Gringuito

We, the chileans, are always looking to another countries and forget our essence; we are ashamed to be chileans. There are a lot of chilean movies pretending to be french, german or american ones. So, the good idea of Gringuito is to look at Chile from inside and outside at same time. Another good thing in this movie is the fact that is not an "adult" movie. Until Gringuito, all the chilean movies were with scenes of violence, nudity and/or raw language. Sergio Castilla maybe thought in family and, very important, in kids. A nice movie, showing us the possibility of reconciliation in our divided country. The performing of Mateo Iribarren (El Flaco) is the better of this movie.

Gringuito tells the story of Ivan, a kid whose family decides to go back to Chile from New York, after at least a decade away. Ivan of course is not quite the Chilean kid his grandparents would like him to be: he sulks, misses the Opera, finds things odd and ugly, acting like a real "little gringo" (hence the title). This films strikes home since it's the case for many of us Chileans (and latinos in general) that we find it very difficult to adapt to the realities of our native countries once we've been living abroad (in the 1st world) for an extended period of time. The chemistry between El Flaco and Ivan is the highlight of the movie. Clearly the best Chilean film of 1998.