''Jackal of Nahueltoro'' ( es, El Chacal de Nahueltoro) is a 1969 Chilean
drama film directed by
Miguel Littín, based on the true story of
Jorge Valenzuela Torres, a poor farmer who, during a drunken rampage in 1960, murdered his partner and five of her children.
It was entered into the
20th Berlin International Film Festival
The 20th annual Berlin International Film Festival was supposed to be held from 26 June to 7 July 1970. The festival opened with ''Klann – grand guignol'' by Patrick Ledoux. However, on 5 July the competition was cancelled and no major prizes ...
, winning the OCIC prize.
It is considered by some to the best Chilean film of all time because it questions the morality of the
death penalty
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
and the social hypocrisy of trying to rehabilitate a man only to later execute him.
Plot
Jorge del Carmen Valenzuela Torres is a farmer who suffers from abuse and exploitation from childhood, leading to alcoholism. As an adult, he receives help from a poor woman named Rosa Rivas, who has five children from a previous marriage. Eventually, he marries her. However, in August 1960, while under the influence of alcohol, he gets into a fight with her and ends up murdering her and all of her children. He is arrested the following month and spends 32 months in prison, during which he learns to read and write and converts to
Catholicism. He is ultimately sentenced to
execution by firing squad, which is carried out in 1963.
Cast
*
Nelson Villagra
Nelson Villagra (born 9 August 1937) is a Chilean actor, writer and director of stage and screen. He is recognised as one of the most masterful actors in Chilean cinema and is widely known in Chile for his exceptional portrayal of a mentally r ...
as
Jorge Valenzuela
*
Shenda Román as Rosa Rivas
*
Héctor Noguera as Chaplain
*
Luis Alarcón as the Judge
*
Rafael Benavente
Rafael may refer to:
* Rafael (given name) or Raphael, a name of Hebrew origin
* Rafael, California
* Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, Israeli manufacturer of weapons and military technology
* Hurricane Rafael, a 2012 hurricane
Fiction
* ''R ...
as a prison guard
*
Roberto Navarrete
*
Marcelo Romo as Reporter
*
Rubén Sotoconil as Corporal Campos
*
Pedro Villagra
References
External links
*
1969 films
1969 drama films
Chilean black-and-white films
Chilean drama films
1960s Spanish-language films
Films directed by Miguel Littín
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