The Battle
Of Chile (1975 - 1978/Icarus Films DVD)
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: B Documentary: B
Patricio Guzman’s The
Battle Of Chile started as a film document of a peaceful election, but
ended up capturing the overthrow of democratically elected President Salvador
Allende in 1973. The nine-month shoot
ultimately led to a three-part work and all three are in this new four DVD set
from Icarus Films. In section after
section, Guzman and his camera crew show the various events surrounding the
changes going on. The people voted for a
socialist/communist, but forces in the West (including The United States) had
issues with this and backed a bloody coup that landed General Augusto Pinochet
in power for a long time.
That meat that this film was censored for a very long time
and The West saw this as a way to fight The Cold War against communist
expansion. However, the film and people
on the left who celebrate it see it as a record of a democratic society that
should have been left alone to find its own way. Some could argue that The West could have
found another way to deal with this, especially with Pinochet’s history and
history to come. They may have agreed
when he nationalized the copper mines, a resource the U.S. was very
interested in securing.
Either way, you can now judge for yourself. It is a very rich document of a world and
moment that we would never see otherwise, the kind one wishes existed more
often of such events. Chris Marker
backed this release rightly and outside of the politics, this is a remarkable
documentary work that any serious filmmaker in the field needs to see. That goes for serious film fans as well, as
Guzman’s passion for capturing everything comes through all the way.
The letterboxed 1.66 X 1 black and white image can be soft
at times, but Video Black is pretty good for the format and there are some nice
shots. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono shows
its age and origins, but is subtitled.
Extras include a booklet inside the DVD case with two essays on the film
(Pauline Kael’s original review of the film and excerpt of Cecilia
Ricciarelli’s book on Guzman, while the DVD has a 22-minutes-long interview
with Guzman and new update documentary Chile,
Obstinate Memory from 1997 that shows the fallout post-Pinochet, running
about an hour.
- Nicholas Sheffo
