2004 · drama · chilean
Machuca
Directed by Andrés Wood1h 56m2004
Santiago, capital of Chile during the Marxist government of elected, highly controversial president Salvador Allende. Father McEnroe supports his leftist views by introducing a program at the prestigious "collegio" (Catholic prep school) St. Patrick to allow free admission of some proletarian kids. One of them is Pedro Machuca, slum-raised son of the cleaning lady in Gonzalo Infante's liberal-bourgeois home. Yet the new classmates become buddies, paradoxically protesting together as Gonzalo gets adopted by Pedro's slum family and gang. But the adults spoil that too, not in the least when general Pinochet's coup ousts Allende, and supporters such as McEnroe.
Our read: Machuca (2004) reads as a sombre, steady, grounded drama · chilean entry — measured in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, measured in temperature, nihilistic in outlook.
Sombre, steady, measured drama / chilean, grounded in texture. Nihilistic, mid-stakes, measured.
- sombre
- intense
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How Machuca feels to watch.
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What watching it is actually like.
“You want Chilean coup history through a fragile cross-class boyhood friendship.”
Skip it tonight — Skip if political violence shattering children will wreck your evening.
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