''Machuca'' is a 2004 internationally co-produced film co-written and directed by

Andrés Wood Andrés Wood Montt (born 14 September 1965) is a Chilean film director, producer and writer. Some of his most popular films include ''Machuca'', '' Violeta se fue a los cielos'', and ''Historias de Futbol''. He created his own production company ...

. It stars Matías Quer,

Ariel Mateluna Ariel Mateluna (born 21 March 1989) is a Chilean actor.http://www.chvnoticias.cl/espectaculos/ariel-mateluna-presento-en-instagram-a-su-hijo-recien-nacido/2016-09-16/111222.html He appeared in more than twenty films since 2004. Selected filmogra ...

Manuela Martelli Manuela Abril Martelli Salamovich (born April 16, 1983 in Santiago) is a Chilean film and television actress and director best known for her roles in the films ''B-Happy'' and ''Machuca''. She starred with the famous Dutch actor Rutger Hauer in t ...

, and

Aline Küppenheim Aline Adriana Küppenheim Gualtieri (born 10 August 1969) is a Chilean actress. Biography and career Born to a French father and a Chilean mother, Kuppenheim spent his early years traveling around different parts of Europe as a result of his ...

alongside

Federico Luppi Federico Luppi (; February 23, 1936 – October 20, 2017) was an Argentine-Spanish film, TV, radio and theatre actor. He won numerous awards throughout his acting career, including a Concha de Plata at the San Sebastian International Film Fest ...

. Set in

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whose ...

during the months leading up to the 1973 coup d'état led by General

Augusto Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (, , , ; 25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of ...

– which overthrew

Salvador Allende Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens (, , ; 26 June 1908 – 11 September 1973) was a Chilean physician and socialist politician who served as the 28th president of Chile from 3 November 1970 until his death on 11 September 1973. He was the fir ...

's socialist government – the film tells the story of two boys who attend an upper-class elementary school: Gonzalo Infante – who belongs to a rich family with a European background – and Pedro Machuca – who is poor and comes from an indigenous background. They are classmates and become friends at this English-language Catholic elite school, which Machuca attends thanks to the social integration project developed by its director, Father McEnroe. The film is inspired by and dedicated to Father Gerardo Whelan, C.S.C. who from 1969 to 1973 was the director of Colegio Saint George ( Saint George's College), the private school depicted in the movie, which the director himself attended as a boy. ''Machuca'' was filmed in July 2003 and produced on a moderate budget of US$1,700,000. It is a joint Chilean-Spanish-British-French international co-production with support from Ibermedia. Production companies included Andrés Wood Producciones, Tornasol Films, Mamoun Hassan, Paraíso, and Chile Films. The film premiered in the

Directors' Fortnight The Directors' Fortnight (french: Quinzaine des Réalisateurs) is an independent selection of the Cannes Film Festival. It was started in 1969 by the French Directors Guild after the events of May 1968 resulted in cancellation of the Cannes festiv ...

parallel section of the 57th Cannes Film Festival in May 2004. It was well received in theaters in Chile and a few other countries, but did not have notable box office success outside of Latin America.

Plot

The story is presented from the perspective of Gonzalo Infante – the 11-year upper-class boy – and it takes place in an agitated time in Chile, when the working class was demanding social vindications and profound changes to the national socioeconomic structure, having elected a Socialist president. In that context, the higher classes grew fearful of the

socialist movement The history of socialism has its origins in the 1789 French Revolution and the changes which it brought, although it has precedents in earlier movements and ideas. ''The Communist Manifesto'' was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1847-4 ...

and some of its most prominent members comploted against the government of

. Gonzalo's father, while sympathetic to the less favored and not part of the right-wing movement, wants to leave the country with his family for Italy, where he frequently travels due to his work at the UN

FAO The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)french: link=no, Organisation des Nations unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture; it, Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite per l'Alimentazione e l'Agricoltura is an intern ...

. Gonzalo's mother is rather hopeless with the state of things, and is having an affair with a wealthy and much older

Argentinian Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or ( feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, ...

. Gonzalo attends a private school where the strong-willed school principal, Father McEnroe, has launched a

social integration Social integration is the process during which newcomers or minorities are incorporated into the social structure of the host society. Social integration, together with economic integration and identity integration, are three main dimensions of ...

project, which is deemed by some of the parents as a 'lefty venture' rather than a Christian, charitable work. When five underprivileged students are admitted to Gonzalo's class, he makes friends with Pedro, for he feels compassion for him because some rich classmates pick on him. Gonzalo accompanies Pedro and his neighbor Silvana to sell flags and cigarettes at demonstrations on the streets: first, nationalist flags at a right-wing demonstration; and later, socialist flags at a leftist rally in support of the government. Silvana calls Gonzalo a snob and names him 'strawberry-face', but eventually they grow fond of each other and even get to kiss. Pedro visits Gonzalo's home and is impressed by Gonzalo having a room for himself, with toys and a closet full of clothing, but also witnesses the tensions and cruelty latent in Gonzalo's family. When Gonzalo visits the shantytown dwelling of Pedro, he is appalled by the extremely poor conditions he lives in. Their friendship mirrors the friendship between the

Lone Ranger The Lone Ranger is a fictional masked former Texas Ranger who fought outlaws in the American Old West with his Native American friend Tonto. The character has been called an enduring icon of American culture. He first appeared in 1933 in ...

and the Native American Tonto in Gonzalo's favorite comic-book series. Gonzalo becomes aware that their friendship is against all odds when Silvana finds them reading an issue of the magazine and comments on the plot being implausible because "Has a white person ever been seen to be friends with an Indian?" As the political unrest grows in Chile, the boys' friendship is put to the test. Pedro's drunk father taunts him, telling him that, while his alleged friend will grow up to be rich, he will be stuck in the lower class for good, most likely cleaning toilets for the rich. The wealthy parents of the students at St. Patrick's school have divided opinions on Father McEnroe's project. While some support Father McEnroe's new policies — Gonzalo's father among them — many others — including Gonzalo's mother — think that, for the country's sake, social classes are better off not mixed. The vegetable garden that the students take care of at school turns out to be a failure, which jeopardizes the financing of Father McEnroe's project. At an

anti-Communist Anti-communism is Political movement, political and Ideology, ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, w ...

demonstration, Gonzalo's mother snatches Silvana's merchandise when the latter is being threatened by other protesters, so Silvana retaliates spitting on Gonzalo's mother's car windshield and calls her a whore. This increases the tension between Gonzalo and Pedro, which leads them to get into a fight and be driven apart. Then comes the coup and Father McEnroe is removed by the military, not even being allowed to perform mass at the school's chapel. So, when he attends the first mass performed by a new priest, he receives communion but does not swallow the

sacramental bread Sacramental bread, also called Communion bread, Eucharistic bread, the Lamb or simply the host ( la, hostia, lit=sacrificial victim), is the bread used in the Christian ritual of the Eucharist. Along with sacramental wine, it is one of two elemen ...

to preserve it from

desecration Desecration is the act of depriving something of its sacred character, or the disrespectful, contemptuous, or destructive treatment of that which is held to be sacred or holy by a group or individual. Detail Many consider acts of desecration to ...

, and declares the place profane. Pedro leads the other students in honoring the priest and therefore is expelled from the school. Gonzalo goes to visit the shantytown where Pedro and Silvana live but he arrives there only to see it being raid by soldiers, and he witnesses an unfortunate incident between the dwellers and the military that ends up with one of the later shooting Silvana, who dies right there. Spotted by a soldier and finding himself dragged into the incident, Gonzalo struggles to convince the soldier that he does not belong there, until he shows him his nice clothing and fair complexion. The soldier lets him go and warns him never to return, so Gonzalo is forced by the circumstances to forsake his friend. Gonzalo returns to his family's new home – which is now even more opulent than before thanks to his mother's lover and the redistribution of wealth the new government has imposed – and is left distraught over the events he has just witnessed, remembering the last time he saw Pedro, staring at the ruins of their dwellings.

Cast

Reception

Ann Hornaday Ann Hornaday is an American film critic. She has been film critic at ''The Washington Post'' since 2002 and is the author of ''Talking Pictures: How to Watch Movies'' (2017). In 2008, she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Ear ...

of ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' deemed the film to be "that rare film that merges the personal and political without sacrificing restraint or intellectual honesty". Mike Goodridge of ''

ScreenDaily ''Screen International'' is a British film magazine covering the international film business. It is published by Media Business Insight, a British B2B media company. The magazine is primarily aimed at those involved in the global film business. ...

'' described the film as a "small, artfully crafted movie", otherwise deeming it to be an "unsettling piece" which nlike other films with similar themes"doesn't fall into easy traps of sentimentalism".

Accolades

, - , align = "center" , 2004 , ,

Vancouver International Film Festival The Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) is an annual film festival held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, for two weeks in late September and early October. The festival is operated by the Greater Vancouver International Film Fest ...

, , colspan = "2" , Most Popular International Film , , , , align = "center" , , - , rowspan = "2" align = "center" , 2005 , , , , colspan = "2" , Best Spanish-Language Foreign Film , , , , align = "center" , , - , , , colspan = "2" , Best Ibero-American Film , , , , align = "center" ,

References

External links