It wasn’t my fault, not where I was or how I was dressed

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's top 50 films of 2023

#29 :  Mi País Imaginario (My Imaginary Country)

Patricio Guzmán’s staggering documentary examines popular protest that swept through Chile in 2019, when hundreds of thousands of people – chiefly young women – took to the streets of Santiago.

I don't mind a decent documentary, but I do fear this is going to be a bit worthy in the way The Guardian can tend to be.

Hmmm - yeah, it's definitely a bit worthy. It's mostly talking head pieces by women who were in some way involved in the demonstrations and they're determined that things had to change and pretty uplifting with their hopes for the future. It also has some amazing footage of the demonstrations, including both peaceful action (including a surprisingly impressive poem with accompanying actions) and rioting (of which there's quite a lot). How much of it was shot by Senor Guzmán is unclear, but it's been well strung together.

The overall story is interesting to start with in terms of how the demonstrations came about and what they hoped to achieve. However, as one of the interviewees points out, in the year that followed them, the government didn't actually do anything as a result so it's not entirely clear how successful they were. However, towards the end of the film there are a few more positive signs, but it's very much still a story in progress...

However, despite an interesting enough context, as a documentary I found this very one-sided and "point in time" - I'm not exactly expecting the riot police to be given their opportunity to explain why they're firing tear gas at crowds, but we're not given any context to frame why so many people decided to riot pretty violently. Yes, starving children is never a great thing, but we kinda jump from Pinochet (who was deposed in 1990) to the present day without any clue as to why things hadn't changed.

We are told that Patricio Guzmán directed films around the time of the military coup and was detained because of his views, so it is poignant that he is still around to deliver a message of hope for the future, but I'm afraid that doesn't make it a great film. Yes, it's a film that tells an important story but for me it's more like a overly long segment of Newsnight than a well put together documentary, so I found it a bit underwhelming, I'm afraid. If you fancy it then it's on MUBI or BFIPlayer, but for me they're are much better films out there.

#30 - Could have been better