FILM 9: Machuca (Chile, Andrés Wood, 2004), CANVAS

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Machuca (Chile, 2004)

Directed by Andrés Wood (b. 1965)

Screenplay by Eliseo Altunaga, Roberto Brodsky, Mamoun Hassan and Andrés Wood

Coproduction of Chile, Spain, the United Kingdom, and France

Script by Roberto Brodsky, Mamoun Hassan and Andrés Wood

DVD. Chile: Tornasol Films/Cameo, 2004, 121 mins.

Synopsis:

In Chile during 1973, Gonzalo Infante, a middle-class teenager, lives with his parents in the capital, Santiago, and forms part of a Jesuit experiment in democratizing the school system, as a model for democratizing society. Gonzalo’s relationship with a poor boy, Pedro Machuca, and his evolving relationship with his parents, as their political alliances shift, provide a commentary on Chilean politics and social relations during the early 1970s, just prior to the coup, and their legacy for the present.

Cast:

Matías Quer                              Gonzalo Infante

Ariel Mateluna                           Pedro Machuca

Manuela Martelli                        Silvana

Ernesto Malbrán                         Father McEnroe

Aline Küppenheim                     María Luisa Infante

Federico Luppi                          Roberto Ochagavía

Francisco Reyes                         Patricio Infante

Tamara Acosta                           Juana

Questions:

  1. How would you characterize the use of color, light and cinematography in this film? How about the musical score? Compare them to Kamchatka and Clandestine Childhood.
  2. What role does political graffiti play in this film?
  3. What contrary political forces are present in Gonzalo Infante’s school? What errors are committed by both sides?
  1. What political points of view are represented by Gonzalo’s parents? By the boyfriend of Gonzalo’s sister?
  2. Why is María Luisa (Gonzalo’s mother) attracted to Roberto, and how does this affect her political allegiances and social attitudes?
  3. What are Gonzalo’s contradictory reactions to Roberto?
  4. What role does pop culture (for instance, music and fashion) play in the film?
  5. How does Patricio (Gonzalo’s father) react to his wife’s infidelity and to the country’s social and political crisis? Is the filmmaker critiquing a particular sector of Chilean society under Allende?
  6. What point of view is represented by Silvana’s father?
  7. Comment on Pedro Machuca’s confrontation with his father over his friendship with Gonzalo. Is his father right about what the future holds for each of the boys?
  8. Comment on the confrontation between Silvana and María Luisa at the march, and the subsequent confrontation between Silvana y Gonzalo.
  9. Comment on the massacre of the dogs, as it relates to the economic and political crisis.
  10. Describe the relationship that develops among Gonzalo, Pedro and Silvana. ¿What different things does the condensed milk symbolize?
  11. What leads to the confrontation among the three friends over the bicycle?
  12. What leads to the climactic confrontation between the shantytown residents and the military? How do Silvana, Gonzalo and Pedro each react to this crisis?
  13. Does Gonzalo do the right thing when he identifies himself to the soldier as an upper-class boy?
  14. How are we to understand the household move of Gonzalo, his mother and siblings at the end of the film? How has the family changed since the beginning of the film? Where is Patricio Infante now?
  15. What evidence, if any, is there that Gonzalo has changed as a result of his experiences, and that he will continue to do so?
  16. Which of these three coming-of-age films, Kamchatka, Clandestine Childhood, and Machuca, do you find most affecting, and which did you find most effective as a statement against fascism? Why?

 

 

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