In Chile, What Can’t Be Seen Doesn’t Exist

Maria Moreno

I can say for certain that I’ve never been as moved by a film as I was by Patricio Guzman’s The Cordillera of Dreams. It’s a grand statement that might seem hyperbolic to those who have never experienced forced migration from your homeland. For a bit of background, my family fled Venezuela in the 2000’s to escape the growing Chavez dictatorship. Unlike Guzman, I have never experienced first hand the violence in Venezuela and the Chavez dictatorship has never been as brutal as the notorious Pinochet dictatorship of Guzman’s native Chile but despite all this, I can relate to the pain of a person who has been forced to leave their country and can never return.

The Cordillera of Dreams uses the Andes mountains as it’s main character, a silent witness to the atrocities of the Pinochet regime and an ever present force. Through his narration and interviews with various people, Guzman paints a portrait of country that has not yet accepted and processed the crimes of the Pinochet dictatorship. For those who do not know, Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, which lasted from 1973 to 1990 in Chile, was characterized by the murder and torture of any of its dissenters (Encyclopedia Brittanica). It was a terrifying period of Chilean history and one that has comprised most of Patricio Guzman’s life. “We dream of Chile from afar,” says Guzman in the film, encompassing a feeling common amongst South and Central Americans, especially in today’s world. Throughout the film, the filmmakers love for his country is apparent but it is precisely because of this love that its history hurts him so much. All of the interviewees, other Chilean nationals, express a similar relationship with their country as they recall watching tanks rolling by their classrooms and soldiers kidnapping people before their eyes. It sounds like a nightmare but is contrasted with breathtaking footage of the Cordillera and a grandiose score, creating the dreamlike state evoked by the title. One is absolutely consumed by the magnificence of the Andes mountains and is then confronted with imagery of Pinochet era Chile, as though one is having a dream that turns bad. It’s a magnificent effect and one that only a master filmmaker like Patricio Guzman could achieve.

I think what struck me the most about the film was the audience’s reactions. I fully expected to be surrounded by older people at the 3 PM showing at the Whitsell Auditorium that I attended but what I did not expect were their audible reactions to what they were witnessing. I could hear gasps when footage of women being dragged by their hair were shown and sighs when Guzman turned the audiences attention once again to the majesty of the Cordillera. It was an incredible experience and one that I cannot say I have ever witnessed. The fact that the impact of this event and the significance of these mountains were not lost on an audience that, in all likeliness did not have any substantial knowledge of the events that occurred in Chile, was truly moving.

Works Cited

1. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Augusto Pinochet.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 20 Dec. 2019, http://www.britannica.com/biography/Augusto-Pinochet.