Hi Germán, thanks for your list of Chilenian films. I live in Buenos Aires and have been to Santiago and Valparaíso last year, and also bought a lot of Chilenian films there, especially from the wonderful DVD collection “Mirando Chile desde el cine”. I think a main reason why those are not listed on theauteurs is that many of them a very difficult to find outside of Chile. The additions I would make in hope that theauteurs might pick up some of these are:
El Chacal de Nahueltoro (Miguel Littin)
Coronación (Silvio Caiozzi)
Tres Tristes Tigres (Raoul Ruiz)
Largo Viaje (Patricio Kaulen)
Valparaíso mi amor (Aldo Francia)
El Husar de la Muerte (Pedro Sienna)
B-Happy (Gonzalo Justiano)
Play (Alicia Scherson)
Hi Apursansar,
Thanks for those additions, I want to see all of them now! (I haven’t :( )
I’m living in the U.S. now so I know how hard it is to get them.
How about Argentine films? I know I’ve seen a few, but I’m failing to remember them. Except for one. (two if you count motorcycle diaries)
The 2002 Oscar nominated to best foreign film, Son of the Bride (Hijo de la novia), That is to date, still my favorite argentine film.
Care to suggest your favorites from Argentina so I can watch them?, and hopefully they’ll be added to the auteurs as well :)
Yes, i’m sure Chile deserves a higher international profile. What a wonderful country it must be to visit with the spectacular scenery and variety. I enjoyed La Frontera about a teacher in internal exile by the sea, and Machuca is a powerful and touching film about the Pinochet coup from a child’s perspective. The Battle of Chile remains high on my must-see list and i would love to see Joris Ivens’ documentary Valparaiso, having had a mere taster. Another classic The Jackal of Nahueltoro is thankfully on youtube though that’s hardly ideal. What did you think of the city Vaparaiso, Apursansar? I’ve always imagined it must be an exciting starting point for great voyages. Chile features in the thread on Chantal Brejchova a female director neither of you will have heard of i think. Isabel Allende’s House of the Spirits is a magnificent book that would only deserve the very best screen treatment, which it’s not yet had.
As i thought i’ve repeated here quite a bit of what i put on the other Chilean thread.
Hi Germán, I will tell you which are my favorite films from Argentina I´ve seen so far, though some of those might also be difficult to find outside the country. The best Argentine film I´ve seen so far is Rosaura a las 10 by Mario Soffici which has wonderful cinematography and a very complex and unique plot structure, I consider it a real masterpiece. I also loved La Tregua by Sergio Renán, all films by Leonardo Favio and especially El Dependiente, the films by Eduardo Mignogna of which I consider Sol de Otoño one of the most beautiful love stories ever, most of Adolfo Aristarain´s great films, and Eliseo Subiela´s Hombre Mirando al Sudeste. I hope that you get the chance to see some of these, maybe at some Latin American Film Festival.
And Valparaíso is really a beautiful city with some fascinating buildings, and I´m sure that you will like it there Kenji since it has some similarities with the wonderful Oporto. I especially liked the restaurants in Valparaíso, and the seafood is excellent. You know La Batalla de Chile has been uploaded on youtube though I think that it´s not the best way to see this epic documentary, hopefully you will get the chance to see it on a cinema screen. I already heard about the wonderful and extraordinary life of Chantal Brejchova, and especially her film Shadow of the Condor is rather popular over here, though noone I asked seems to have actually seen it;) Allende is wonderful writer, in case that you haven´t read him yet would I also highly recommend you José Donoso, the Chilenian director Silvio Caiozzi whom I mentioned before has made some great adaptations of his works, and there also exists a Mexican adaptation called El Lugar sin Límites.
Thanks for the thread, guys. Adding so many films to my must-see list just makes me happy.
There’s a number of great chilean films you haven’t mentioned here: Julio Comienza en Julio by Silvio Caiozzi (1977), Imagen Latente by Pablo Perelman (1988) and El Zapato Chino by Cristian Sanchez (1979). This three movies were made and released under Pinochet’s government, in the years cinema were banned here in this country. You’ve mentioned Silvio Caiozzi’s adaptation on José Donoso’s books, but Julio Comienza en Julio is superb. Pablo Perelman has made the best chilean movie about missing people during Pinochet’s years. Cristian Sanchez is a very well known director in the underground cinema of Santiago, he’s one of the finest auteurs this country has seen in years, inspired by the work of directors like Bresson, Buñuel, Cassavetes, Godard, among others. Another great underground auteur: Ignacio Agüero, his documentaries are probably some of the best documentaries of the last 20 years. I strongly recommend you El Diario de Agustin (2008), a documentary about El Mercurio one of the most influential newspapers in Chile that distortes headlines and articles in order to protect the right wing government lead by Pinochet. As you can see, chilean cinema has been a political cinema from the sixties ’til the nineties.
Want to mention one more thing: cinema from the sixties and the seventies (until 1973) in Chile were inspired by italian neorrealism and the french nouvelle vague, 1968 is the key date: this year had a deep impact in our story with the release of El Chacal de Nahueltoro, Valparaiso Mi Amor and Tres Tristes Tigres. It’s not a coincidence that the cuban filmmaker Tomas Gutierrez Alea released his great movie Memorias del Subdesarrollo during this year, probably the best latinamerican movie ever.
El Chacal de Nahueltoro, Valparaiso Mi Amor and Tres Tristes Tigres, those three films where shown in the Viña del Mar Internacional Film Festival of 1969 or Encuentro Latinoamericano de Cineastas Jovenes 2da Edición, like was named in that period, the winner Raul Ruiz (Raoul Ruiz in France) with the film Tres Tristes Tigres, also in that exact place (Viña del Mar Film Festival) where joined Guitierrez Alea, Jorge Sanjines, Glauber Rocha and Joris Ivens, the Latinamerican Cinema was Re-born in that place as New Latin-American Cinema or Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano, what we have on these days is good, some of it, but in that time we use to made more Cinema that films, today unfortunately is the opposite, but there also great cinema in our lands, in the old great filmmakers and in the new generations where many of us (film Students) wanna make.
Good Luck everyone, Juan Guajardo, Viña del Mar – Chile – August 05, 2009.
German Parra
I’m loving the collection of movies found at the auteurs, I don’t consider myself a movie buff, but I simply love watching films. And I specially like to see what comes out of different countries.
I’ve seen a lot of the international films I love posted on the auteurs but I’m missing some of my latin american favorites and I think all of the good Chilean films. (And yes, I am from Chile, but I love to share a good movie and there are several that are).
Allow me to recommend several movies to be added to the auteurs database in no particular order.
From Chile:
El Chacotero Sentimental (Real radio talk show stories of sex, enacted on film, Comedy/Drama)
Historias de Futbol (By my favorite Chilean director, Andres Wood. Comedy)
Subterra (A fiction look at the late 1800’s life of a real writer (Baldomero Lillo) in a coal town of the south of Chile)
Johny Cien Pesos (Based on a real story of an attempted armed robbery gone wrong and turned into a hostage situation, Drama/comedy)
Los Debutantes (Comedy/Drama)
En la cama (Probably one of the best movies ever made in Chile)
La Frontera (1992 winner of the Goya best foreign film in spanish)
La Buena Vida 2008 (I haven’t seen it yet, but it’s from Andres Wood and it just won the Goya best foreign film in spanish in 2009, 17 years after La Frontera)
La Fiebre del Loco (Andres Wood not at his best, but beautiful imagery of the chilean Patagonia makes it all worthy)
Machuca (Andres Wood’s look at his experience through the 1973 military coup in Santiago. One of my favorites).
La Nana (I haven’t seen it, but it won the 2009 Sundance Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema – Dramatic, and the actress won the special jury prize for world cinema – dramatic, acting.)
Lastly an unforgetable film, not from Chile, but from Peru.
Pantaleon y las visitadoras (nominated to the Goya best foreign film in spanish 2001) (An endearing comedy about a prudent soldier trying to solve the sexual problem of the troops in the peruvian amazonas, based on Mario Vargas LLosa’s novel)
Anyways, I’d love to see those films added to the auteurs so I can proudly add them to my favorites, and hopefully add to the enjoyment of other movie fans out here.
All the best,
Germán.