Machuca [2004] Movie Reviews on CinemaClock

One can do what one may want, but one will never be able to stop history. It always comes back with a vengeance. It is the case with this bloody putsch that took place in Chile in september 1973. Democracy was on the side of the poor of the country, helped by part of the middle class and the intellectuals, and also by a good section of the church. They had elected their own government and apparently no change was to come from any new elections. So the military establishment took history in their own hands and got rid of this president, of this government, of this majority and of their supporters. But the film is a lot more interesting because it is not in any way a pamphlet, but the whole period and these events are seen through the eyes of two young boys who become friends due to the idealism of some priest. One is from the upper middle class, if not even higher. And the other is from the poverty-stricken peasants that have been obliged to leave the countryside and are living in some favello on the other side of the river. Their vision is of course naive and that gives to the facts and the events some depth that they find in themselves and not in some commentary. Violence is all the more shocking because it is raw and in no way prepared, embellished or wrought-up for presentation. The film is a direct lesson to all of us who may think that violence is the right solution when something we dont like does not want to go away. When the door to violence is opened by one side of an antagonistic situation, then nothing can stop it before it will have to run out of steam all by itself after thousands of casualties. And even so, sooner or later, history will come back and those who started the violence will have to answer for their crimes. Violence never brings democracy but democracy will always come back after the storm and justice will bring the culprits to the box where they belong. Today history is pitiless with those who do not respect the will and dreams of the majority - especially if this majority has been made silent in a way or another - even if at times it takes quite a while before it happens. [...]

This film is a must-see and should be playing to sold-out audiences. It is a beautiful and tender story, set against the backdrop of Chile under Allende, of a friendship between two boys from very different backgrounds, the upper middle-class Gonzalo Infante and Pedro Machuca from a neighbouring slum, brought together by the social experiment happening in the Chile of the time and through the intervention of a priest, Father McEnroe, at the exclusive Saint Patrick's English School. It recounts their budding friendship, their adventures and experiences, many with an older girl, Silvana, a neighbour of Machuca's, and the growing tensions leading up to the Pinochet coup, a coup foretold, and the nightmare that it leads to. A brilliant, endearing and engaging film - not to be missed!