THE PINOCHET CASE
Patricio Guzman | 2001 | France/Chile | 109 min | VHS

This documentary begins at an excavation site that uncovered some of the bodies of Chile’s “disappeared”--that is, the political prisoners who had been abducted, tortured, and often killed by a government that denied the prisoners even existed--and the archeological dig serves as an apt metaphor for the film itself. Indeed, as the legal activists and torture victims featured in the film make clear, the Spanish government’s nearly successful efforts to bring the former dictator to trial served as a means of forcing Chile, and the larger world, to acknowledge the crimes against humanity that were committed in the name of the war against communism. Patricio Guzmán’s skillful documentary offers the cinematic equivalent of an amicus brief. Powerful and affecting cinema.

George Cinemas - Sunday 13th July 3pm