish a freeing, personal mission that turned out to be beautifully artistic too.

Neruda (2016)

Directed by Pablo Larraín
Country: Chile / Argentina / other

Undoubtedly, Pablo Larraín is the most exciting Chilean filmmaker working today. He has been carving his mark in the contemporary world cinema through beautiful artistic works such as “Tony Manero”, “Post Mortem”, “No”, and “The Club”.
Last year, he filmed a couple of interesting biopics, which regardless the bold approach and peculiar vision, had different impacts on me. If “Jackie” impressed me most through the stylish visuals, “Neruda” strongly hit me with its poetic narrative and passionate conception.

Written by Guillermo Calderón and starring Gael García Bernal and Luis Gnecco in the main roles, the film adopts the qualities of a detective story painted with lyrical hues and bolstered by a cat-and-mouse game taken to philosophical extremes.

In the late 40s, Pablo Neruda (Gnecco), an earthy and provocative poet, throws out passionate words that are food for the poor and strength for the oppressed. In addition to being the voice of the Chilean people, he’s also a proud militant of the communist party and senator, projecting his strong voice against the brutal anti-communist repression led by the president Gabriel Gonzalez Videla (Alfredo Castro).

Forced to abandon his splendid house, a stage for many wild nocturnal parties in the company of intellectuals, aristocrats, and often criminals, Neruda hides in remote rural areas in Argentina, where he tries to escape the astute and relentless inspector Oscar Peluchonneau (Bernal), who tries to hunt him down as he ardently narrates this story. At the same time that Peluchonneau eagerly dreams with the glory of the capture, he often vacillates in his true inner self by showing great admiration and curiosity for the poet’s work and personality. Nonetheless, he focuses on his mission with obstinate determination without exteriorizing what he feels or thinks.

In turn, the incorrigible Neruda is not afraid to expose himself to dangers. He regularly visits bars where he drinks and interacts with women and artists. The ones he can really trust are longtime lover Delia del Carril (Mercedes Morán) and the famous Pablo Picasso (Emilio Gutiérrez Caba) who clandestinely takes his words outside.

Obsession remains one of Larrain’s favorite topics and here, he had the chance to explore it with a mix of dark and wry tones, interesting dialogues, and attractively composed settings framed by the lens of his habitual cinematographer Sergio Armstrong.
“Neruda” is a fascinating piece of cinema, an elegiac and exhilarating chant of refined artistry that reaches the sky not only through the faultless performances by Gnecco and Bernal, but also through an engrossing direction.

The Club (2015)

Directed by Pablo Larrain
Country: Chile

The Chilean cult filmmaker, Pablo Larrain, endures in his keen observations of the society, interweaving themes such as obsession, morality, complex human conducts, and political denouncement, aspects that can be found in his singular cinematic creations such as “Tony Manero”, “Post Mortem”, and “No”.

In “The Club”, 2015 Berlin’s Grand Jury choice, he aims ferociously and bluntly at the Catholic Church, taking us to a secluded house located in a small Chilean seaside town, to where four former clergymen were sent after being accused of a variety of crimes, including pedophilia.
The house should work as a place of penitence and repent, but works more as a retreat center under the supervision of the permissive Sister Monica (Larrain’s wife, Antonia Zegers), who’s not so puritanical as she tries to surface. Among other things, she allows them to drink, watch TV, occasionally interact with other people, and even raising a greyhound, trained to be a racing champion by the obsessive Father Vidal (Alfredo Castro), a sly fox who often escapes the house and believes there’s nothing wrong with his impulses and behaviors.
The other excommunicates are: Father Silva (Jaime Vadell), who previously had served 35 years in the army; Father Ramirez (Alejandro Sieveking), whose mind seems a bit lost, but suddenly starts to describe past occurrences with an overwhelming accuracy; and the aggressive Father Ortega (Alejandro Goic) who curses and adopts a defiant posture whenever confronted with something that goes against him.

The days of false atonement are interrupted by two significant incidents. 
Firstly, Father Lazcano (Jose Soza), under the influence of an overpowering depression, joins the flock after a long absence and listens to the recommendations of Sister Monica regarding the conduct to follow. His tearful eyes mirror infinite sadness, and we can tell right away he’s in a terrible affliction. 
This coincides with the appearance of a drunken local man, Sandokan (Roberto Farías), who stops in front of the house and uninterruptedly shouts the sexual practices he was subjected by the newly arrived priest. Father Lazcano can’t resist the pressure and commits suicide by shooting himself in the head.
This radical act brings Father Garcia (Marcelo Alonso) into the house to start an investigation. He’s a former missionary and an experienced psychologist, highly prepared to deal with situations of crisis. By interrogating the priests, Father Garcia becomes more and more entangled in a spiral of deceit and cover-ups.

Tightly structured and compellingly acted, “The Club” is simultaneously repulsive, confrontational, mesmeric, and self-conscious, being conducted through characteristic elements of Larraín’s style: plenty of darkness all over, provocatively sneering undertones, and an inherent agony that often feels delirious.
The hazy cinematography of Sergio Armstrong, imbued of close-ups, helps to create such a cold atmosphere, letting us experiment the flagrant immorality and sickness of the soul that inhabit in the predators’ heart. These vigilant, startling states contrast with the peaceful surrounding landscapes. The musical score authored by Carlos Cabezas gives the proper weight and dimension to the circumstances
Unsurprisingly, and in opposition to the journalistic “Spotlight”, Mr. Larrain embraces an almost hostile, quite scornful approach to address the topic, totally given from an in-house perspective.

To Kill a Man (2014)

Directed by: Alejandro Fernandez Almendras
Country: Chile / France

Movie Review: The third feature from Chilean director Alejandro Fernandez Almendras, “To Kill a Man”, is a relentless tale of revenge that raises moral questions. Jorge (Daniel Candia), an honest employer at the forest research center of Santa Julia, lives happily with his wife, son, and daughter. Their quietness will be shaken after Kalule (Daniel Antivilo), the depraved leader of a street gang of rascals that populate the neighborhood, starts to provoke him, stealing his diabetes measurement device. Later, he shots Jorge’s son when he was trying to claim the device back. To avoid being sentenced to many years in prison, Kalule shoots himself in the belly, saying in court he acted in self-defense. One year and a half later, Kalule gets out of prison determined to turn Jorge’s life into hell. Frightened, Jorge and his wife decide to go to the police and report the various incidents, but the inability of the authorities to deal with the situation, drive the family crazy. The patience of the good Christian man reaches its limits when his daughter is caught and touched indecently by Kalule, in her way home from school. From then on, Jorge is forced to do justice by his hands. Will he be able to cope with his conscience afterwards? Psychologically disturbing, “To Kill a Man” is another art-house thriller that becomes an admirable alternative to the North-American industry of the genre. A simple, yet absorbing plot, practical direction, capable performances, and thorough image compositions, were in the basis of its favorable outcomes.

The Dance of Reality (2013)

Directed by: Alejandro Jodorowsky
Country: Chile / France

Movie Review: “The Dance of Reality” marks the so much awaited return of distinguished Chilean-French filmmaker, screenwriter and producer, Alejandro Jodorwosky, after a layoff of more than two decades. This autobiographical film showcases his turbulent childhood in Chile, where the traumatic episodes, most of them involving his Jewish-Ukranian parents, follow one another. The last part of the film left aside the young Alejandrito, happily living in his hometown Tocopilla with his melodious mother, to focus on Jaime Jodorowsky, a father whose arduous path in life transformed him from a tyrant atheist-communist to a God-devotee and zealous family man. All the elements that made the filmmaker famous in the past - surrealist scenes, bizarre characters, intelligent symbology, an imaginative yet aggressive way of exposing the facts, lyricism and poetry, politics and religion - are present to give its precious contribution to the artistic outcomes. The ingenious narrative was never unstable and in its own way, the film shocks us as much as seduces us, just like “The Holy Mountain”, “Santa Sangre” or “El Topo” did, yet without achieving the same impact as those ones. Alejandro’s son, Brontis, was fantastic in the skin of his own grandfather, whereas the score, cinematography, and remaining production values were first-rate. There’s no age to be creative and that’s why we want more from Mr. Jodorowsky!

Gloria (2013)

Directed by: Sebastián Lelio
Country: Chile / Spain

Movie Review: Set in Santiago, this film compellingly depicts a complicated phase in the life of Gloria (Paulina Garcia), a 58-year-old Chilean woman and her problematical relationship with Rudolfo (Sergio Hernandez), an ex-naval officer she got to know in one of the local night clubs she often attends. Both divorced, they face life and deal with their children in a very distinct manner. While Gloria is more detached without stop being sensitive, Rudolfo has in his daughters a big obstacle in life, and gets constantly tied up in family affairs. What could have been a beautiful love story between two mature adults ends up in a sequence of challenges that will compromise their relationship. The film was carried out in a very natural and cozy way, making us watch its episodes with curiosity and fondness. Gloria’s life is portrayed in such a way that leaves no doubts about her habits or personality. And all the merit goes to the performances of Paulina Garcia (best actress at Berlin) and Sergio Hernandez, who put every feeling and behavior in the right place. The sex scenes were raw and nudity was embraced naturally and without complexes. Some scenes are hilarious, like when Gloria furiously discharges a paint-ball gun at Rudolfo; yet some others are touching, exemplified when Gloria suddenly gets the notion of her age while seeing a skeleton puppet show in the street. Sensible and insightful, "Gloria" was awarded at Berlin and San Sebastian Film Festivals.

Thursday Till Sunday (2012)

Directed by: Dominga Sotomayor Castillo
Country: Chile / Netherlands

Movie Review: Chilean Dominga Sotomayor Castillo’s directorial debut, despite its good intentions, was not a film for me to remember. Set in Santiago, the story follows a family road trip, seen by the perspective of Lucia (Santi Ahumada), the eldest child of a couple who struggles to stay together. Lucia, being sensitive and smart, certainly will remember this small vacation period, since she gives subtle signs of preoccupation about her family’s future. The performances were naturally convincing but this film seems more an exercise on dispersed life details than an effective story with beginning, middle, and end. Within the first hour of its 96 minutes, nothing really relevant happens and I got a bit lost in the apathy and vagueness of the most frivolous occurrences. After that period, we start to glimpse in a clearer way the director’s intentions but my patience had already gone away, making me wish the end of this little tale. The cinematography by Barbara Alvarez never impressed me with its highlighted whites in daylight and almost imperceptible moves in the dark of the night. The script, also written by the filmmaker, was too basic for the screen and presented with a sleepy and inconsequent sequences of images. It was a pity, since I really enjoyed the performances and the subject matter had potentiality to become much more appealing to the viewer. Notwithstanding, the film collected prizes in several Festivals, including Buenos Aires, Rotterdam, and Valdivia.

Crystal Fairy (2013)

Directed by: Sebastián Silva
Country: Chile

Movie Review: After the failure “Magic Magic”, it was with enormous satisfaction that I saw Chilean helmer Sebastián Silva returning to his best with “Crystal Fairy”, a cool trip into the world of drugs, friendship, and compassion. The film was co-produced by the cult-director Pablo Larraín, author of authentic gems such as “Tony Manero”, “Post Mortem”, and “No”, and its approach comes much closer from the looseness of “Magic Magic” rather than the rigor of “The Maid”. The story, set in Chile, begins with the weird Jamie (Michael Cera) doing drugs in a party where he strikes up a conversation with Crystal Fairy (Gaby Hoffman), a hippie girl under the effect of acid. Without any real intention, Jamie gives his phone number and tells her about his plans to go on a trip to the North with his friends on the next day. Without losing time, Crystal Fairy joined the group towards the adventure but her presence seems to mean trouble. Very funny situations were created when Crystal made herself too comfortable in front of the boys, talking about energy, meditation, and chakras, or when they go desperately looking for San Pedro, a cactus known for its hallucinogenic properties. Near the end, the tempers get hot, paranoia arises due to drugs, and many sad truths are revealed. With a confident moving camera, Silva, who won the directing award at Sundance, mixes humor, drama, and adventure, in a believable portrait about a wandering, lost soul. Cera and Hoffman were simply irreproachable in their roles.

Night Across The Street (2012)

Directed by: Raoul Ruiz
Country: Chile / France

Movie Review: Raoul Ruiz was able to finish “Night Across The Street” before he dies at the age of 70, making it a meaningful goodbye in a great career. Certainly it was not a coincidence that Ruiz had returned to its origins, Chile, to make this reflective and ironic film about time, life, and death. By mixing real and surreal aspects, he encloses everything that he considers life, through the story of Celso (Sergio Hernandéz), his main character. Celso is one step closer to retirement and seems disoriented with that fact, keeping the mind constantly occupied with visits to his childhood. In these frequent absences from reality, he contacts with the writer Jean Giono, the musician Beethoven, or the pirate John Long Silver, three great storytellers, according to him. These fictional scenes are intertwined with other that we assume to be real. It was almost if Ruiz had an urge to share all his collected knowledge throughout the years; history, politics, cinema, dreams, technology, landscape change, spiritualism, love, and even a crime subplot in a doomed house; everything was a good pretext to tell us about life. But the occasional sound of an alarm clock is still there to take him away from his cinematic dreams and remind him that lifetime has reaching an end. Beautifully shot using faint lights and a profound sense of nostalgia, this surrealist film wouldn’t make Buñuel or Fellini ashamed of its haunting inaccessibility.

Magic Magic (2013)

Directed by: Sebastián Silva
Country: Chile / USA

Review: “Magic Magic” is a psychological thriller directed by Chilean Sebastián Silva, better known for the odd comedy “The Maid” dated from 2009. This time the dark tones didn´t work for me, and everything in “Magic Magic” seemed a bit contrived. Alicia (Juno Temple) is the girl who gets our attention with her constant insomnias, hallucinations, and deliriums. Joining her cousin Sarah and her friends for a vacation’s trip to a Chilean remote place, Alicia starts to show signs of serious disturbances and seems to be detached from reality. Everything gets worse after one of the boys try to hypnotize her, leading to several happenings that will confirm Alicia’s urgent need of help. A very slow starting, where nothing really happens for almost 45 minutes, seemed to have thrown my expectations away. The tension created, never attained its limits, and the scenes seemed too restrained and inconsequent to scare. In a mix of Spanish and English, the film slowly approaches to its terrible ending, a sort of ritual where some villagers will try to purify Alicia’s soul, while the despair takes care of everyone present in the room. Temple’s great performance convinced me of her character’s madness but didn’t absolve Silva from an obtuse plot that didn’t even know what to do with its ending. “Magic Magic” is a totally expendable thriller that lacks nerve.

Violeta Went To Heaven (2011)

Directed by: Andrés Wood
Country: Chile / Argentina / Brazil

Review: “Violeta Went to Heaven” is a penetrating biopic about Chilean songwriter, folklorist, and visual artist, Violeta Parra. Some events and important songs may have been left off, but the film gives a solid idea of Violeta’s work, personality, beliefs, and struggles. The cadence is captivating and the structure goes back and forth in time, focusing her unhappy childhood, the first steps on music and the interest in old songs from her culture, the successful years of recognition and acceptance, the passionate and unstable relationship with the Swiss musician Gilbert Favre, and finally her decline years when her artistic tent (also used for political activism) became increasingly without audience. Violeta ended up poor and lonely, but always faithful to her beliefs. The story was reconstructed in an intelligible way, showing the impulsive personality, resolute temper, and creative genius of this iconic woman, who always preferred the poor to rich, and the sincerity to cynicism. The plaintive yet powerful songs had a big influence in the way I felt the movie, especially “El Gavilan”, which motivated uncommon sensations along the poignant final moments. Some softening was detected somewhere in the middle, but this film deserves to be seen for what it represents and for Francisca Gavilán’s incredible performance.