Word: chiles
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...explains, "It's a very emotional thing for us." A coal miner says, "Before it was terrible because the 'momios' [the rich, the big landowners] ran things and threw us out when they were angry. Now we are in good shape. We work for ourselves and so for Chile." Their words are not forced--they come from the heart...
Interspersed among these statements and scenes of life in Chile--a young boy herding cattle on the pampas, the copper mines, a country road--Avenue presents the framework in which the U.P. government operated. Without becoming overly technical, the film gives the basic facts of Chile's history and economy: a history of domination by an elite working closely with American capital, an economy based on the extraction of raw materials and exploitation of cheap labor. In 1969, two-thirds of the Chilean people lived on less than $2 a day; 600,000 children had brain damage from malnutrition...
Avenue of the Americas is not perfect, of course. A lengthy string of interviews can become tedious, and often the film presumes a fairly extensive background in the history of the coup. But overall, Avenue gives an extraordinarily beautiful picture of Chile under Allende, and how the situation deteriorated in the final months. Not by concentrating on leaders and political maneuvering, but by letting the people on the streets and in the factories explain in their own words their goals and achievements, Locke and his companions show the tragedy of the U.P. overthrow...
...personal conflicts of a few dedicated party leaders and supporters, Soto conveys the magnitude of their sacrifice, although his method unlike Renes's, does not really show why the lower classes believe so strongly in Allende. The flashbacks are often confusing (It's Raining presumes far more knowledge of Chile than Avenue), but they give a sense of what the militants were fighting for--a government whose policies were based on improving the lives of the Chilean people rather than improving relations with the west...
...nature of the new regime, they showed their support for Allende and the U.P., chanting slogans of the left despite imminent reprisals. Neruda's funeral march becomes a wake for Allende's government, but it is clear Soto believes the spirit that kept Jarre singing lives on in Chile. Soto's vision is a romantic, idealized one--far more idealized than the vision of Chile presented in Avenue of the Americas--but it is probably necessary to be idealistic if one is to continue to have faith in Chile's future...