Chile ’76 movie review

MOVIE TITLE: Chile ’76

CHILE ’76 opens theatrically on May 5, 2023, at Film at Lincoln Center and International Film Center in NY, and May 12 at Laemmle Theaters in LA, followed by a national expansion.

RATING: PG

LENGTH: 1 hour 35 minutes

This Chilean thriller was written and directed by Manuela Martelli. I was pleased to receive a press screener of the film because I love seeing what kind of work other countries are producing. If you’re tired of watching franchise sequels and superhero movies, you might be interested in taking a look at this.

I saw the movie in Spanish with English subtitles.

IN A NUTSHELL:

The studio explains that it’s set during the early days of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. Chile ’76 builds from a quiet character study to a suspense, as it explores one woman’s precarious flirtation with political engagement in her country. Carmen (Aline Kuppenheim) leads a sheltered upper-middle-class existence. She heads to her summer house in the off-season to supervise its renovation, while also performing local charitable works through her church. Her husband, children, and grandchildren come back and forth during the winter vacation, bringing reminders of the world beyond. When the family priest asks her to take care of an injured young man he has been sheltering in secret, Carmen is inadvertently drawn into the world of the Chilean political opposition and must face real-world threats she is unprepared to handle, with potentially disastrous consequences for her and her entire family.

THINGS I LIKED:

The leading actress, Aline Kuppenheim, is fantastic. I had never seen her in anything before. She does an excellent job navigating the subtle layers that take her into dangerous situations, as she chooses her levels of involvement and considers what consequences her actions might have on her loved ones.
The entire cast did a great job and felt like real people, not actors playing a role. Everything felt very authentic and believable.
The director selected some Interesting camera angles in various scenes to remind us of the different perspectives seen in Chile during that time.
It’s always fascinating to spend time in another country. In this film, it’s Chile. I love seeing what the houses and food look like. I have a nephew who lived in Chile for a couple of years, and I’d love to go there someday. Of course, the Chile represented in this movie is the 1976 Chile.
We get to spend some time at a lovely beach house. It’s always been my dream to live right on the beach like that! When my kids were young, we used to rent a house on the beach for a week. Loved it!
The color palette is muted, which underscores the underground movement occurring in the country at the time.

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE:

It’s hard to understand what’s going on at first. I hadn’t read the movie’s synopsis so that I could just walk into this “world” in Chile.
Some of the sound effects were interesting choices but also super annoying. I’m sure they were designed to make the audience feel as uncomfortable as the leading lady was feeling with everything going on around her.
It’s difficult to see what’s happening in the nighttime scenes when the screen is so dark.
Some viewers will complain that nothing “happens.”
Not all audiences enjoy watching foreign films with subtitles.
Some viewers won’t like the ambivalent ending.
For audiences unfamiliar with Chilean politics, it would have been helpful to see more newspaper headlines or TV announcers explaining the political climate of the day. It would have been interesting to read something on the end screen about what happened in Chile after the events we see in the film unfold.