Another fight, yet not lost

Written by Critical Moviegoers , Labels: , , viernes, 3 de diciembre de 2010 18:53

By Benjamín Nelson Valenzuela Salvatierra



Society has always witnessed fights between the good and the bad sides. Batman: The Dark Knight shows this struggle in an extended fight, not only between the Batman and the Joker, but it does also involve the whole city. Both of them represent the opposite for each other. Both of them seem to have some kind of connection, a sort of necessity. They are surely not complete without the other one. That is exactly what happens in real life too. There is no such thing as good, there is not a bad side. That is what you get in the two and a half hours of this movie, a lot of tension, a lot of evil, a lot of innocent people suffering the consequences, and yet one man who stood up against all the cruelty he found.

The movie is full of evil, obviously from the Joker; he manages to get the whole city into a fear state. He seems to be unpredictable and very capable. He is indeed a man of his word, as he himself states. He was an anarchist, who did not have any particular motivation, but to destroy. This is how the thing works sometimes. You do not even understand why someone uses all their abilities in causing damage to others. Throughout recent years, there are several examples of this madness in people. Serial killers are not just in the movies. They are these people who just enjoy doing what society finds cruel.

On the other hand, there is the Batman, leading all of those people who are against any kind of criminal actions. The life of all these people gets threatened, because of all of this sequence of events that the Joker (carefully) planned. Batman, as society itself, seems to be with his hands tied. Something similar happens nowadays, with this awful law system. Criminals get more benefits than innocent people. Innocent people get less and less guaranties of a safe life. Still, there is always this desire of fighting against the irregularities, criminals, and all of the wrong things that somehow can appear in your life, no matter how lucky you are.

This is not just a good movie, it is also a good example of how things work in real life. The script has a lot of symbolism. Well-made characters that the first time will make you feel thrilled, but then you will understand the message that this outstanding film will let you read. It shows you that hope is never to be lost. Batman himself says at the end of the movie “This city just showed you that it is full of people ready to believe in good”. Finally, you understand that those who fight against all of these wrong situations in our world are not those who show off. Real heroes do not need to be claimed as heroes. Their only reward will be the ability to do things right, to make things better.

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Justice: an interesting matter that concerns us all.

Written by Critical Moviegoers , Labels: , , 18:07

By Claudia Paz Niño de Zepeda Alvear



Justice. What a beautiful and strange word. I am sure that while you are watching the news or reading the newspaper you have thought, at least once, about how unfair life can get, or about how injustice takes over daily life. But, have you ever thought about taking justice on your own hands? This is the main topic that the movie Kick-ass, released this year, takes into consideration for the development of the plot. This is the story of Dave Lizewski, a teenager who dreams about being a superhero, fighting against evil and having the attention and love of the girl he loves secretly. To achieve his objective, Dave decides to wear a green and yellow costume to hide his identity so he can go out every night, after school, to battle against criminals. He sees himself involved in a lot of dreadful situations because he lacks training and he does not know about weapons. Dave is a normal person who applies justice with his own methods. Is this the right path to take? Most of the times, I do not think so. I think that justice must be applied by a person who is not involved with the subject in discussion, but sometimes justice is not applied in a proper manner.

On one hand, I find Chilean justice very fascinating. This is not because I will suddenly decide to be a lawyer, but because I have seen in the news some very interesting law trials; for instance, some people are punished because they do not cut the grass outside their house, as it happened some years ago in Providencia, while other people, criminals who have stolen perhaps violently, are free to go out of jail two days after they are accused. Is justice well applied in such cases? I do not believe in that; I think that there are problems with laws that were written ages ago, which surface in what now are everyday cases and also, that there are some excellent lawyers, who are capable of saving the worst kind of criminals from jail. I think that both common sense and ethics are part of the game of justice.

On the other hand, there are difficult cases where a strong hand and a well organised mind are needed to take the best decision possible. Cases involving raping, murder, violation of children’s freedom and rights, etc, demand a clear opinion of somebody with power and wisdom. If this does not happen, if a judge does not have these qualities in him or her, the families involved with a case may take the worst decision ever: to take justice with their own hands, driven by blind rage and an indescribable lust for blood. Namely, this happened some months ago, here in Santiago, where people from certain neighborhood killed a man by hitting him hard, only because they thought he was looking at the girls who were playing in the street. He was in the wrong place, at the wrong time… and he died in the street, victim of the people who were looking for justice.

To summarise, justice is a serious issue that must not be taken lightly, all the facts must be considered and every hint of subjectivity must be left aside in order to achieve the best of judgments in a given situation. I think that justice must be applied seriously, knowing everything that is involved in the case to be able to take a good decision of punishment. By no means can justice be taken by your own hands, as Dave did in the movie Kick-ass. Feelings must not be mixed with concrete facts, as far as justice is concerned. But we must also pay attention to the measures that are taken; they are not always right for the case.


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Chile 1970-1973

Written by Critical Moviegoers , Labels: , , 6:14

By Joaquín Antonio Eguren Álvarez

Machuca is one of the most popular and well-known movies within the Chilean film Industry. It is also part of our history as a nation, part of that violent sad past. In 1970 Chile elected Salvador Allende as its president. Allende was a doctor who strongly believed in the total participation of the state in the development of the country. He was a socialist. But not only a common socialist, he was the first socialist in the history of the world to become president by voting. Unfortunately, the government of the people would not end its period normally. Three years later, a brutal coupe d’etat, led by General Augusto Pinochet took over the control of the country. Before that, Chilean society was already divided. It was easy to find riots in favour or against Allende’s administration. Many of these events are shown in Machuca. In this essay we will discuss who is to blame for this segregation, the government for its revolutionary ideas or the ring-wing party with the help of the U.S.A government? In my vision of this conflict I will say that the division and subsequent fragmentation of Chilean Society during the decade of 1970 was caused by the U.S.A government and its economic system: “Capitalism”.
The nationalization of Copper in 1970, carried out by Allende’s Administration, expelled North American interests. Finally, copper was owned by Chile. One of the consequences that this nationalization brought was the anger of private companies of the U.S.A which were making a profitable businness with Chilean Copper. In addition, those companies, especially Anaconda Copper Company, Kennecott Corporation and Cerro Corporation, started to put pressure on the U.S.A government to intervene in Allende’s Administration. The U.S.A governments supported its companies and initiated a strong campaign against Chilean economy, led by Richard Nixon. Within this campaign one of the measures was to focus on the fragmentation of Chilean society in order to create an atmosphere of instability. Envoys from America came to Chile and started paying huge amounts of money to lorry drivers who supported strikes against Allende’s administration. Those strikes produced an enormous shortage in Chile; people began to believe that they were going to die of starvation. The seeds of fear had been planted in Chilean Society.

The fear of a red united continent: Latin America. In 1959 the Cuban revolution had succeeded together with Fidel Castro, Ernesto “Che Guevara” and Camilo Cienfuegos. Cuba was now recognized as a communist country and it was said by the U.S.A government and press that it was under the control of the U.S.S.R (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). If we check in an atlas, we will find that Cuba is located in the Caribbean and Chile is located near the South Pole of the continent. In 1970 with Allende’s arrival to the Chilean government, the U.S.A government started thinking in a shocking possibility. Cuban and Chilean governments could have influence over Latin America, and many of their closest neighboring countries could follow their governments. Nixon’s administration did not want the creation of what he called “a red Sandwich in Latin America”. In this sandwich, Cuba was in the north and Chile in the South. So, what did the United States do to stop this situation? They started introducing ideas in Chilean military academies and wealthy places in Chile. Everybody who was influenced by these ideas started to divide Chilean Society. They started considering the supporters of the government as foreigners; now in Chile there were two nationalities, one made of Marxists and the other ones composed of Chilean people. Finally, they obtained what they had been plotting; a completely divided society, which was exhibited as one of the causes of the toppling of the government of the people.


All in all, we can say that the U.S.A government and its private companies, which had interests in Chilean resources but not in its people, started a campaign of terror. First, they started to cut the supplies off from Chile, creating an atmosphere of scarcity, later to reinforce that they began a process of loss of prestige of the Chilean Government, first in international conventions and second by introducing those ideas in the parties which were opposed to Allende’s Administration. That wound, which was opened in 1973 and changed the history of our country, is still open and the only way to close it is by recovering our national identity and our national resources. We shall overcome.




Riots in Santiago, Chile 1973.

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