The Battle Of Chile [Import]

After years of waiting, Patricio Guzman's epic documentary "The Battle Of Chile" finally makes its DVD debut. This is a rich, astounding chronicle of the Chilean Revolution under Salvador Allende, the cultural battles which sprouted as a result and how it all came to a tragic end in a CIA-sponsored military coup. This is not just a simple documentary on a historical event however, this is a powerful, visually stunning work with a scope that ranks it alongside political films like "The Battle Of Algiers," "Salvador" and "Z." Guzman here doesn't just give us a great chronicle, but great cinema.

"The Battle Of Chile" begins midway through the administration of Allende, who made history by becoming the world's first elected Marxist president. Guzman and his crew introduce us to Allende's Chile just as the population prepares to vote in a crucial parliamentary election. Allende is determined to show the world that a socialist transformation can be carried out through democratic, peaceful means and so his project is hampered by a system ruled by an old oligarchy and corporate elites. Guzman and his editors do a great job balancing intimate portraits of Chilean citizens and their concerns, hopes and dreams along with sharp reporting on political developments as right-wing members of congress work hard to derail all of Allende's progressive reforms. The opening of "Part 1" is fascinating as Guzman walks around the capital of Santiago interviewing average citizens and asking who they will vote for and why. He shows us both sides of the debate as working class Chileans express their support for Allende and his social reforms and upper class Chileans spew venomous hatred for the government. When Allende's coalition, Unidad Popular, wins the elections, the right-wing takes the battle into the streets and that's where the film truly does justice to its title. Chile turns into a political battleground as the workers become more militant in defense of the Revolution, forming popular committees, educating themselves politically and even engaging in street combat when fascist groups try to provoke strikes and start turning to bombs and plans for a coup when they realize they cannot defeat Allende through elections.

Like many of the best documentaries, "The Battle Of Chile" is impressive just in the way it was made. It is amazing to think Guzman had one camera most of the time, or that this was shot by a two, three man team. The images are epic and crisp, cinematic in scope and never boring. There are scenes of street combat where we are taken directly into the action, we never feel like outside observers during this entire film. Guzman takes us inside popular meetings, he lets the workers talk to us, express their ideals and criticisms, nobody feels like an interview subject but like people expressing their minds while experiencing a historical event. This film also never feels small, it is truly grand as Guzman goes everywhere from the copper minds where the right-wing tries to breed descent to towns where revolutionary workers demand arms to gatherings of Chile's US-trained military commanders, as they wait and see how things develop before deciding to move against the Revolution. We get epic vistas of Chile's cities and rural zones, with a brilliant establishment of time and space.

"The Battle Of Chile" is the best film on the Allende years because you get a true inside view of what it was like. Most documentaries made today which touch on the subject of Allende and the US-backed coup have to depend on surviving witnesses, some who's attitudes may have changed over the years, but this is a film made in the moment. A great bonus DVD added here is Guzman's sequel, "Chile, Obstinate Memory" where he returns to his country after 20 years in exile. Here we get to revisit some of the original people featured in "The Battle Of Chile" as they reflect on how the country went from a fever of hope to a period of fascist tyranny and death camps under Augusto Pinochet. One truly powerful moment comes when Guzman shows "Battle Of Chile" to a group of young Chileans raised under Pinochet's shadow, stunned to see in the film a history blocked from their lives.

In a way "The Battle Of Chile" is more important now than at any other time, especially when one looks at the current political changes taking place in Latin America. Many of the class battles and intrigue we see here are no doubt taking place again in countries like Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. This is not just a powerful document of a revolutionary period in Chile, but a masterful chronicle of a nation and people experiencing a unique moment in history. "The Battle Of Chile" is exciting, important and timeless.

When the socialist Salvador Allende was elected President of Chile, a country with a long tradition of free elections, the reactionary elements used a variety of tactics to ruin the country's economy, including closing factories and hoarding food. The workers, who elected Allende, showed up for work and began to manage the factories and distribute food. In the meantime, the Chilean armed forces, under the tutelage of the United States military under Richard Nixon, planned a coup to remove Allende.
On September 11, 1973, the Chilean air force bombed the national palace and the army fired on it, completely destroying the building and killing Allende.
This thorough documentary by Patricio Guzman, banned in Chile until 1997, tells this story and the aftermath, when Augusto Pinochet, the military dictator, began herding up suspected leftists, killed them and buried them in unmarked graves. They were known as "the disappeared".
Why were Fidel, Che and the Sandinistas right? Because they all believed that the US would never permit a socialist elected in a free election to hold power.

This 4-disc box set contains the three separate parts of the original feature film made in the immediate years after the events of 1973, and released at different times rather than together, each part to a disc (they are quite lengthy) plus a 4th disc made from footage shot in 1996 when the surviving filmmakers went back to Chile to update what happened after the coup d'etat of 1973 and how events were viewed then, both by some of those who were around at the time and interestingly by some high school-girls who were born 6-7 years afterwards. Even 23 years after 1973, the filmmakers had to be surrepticious in filming in some places, such as the Presidential Palace.

Director Patricio Guzmán is clearly sympathetic to the cause of the Popular Unity (the left wing alliance 1970-1973) and bias in material presented show, but this is understandable given the nature of the Pinochet junta and its human rights abuses. From a centrist viewpoint, however, there are some things that should be pointed out - Salvador Allende received only 37% of the vote in September 1970, so the claim that he was 'democratically' elected is quite tenuous - constitutionally, sure. This point is downplayed. The negative consequences of his economic policies (without consideration of the US sanctions) such as 140% inflation in 1972 and a huge deterioration in the country's trade balance, get ignored. Allende didn't just nationalize the land holdings of big agriculturalists, all farms above a mere 80 hectares or 200 acres were nationalized. Experience in countries such as Russia, Ukraine and most recently Zimbabwe show that this is disastrous. Likewise, experience throughout the Eastern Bloc showed that state owned enterprises in a centrally planned economy can't compete with private enterprise and the market system for efficiency, productivity and innovation. If Allende had wanted to redistribute wealth, he could have done it best through the tax and welfare systems which is what all western governments do successfully. But Allende was dogmatic, determined and uncompromising to the end - that comes through clearly.

The films clearly show the highly confrontational nature of both sides involved in the 'battle', which was mostly ideological rather than physical, and this is quite important in the understanding of why it all happened, although there are some dramatic 'action' moments too - none less than when a Swedish cameraman is shot dead by the soldier he is filming in the distance, who fires his rifle at him.

It all provides good insight into the nature of superpower politics in the 1970s and much food for thought.