Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #113471 in DVD
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Formats: NTSC, Import, Widescreen, Dolby
• Running time: 120 minutes

Customer Reviews

Political Chaos from the Vantage of Children's Eyes
Andrés Wood is a highly regarded Chilean filmmaker, a man unafraid to take on controversial issues and present them in a manner that is revelatory to his audience, whether that audience is in Chile or other South American countries - or in Europe or North America. In MACHUCA he transports us to the year 1973 in Chile when Pinochet's military coup overthrew Allende's socialist 'democracy'. Knowing that there remains a divided opinion of this period of time, a time when Allende supporters who could not escape the country were murdered or placed in detention camps as political prisoners, Woods sensitively recreates this period through the eyes of children from the populace divided by the middle class and the poor, a technique which works on every level.

Saint Patrick's School for boys in Santiago is headed by a kind priest/principal Father McEnroe (Ernesto Malbran) and the rich to middle class uniformed boys include one 'strawberry faced', quiet, chubby Gonzalo Infante (Matías Quer) whose family is of means but has issues of covert infidelity with the mother (Aline Küppenheim) and father (Francisco Reyes). The Allende government is shaky, and in an attempt to appease the poor class, Saint Patrick's School takes on students from the shantytowns to 'democratize' education. Among these new students is Pedro Machuca (Ariel Mateluna) who seems to be a loner but soon becomes the brunt of the rich kids' prejudice. Gonzalo befriends Pedro and gradually the two form a strong bond which leads to each of the boys learning about their separate families and life styles: Gonzalo's life of luxury dazzles Pedro while Pedro's humble shack houses warm family that Gonzalo envies. The friendship leads to a close examination of the schism of racism and political clashes brought into sharp focus as the military coup changes everything. Only friendship remains intact in a dramatically tested fashion.

Andrés Woods marries the political and the human aspects of this chaotic time in Chile and offers us insights into the ongoing changing governments of South America. His script (which he wrote with Eliseo Altunaga, Roberto Brodsky and Mamoun Hassan) is spare leaving space for much of the story to be told by observing the interaction of his two main characters with their associates. The result is a deeply moving film, an opportunity to observe the tenuous times of a period most of us barely understand. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, May 07

To have and have not . . .
Set in 1973 in the months leading up to the military takeover of Allende's democratically elected socialist government in Chile, this film looks back 35 years to offer a picture of social and political conflict that is full of ambiguities. Declining to take sides in the clash between middle-class haves and lower-class havenots, it reveals the well-to-do as insensitive and decadent and the poor as often hostile, duplicitous, and. cynical We identify instead with the children in the film who reach across class lines out of friendship and curiosity.

Setting his story within the walls of a boys school, the homes of his central characters, and the streets of Santiago, which fill with noisy demonstrations, Director Woods effectively represents a country teetering on the verge of civil war. Food supplies disappear into a thriving black market and a private school's attempt to admit a token handful of shantytown students precipitates an uproar from well-to-do parents who resent the breaking down of class barriers. Finally there is violence and bloodshed at the hands of the military, the undisputed villains of the film, who heavy-handedly restore order in the closing scenes, leaving its two young protagonists separated and receding into a kind of fog, represented by a literal loss of focus by the camera's lens. At two hours, the film takes time to illuminate the complexities of its subject matter, and it neatly dismisses any easy assumptions about what really led to Chile's decades-long military dictatorship.