Manuela Martelli has directed a wonderfully paced suspense film featuring a superb leading performance by Aline Küppenheim as Carmen, a chic upper class grandmother who gradually - and terrifyingly - perceives what's happening in her country. There is a touch of Hitchcock in the way it builds tension, aided by the powerful, intentionally intrusive score composed by Maria Portugal. For most films, this score would be too much. But here, the music mirrors Carmen's growing comprehension, not only of what is happening around her but also that her actions on behalf of someone fighting the regime have put her in peril.
14 Reviews
A tonic - this is how films should be
jimcglass-2046427 March 2023
This is a very fine film indeed; perfectly paced, it slowly builds in tension in a subtle, understated, but very real way. Great acting from Aline Küppenheim who steps outside her comfortable bourgeois lifestyle and whose eyes are slowly opened to another country. You watch - there's no need for any overblown scripted dialogue. Some others may think there's too much unexplained - I didn't feel that at all. In a world where there's a necessary conspiracy of silence you become an accomplice in the need to keep quiet. Even her stop in a roadside cafe radiates suspicion and fear. The music is just spot on - at times riffing on 70s cop thrillers and then at times discordantly modern. And the final scenes - without giving anything away: a punch in the stomach and an utterly nauseous aftermath.
Lots of anticipation that never pays off
ericobnn11 April 2023
This movie features an excessive amount of of little scenes that hint at, or foreshadow, something sinister, but that are never referenced again later on. They open a "plot thread" in the viewer's mind (e.g. "this person is suspicious", but since that person will never appear again to confirm or refute the viewer's initial hypothesis, the loose thread is never tied). It's the accumulation of these that makes for a frustrating experience by the end. It's as if the director expected the viewer to have forgotten most of those little occurrences by the end... shame on the director for underestimating the audience.
The protagonist's motives are never really explained and her personality is barely showcased, making for a flat main character that the viewer doesn't really empathize with. She comes across as just a generic, blasé, and cold rich woman that does the things she does because... reasons.
The scenes sometimes feel poorly connected to each other, with sudden jumps in time that skip over important things that (presumably) happened, but which are never shown, leaving the viewers to have to fill the gaps themselves. "Discontinuous" is perhaps the word I'm looking for.
A decidedly disappointing experience.
The protagonist's motives are never really explained and her personality is barely showcased, making for a flat main character that the viewer doesn't really empathize with. She comes across as just a generic, blasé, and cold rich woman that does the things she does because... reasons.
The scenes sometimes feel poorly connected to each other, with sudden jumps in time that skip over important things that (presumably) happened, but which are never shown, leaving the viewers to have to fill the gaps themselves. "Discontinuous" is perhaps the word I'm looking for.
A decidedly disappointing experience.
Weird music
MargaretW-4624 April 2023
Director Manuela Martelli quickly and nicely establishes that we are in Chile during the 1970s with news headlines from black and white tv's pointing to the country in turmoil. We meet a well-dressed Carmen who is planning to redecorate her family's summer house while her husband, a doctor, is away for work. When the local priest asks her to help care for a young man with a gun wound, she accepts without question, lies to get some antibiotics and gets in deeper over her head the longer she helps out. Aline Küppenheim gives a subtle performance for what evolves into a complex character that travels around in a world filled with paranoia. There's a theme with shoes throughout the film whether it's Carmen's expensive high heels splattered with paint or one found with a hole in its soul/sole that contrasts class differences. We know it's during the Pinochet regime and though the danger is rarely if seen at all, there's always a sense of mystery and fear surrounding everything. Carmen doesn't know who to trust or if anyone around her is secretly watching her. You could almost say that the tension is Hitchcockian since we've seen a variety of shoes and don't know exactly when the next one will drop.
The entire cast did a great job and felt like real people, not actors playing a role. Everything felt very authentic and believable.
trinaboice31 October 2023
IN A NUTSHELL:
The studio explains that it's set during the early days of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship. Chile '76 builds from a quiet character study to a suspense, as it explores one woman's precarious flirtation with political engagement in her country. Carmen (Aline Kuppenheim) leads a sheltered upper-middle-class existence. She heads to her summer house in the off-season to supervise its renovation, while also performing local charitable works through her church. Her husband, children, and grandchildren come back and forth during the winter vacation, bringing reminders of the world beyond. When the family priest asks her to take care of an injured young man he has been sheltering in secret, Carmen is inadvertently drawn into the world of the Chilean political opposition and must face real-world threats she is unprepared to handle, with potentially disastrous consequences for her and her entire family.
THINGS I LIKED: The leading actress, Aline Kuppenheim, is fantastic. I had never seen her in anything before. She does an excellent job navigating the subtle layers that take her into dangerous situations, as she chooses her levels of involvement and considers what consequences her actions might have on her loved ones.
The entire cast did a great job and felt like real people, not actors playing a role. Everything felt very authentic and believable.
The director selected some Interesting camera angles in various scenes to remind us of the different perspectives seen in Chile during that time.
It's always fascinating to spend time in another country. In this film, it's Chile. I love seeing what the houses and food look like. I have a nephew who lived in Chile for a couple of years, and I'd love to go there someday. Of course, the Chile represented in this movie is the 1976 Chile.
We get to spend some time at a lovely beach house. It's always been my dream to live right on the beach like that! When my kids were young, we used to rent a house on the beach for a week. Loved it!
The color palette is muted, which underscores the underground movement occurring in the country at the time.
THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE: It's hard to understand what's going on at first. I hadn't read the movie's synopsis so that I could just walk into this "world" in Chile.
Some of the sound effects were interesting choices but also super annoying. I'm sure they were designed to make the audience feel as uncomfortable as the leading lady was feeling with everything going on around her.
It's difficult to see what's happening in the nighttime scenes when the screen is so dark.
Some viewers will complain that nothing "happens." Not all audiences enjoy watching foreign films with subtitles.
Some viewers won't like the ambivalent ending.
For audiences unfamiliar with Chilean politics, it would have been helpful to see more newspaper headlines or TV announcers explaining the political climate of the day. It would have been interesting to read something on the end screen about what happened in Chile after the events we see in the film unfold.
TIPS FOR PARENTS: Smoking Alcohol A woman takes a lot of pills.
Someone gets seasick and throws up. Bleh.
We see a bloody wound up close.
Some profanity and a woman drops an F-bomb in Spanish.
!
THINGS I LIKED: The leading actress, Aline Kuppenheim, is fantastic. I had never seen her in anything before. She does an excellent job navigating the subtle layers that take her into dangerous situations, as she chooses her levels of involvement and considers what consequences her actions might have on her loved ones.
The entire cast did a great job and felt like real people, not actors playing a role. Everything felt very authentic and believable.
The director selected some Interesting camera angles in various scenes to remind us of the different perspectives seen in Chile during that time.
It's always fascinating to spend time in another country. In this film, it's Chile. I love seeing what the houses and food look like. I have a nephew who lived in Chile for a couple of years, and I'd love to go there someday. Of course, the Chile represented in this movie is the 1976 Chile.
We get to spend some time at a lovely beach house. It's always been my dream to live right on the beach like that! When my kids were young, we used to rent a house on the beach for a week. Loved it!
The color palette is muted, which underscores the underground movement occurring in the country at the time.
THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE: It's hard to understand what's going on at first. I hadn't read the movie's synopsis so that I could just walk into this "world" in Chile.
Some of the sound effects were interesting choices but also super annoying. I'm sure they were designed to make the audience feel as uncomfortable as the leading lady was feeling with everything going on around her.
It's difficult to see what's happening in the nighttime scenes when the screen is so dark.
Some viewers will complain that nothing "happens." Not all audiences enjoy watching foreign films with subtitles.
Some viewers won't like the ambivalent ending.
For audiences unfamiliar with Chilean politics, it would have been helpful to see more newspaper headlines or TV announcers explaining the political climate of the day. It would have been interesting to read something on the end screen about what happened in Chile after the events we see in the film unfold.
TIPS FOR PARENTS: Smoking Alcohol A woman takes a lot of pills.
Someone gets seasick and throws up. Bleh.
We see a bloody wound up close.
Some profanity and a woman drops an F-bomb in Spanish.
!
Enjoyable but disjointed
euroGary12 October 2022
Warning: Spoilers
In 1976 it is three years since the Chilean military coup that brought to power Augusto Pinochet. Carmen is an elegant, middle-aged woman living a comfortable middle-class existence: her husband is a doctor in the city, while Carmen herself remodels the family's seaside holiday home and does good works such as reading to the blind. One day the local priest approaches her: he has taken in a young man who was shot fleeing from Pinochet's forces; can Carmen, with her Red Cross training, provide assistance? Thus begins an adventure involving secrets, suspicion and frankly ridiculous code words ("Do you know where I can buy pasta?" "No, but they told me you can get guitars around the corner").
In this kind of film, a middle-aged woman makes for an unusual heroine and Aline Küppenheim gives Carmen a good sense of genteel bewilderment as she gets carried away by events far bigger than she. But the film feels slightly disjointed, almost as if it were originally devised as a series of webisodes which were stitched together into a wider film (Carmen fails to persuade someone - I think her son - to provide drugs in a sequence that is never mentioned again; Carmen goes to meet a contact who does not turn up in a sequence that is never mentioned again; Carmen loses her grandchildren in the woods in a sequence... you get the idea). I would certainly recommend seeing the film, but do not expect the 'taut thriller' promised by the 2022 London Film Festival programme.
In this kind of film, a middle-aged woman makes for an unusual heroine and Aline Küppenheim gives Carmen a good sense of genteel bewilderment as she gets carried away by events far bigger than she. But the film feels slightly disjointed, almost as if it were originally devised as a series of webisodes which were stitched together into a wider film (Carmen fails to persuade someone - I think her son - to provide drugs in a sequence that is never mentioned again; Carmen goes to meet a contact who does not turn up in a sequence that is never mentioned again; Carmen loses her grandchildren in the woods in a sequence... you get the idea). I would certainly recommend seeing the film, but do not expect the 'taut thriller' promised by the 2022 London Film Festival programme.
The Official Story
sundancer-5098012 July 2023
Chile, 76 follows the lines of The Official Story, an earlier film that also traces the transformation of an Upper middle class woman who slowly is awaken to the atrocities of the fascist coup. To people who think that is not enough explanation, it would be good to read up on the assassination of Allende aided by the CIA. To folks who don't understand why the leading character changes her political position, if you know the history, its clear. She begins to understand that her privileged lifestyle is built upon the backs of the poor, her husband is involved in the rooting out of communists at the hospital, and for once, she feels that she is doing something useful, treating the young man who was shot for his political position. For a woman who grew up in a patriarchal society in which she could not be a doctor, whose life was restricted to acts of charity, this is a game changer. If you are familiar with Chilean films made of this period, you know that the Pinochet regime was based on not seeing, not seeing your neighbors disappear, simplistic explanations, violence, abuse. Its not meant to be an American thriller, so if you want a though provoking film, this is it.
Life with death
avindugunasinghe27 January 2024
Great story with an equally mysterious plot. Carmen visits her house by the big blue to get off of regular life and picks a red paint for walls then tame it with hints of blue. She freezes at screams and her husband gets upset when resistance is called out by a friend in the presence of Carmen. A great story that shows how sacrifices opens the eyes of a sleepwalking masses. Excellent colour tone in visuals and great cinematography capturing expressions well. Unique use of sound effects signaling the tensions kept restrained breaking free. It's a great look at how life was from the outside of recent revolution how social views changed and should change. Excellent.
fighting for justice
cdcrb26 May 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Aline kuppenheim. Remember that name, if you can. She's not the only reason to see chile 76, but she sure is one of them. She is spectacular. In 1976, there was a military coup in chile and gen pinochet was "in charge". It was a brutal and intense time. Over 100k young men disappeared. I mention this because the movie doesn't. If you don't know the history here, the movie will be meaningless. We know something is going on, but not really. Things happen off camera. We sense somethings not right, but don't know what. So its really a mystery. Enjoy the film with that in mind. If you don't know about the coup. Do a little homework. It won't hurt you.
Spherical Chile's portraiying
angeliki_spatki14 March 2024
Spherical Chile's portraiyng, seems interesting as political background forms a surrounding anxiety, comparing to the calm and well living at the beautiful beach house. Photography portrays a far away country's aspects close to ocean's waves. All the country-side seems interesting. As for the part of political climat at that time, it goes exploring an internal angoisse, contrary to the calm of the house and it's inhabitants. Violence is present and makes a remarquable contrast of the well arranged, easy life of the protagonist life.
I enjoyed that movie cause of it's calm atmosphere besides the bad things wich are occuring at the time of raising dictatureship against president Alliente. Also it makes a good notion of Chile's outside Sangiago capital, nice regions by the sea. Also the music background is excellent as it contributes to the general atmosphere of angoisse besides the calm.
I enjoyed that movie cause of it's calm atmosphere besides the bad things wich are occuring at the time of raising dictatureship against president Alliente. Also it makes a good notion of Chile's outside Sangiago capital, nice regions by the sea. Also the music background is excellent as it contributes to the general atmosphere of angoisse besides the calm.
Too Subtle for Its Own Good
brentsbulletinboard14 October 2022
What should have been a tense, claustrophobic look at life in 1976 Chile shortly after the overthrow of the democratically elected Allende administration and the imposition of the hard-line Pinochet regime is, unfortunately, a watered-down, meandering, unfocused tale that never fully attains its goal. Writer-director Manuela Martelli's story of a middle-aged doctor's wife who risks her own safety to care for a wounded insurgent in hiding never really catches traction, filling its narrative with endless, unexplained, underdeveloped plot incidents and a woeful lack of character development, including that of the protagonist, whose motivations are never adequately explained but merely hinted at with such subtlety as to be virtually meaningless. By the time viewers reach the film's end, they're more left with an unsatisfying "Oh" rather than a throat-clutching "a ha!" A true disappointment given the subject matter this production had to work with.
A Profound, mesmerizing movie
nm000156729 July 2023
The film is a stunning portrayal of the inherent, ubiquitous vein of violence in a country experiencing oppression - how it is built into strata of fear and a collusive silence, where everyone has to play a role, rather than be authentic. Every little detail is a description of this experience, a metaphor or picture of how the venom of a violence-based power removes legitimacy from not just government but from the structure of society, even the family itself. The camera work and art direction are exquisite, as is the haunting score and the beautiful costumes. The writing too, elliptical and shorthand helps you grasp the social meanings without ever being heavy-handed. At the end, you feel you can barely breathe from all the tension - much like it must feel to live in a police state.
chile 76...
ops-5253524 April 2023
Was not the safest place to be on this planet called earth, it was a place where plants had ears and ears grew plants if you were the unfortunate one to be in the opposite direction of the military junta that ceased all powers that year.
This film gives you a slow, longdrawn and tiny touch of that frightening feeling ,, never able to trust anyone,anywhere or anyhow.but just a tiny touch, without bloody violence that we were used to see from that era...so a good historical drawing it aint, just a cinematic shot of a wealthy santiagans winterholiday weeklong trip to her vacation house by the coast...really just a drama with a chilean touch.
The art department ,costumes and gadgets are mainly a perfect fit for those who likes antique cars etc, the acting and cast though are not at any point impressive, rather a dull addition of an anti pinochet movie.
The filmatographical quality and technical equipment used to garnish the viewer into believing, hit the grumpy old man in the start of the movie, but it faded away pretty soon. Not a chapter of this historical testamente to remember.
This film gives you a slow, longdrawn and tiny touch of that frightening feeling ,, never able to trust anyone,anywhere or anyhow.but just a tiny touch, without bloody violence that we were used to see from that era...so a good historical drawing it aint, just a cinematic shot of a wealthy santiagans winterholiday weeklong trip to her vacation house by the coast...really just a drama with a chilean touch.
The art department ,costumes and gadgets are mainly a perfect fit for those who likes antique cars etc, the acting and cast though are not at any point impressive, rather a dull addition of an anti pinochet movie.
The filmatographical quality and technical equipment used to garnish the viewer into believing, hit the grumpy old man in the start of the movie, but it faded away pretty soon. Not a chapter of this historical testamente to remember.
When Democracy is lost you fight
johnnykav-266327 February 2024
Living in the belly of the beast leaves a bad taste in the mouth and the longer you are there the more sick you feel, till one day you puke it all up and nothing is the same anymore, noone is the same anymore because you are not the same anymore.
Elias is a grandmother, beautiful intelligent and has spent a life in Chile's upper class society. When Pinochet kidnaps the nation in 1976 and her people profit and prosper, her eyes are opened and she helps Padre Sanchez hide a democracy protestor. As she takes more and more risks, the fear rises and her disgust at the world she is trapped in engulfs her.
Elias is a grandmother, beautiful intelligent and has spent a life in Chile's upper class society. When Pinochet kidnaps the nation in 1976 and her people profit and prosper, her eyes are opened and she helps Padre Sanchez hide a democracy protestor. As she takes more and more risks, the fear rises and her disgust at the world she is trapped in engulfs her.
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