Posted: Sun., Nov. 10, 2002

Pinochet's Children - Volver a Vernos (Docu -- Germany)

A MaJaDe, SWR, DFFB production.

(International sales: D.Net Films Sales, Leipzig.)

Produced by Heino Deckert, Martina Knapheide. Directed

written by Paula Rodriguez.

With: Alejandro Goic, Enrique Paris, Carolina Toha, Nibaldo Mosciatti.

By JONATHAN HOLLAND

<http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=bio&peopleID=1245>

Made with German money and unlikely, at the moment, to be shown in Chile, "Pinochet's Children" offers a contempo perspective on human rights abuses inflicted during the 1970s and '80s by Chilean dictator-cum-president Augusto Pinochet. Docu looks set for slots in fest sidebars, with theatrical release a possibility in Spanish-speaking territories where interest in the Pinochet legend runs high.

Quietly reflective pic does not plunge into political complexities: The determined but tempered optimism of its protags dominates the mood of this perceptive study of how tyranny strengthens those it cannot destroy.

Film is built around the stories of three unusually articulate fortysomethings who lived through the coup and became close friends after it: Alejandro Goic, Enrique Paris and Carolina Toha. They are "Pinochet's children" in the sense that their fathers -- anti-regime militants after the coup that brought down Marxist Salvador Allende and brought Pinochet to power -- all "disappeared."

Early sections, dealing with the coup itself and its immediate aftermath, are the most dramatic. The emotional, outgoing Goic, now an artist and actor, looks like an older Che Guevara. He takes the camera crew around Santiago discussing the coup as a military and political, but not moral, victory.

The more measured, objective Paris reads from diaries he wrote as a 12-year-old ("they do not mind killing people"). He confesses he does not know which of the dead bodies lying outside the presidential palace -- in a celebrated image from the time -- is his father's.

Of the three, Toha, now a socialist politician, demonstrates the strongest awareness of Pinochet's place in history.

Supported by further testimony from magazine editor Nibaldo Mosciatti, pic moves through Pincochet's restoration as an elected president to the resistance from students and slum dwellers. It then comes up to the present day, with the exaltation at his arrest, the dejection at his narrow escape from justice and the discovery of the remains of Paris' father.

Researchers have unearthed a surprising amount of footage, much of it shot by activists as evidence: One old TV broadcast shows Pinochet proclaiming that "human rights is a priority of this government." However, final reel feels overextended, and the closing images of the three walking along windy clifftops together, overlooking the sea into which many of the "disappeared" were dropped from airplanes, is at odds with the film's otherwise potent lack of sentimentality.

Camera (color), Julia Munoz; editor, Octavio Iturbe; music, Coti K, Arturo Iturbe; art director, Andrea Rodriguez; sound, Christian Obermeier. Reviewed at San Sebastian Film Festival (Made in Spanish), Sept. 24, 2002. Running time: 83 MIN.