Murray State University's Cinema International program presents two free screenings of the 2004 Chilean coming-of-age film Machuca this week. Austin Carter speaks to history professor Dr. Tamara Feinstein ahead of the screenings.
From the MSU Cinema International website:
"This is a coming-of-age story set at the end of the socialist Allende period in Chile. Based on a real social experiment, a Liberation Theology-influenced rector integrates a group of disadvantaged children into an elite Catholic school, to educate them without discrimination and promote mutual respect among students from different social classes.
The growing friendship between middle-class Gonzalo and working-class Pedro is complicated by a blossoming romantic triangle between the boys and a girl from Pedro's neighborhood. Resembling a juvenile Jules and Jim, with a lot of funny moments, Machuca also ends with a dark examination of the unfolding September 1973 military coup, addressing some of the social, economic, and political events which affected Chile."
The film is set during a "time of international and domestic polarity," Feinstein begins. "The right and the left both had their own vision about how Chile should be going, and the left kind of won out in democratic elections. This is really through the eyes of three different children living in that tumultuous time period. It shows this blossoming and diversity that's in Chile during this time period, and it ends with the military coup that took place on September 11th in 1973."
"You see the world through Gonzalo's eyes. He's upper middle class, but he also has a mother who wants to be upper class. You see that striving from part of their family to go above their station, and you see him being very interested in an emotional bond with someone in a much lower-class scenario. Pedro introduces him to a world he's never experienced before. It shows that there are things that transcend class."
"But the end of the movie," Feinstein continues, "really shows you that class makes a difference in the end, especially when the country goes into full crisis with a military dictatorship. Those divisions that were more superficial deepen over the course of that. You see the vision of getting rid of the inequality in that society just doesn't happen."
Feinstein says that while the story covers a serious topic, there are various moments of levity, like one of the characters selling left- and right-wing political paraphernalia at opposing rallies and accidentally switching the merchandise around. "[The main children] are just having a fun time together, experimenting and figuring out who they are. But there are also some more serious themes that are interspersed through there, so there are highs and lows in this film."
"[Machuca] shows the innocence of this boy's childhood ending on and being well aware of that political, military violence is a moment in which he's getting older, growing up from it, but not necessarily in a happy way," she explains. "A lot of coming-of-age stories have a lot of coming to terms with things that are difficult, and there's nothing more difficult than a military dictatorship and seeing someone you love being persecuted in a way that you're not, that you're immune to."
MSU Cinema International presents Machuca on Thursday, March 30th, and Saturday, April 1st. Both screenings are at 7:30 pm and are located in Faculty Hall, room 208. Screenings and the following discussions are free and open to the public. For more information on the MSU Cinema International program, including how to donate, visit its website.
