1976
With her first feature, writer-director Manuela Martelli takes a strikingly original approach to her portrayal of Chile under Pinochet.
We have here a first feature which is highly distinctive in its choice of material. Its director is the actress Manuela Martelli and she is also the film’s co-writer working in collaboration with Alejandra Moffat. Since their film is set on home ground, to title it 1976 is sufficient in itself for viewers in Chile to appreciate that this will be a portrayal of life under the Pinochet dictatorship. But, since that carries no such obvious connotation elsewhere, it was changed to Chile ’76 for its release in North America – in spite of which for the UK it has again become simply 1976.
The Pinochet regime has, of course, been a central concern of many films about Chile and in describing 1976 as a distinctive work I have in mind not the choice of that era but the particular approach adopted in depicting it. Martelli’s central figure is an ordinary citizen named Carmen (Aline Küppenheim) who is married to a doctor, Miguel (Alejandro Goic), who works in Santiago. As it happens, they are a relatively well-off couple who also have a beach house. It is while Carmen is staying there that the story unfolds. Miguel’s work is such that he can only join her on and off, but she takes up residence with her maid, Estela (Carmen Gloria Martínez), and acts as hostess to family members who join her there including three young grandchildren who come for an extended stay.
However, ahead of all this, the film has featured a short pre-credit sequence which sets the tone. Carmen is seen shopping at a time when sounds outside in the street indicate that somebody is being seized and dragged away by the authorities. This immediately establishes 1976 as a film about the impact of the regime on the life of a person who is in no way political. However, she is somebody who could become endangered if she were to act in ways that the authorities would disapprove yet might be considered morally tainted by standing by, taking no stand and simply accepting what is going on around her.
The success of 1976 lies in its avoidance of melodramatic contrivances in favour of a measured look at Carmen's life and the course that it now takes. As that opening scene suggests, when we first meet Carmen she is not unaware of what is happening in Chile. Indeed, one could say that, although knowing, she is not acknowledging. How things then develop is the more telling for seeming natural and unforced. It so happens that Carmen has nursing skills and is a woman who has religious beliefs and goes to church. Consequently, it is readily believable that when the local priest, Father Sánchez (Hugo Medina), needs help for an injured man he calls on her for assistance. This young man, Elías (Nicolás Sepúlveda), has a bullet in his leg and, despite his being described as somebody who if caught would face a jail term for stealing food, it becomes evident that he is in reality an opponent of the regime. Initially ready to help due to her humanitarian instincts, Carmen finds herself increasingly drawn in to more subversive acts in order to help this obviously decent man.
In the later stages 1976 moves slightly nearer to scenes that carry an element of suspense and tension akin to those we regularly see in more standard movies. For that reason, it becomes somewhat more conventional as it proceeds and it is what precedes these later scenes that really make the strongest impression. As a portrayal of everyday life in a country without democracy it is very effective indeed and it matches the one recent film that adopted a not dissimilar approach, that being Andreas Fontana’s Azor (2021) which was concerned with Argentina in 1980 rather than with Chile in 1976. For a first feature, Martelli shows great assurance here in defining and sustaining the tone of her film and she is aided immensely by the lead performance of Aline Küppenheim who never puts a foot wrong.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Aline Küppenheim, Nicolás Sepúlveda, Hugo Medina, Alejandro Goic, Carmen Gloria Martínez, Antonia Zegers, Marcial Tagle, Amalia Kassai, Gabriel Urzúa, Luis Cerda, Ana Clara Delfino, Elena Delfino, Salvador Guenel.
Dir Manuela Martelli, Pro Alejandra Garcia, Juan Pablo Gugliotta, Dominga Sotomayor, Nathalia Videla, Andrés Wood and Omar Zúñiga, Screenplay Manuela Martelli and Alejandra Moffat, Ph Yagaraf Rodríguez, Pro Des Estefania Larrain, Ed Camila Mercadal, Music Mariá Portugal, Costumes Pilar Calderon.
Cinestación/Magma Cine/Wood Producciones-NewWave Films.
97 mins. Chile/Argentina/Qatar. 2022. UK Rel: 24 March 2023. Cert. 15.
