Violeta Foi Para o Céu

That's the way for me to describe what I felt while watching this movie, an artist I admired since I was a kid. even though all I knew was,her talent and that she had a tormented soul, and most of all, of one epic song.

This movie is intense if you have an idea of who Violeta Parra was, someone who created, and left a legacy for many other great artists with many of her songs, particularly with "Gracias a la vida" "Thanks to life" a song that has been interpreted by Joan Baez, Mercedes Sosa, Elis Regina, Alberto Cortez, Placido Domingo, even Michael Bubble, among many, many, others. On different languages, on different cultures an ode to life, and ironically her creator choose a dark way to go.

This film is a gripping narration and highlights of the life of Violeta Parra as composer, singer, painter, daughter, mother and lover. And regardless that at moments the music and interpretation gets a poignant feeling,its a must watch if you are one of those, like me, who pretends to "know it all" but above all, to certainly broad your horizons and open your mind, and appreciate what sometimes is so unappreciated.

Besides the movie tell us a summary of Violeta Parra's Life, it's a very accurate image how the life was in that time in South America (1910-1960); as the country people survived in those days. Violeta Parra was a member of the prolific Parra family. Among her brothers were the notable modern poet, Nicanor Parra and fellow folklorist Roberto Parra. Her children, Ángel and Isabel Parra, are also important figures in the "Nueva Canción Chilena".

Violeta Parra's music is gorgeous,and it tried to make the world better. Songs like "Gracias a La Vida" or "Volver a los diecisiete" are celebrations of life. At the same time showed the contradictory nature of the human condition. Her Music was popularized throughout Latin America by Mercedes Sosa, in Brazil by Elis Regina and later in the US by Joan Baez.

The film has, what I assume to be, a deliberately rough look to it, not at all polished, or commercial. It is meant to be raw, and by implication, honest. I was going to write about the story jumping around on the timeline, but really it is more of a collage, almost as if the movie was a rush of memory, triggered by something sensual. A Proustian rush, perhaps, as Charlotte Rampling once said in a movie. Or is it Parra's life going by at the brink of death?

When first Violeta sings - and it is the actress portraying Violeta singing - the heart leaps with the voice, and the words! The movie doesn't bother to iterate the political reality of the world in Parra's time, instead it allows the songs tell you what you need to know. Oh, but then the songs get interrupted by snippets of conversation, and the thread becomes tangled.

I have to be honest, three quarters of an hour into the movie and I was getting annoyed at how disorientating this patchwork approach to the narrative was proving to be. Violeta in the mirror putting on lipstick, as a little girl looking in a cracked mirror, at another time as an adult without make-up, all in quick succession. What exactly is the point of following one upon the other? Violeta's eye in close-up. A chicken's eye in close-up. One second we're somewhere, then somewhere else, and is the second chronologically before the first, or what? It's disorientating, and although there may be an artistic impulse behind such an approach, it actually serves to keep the spectator at a disrespectful distance, so that one wonders, why am I being subjected to these fragmentary scenes from the life of a woman whose behaviour, moods, ideas, which are supposed to be rooted in folklore and thus of the people, are being withheld from me, in a sense, so that I start to resent her? At such a point of, maybe alienation is too strong a word, I started to yearn for the real voice of Parra, which has an otherworldly melancholy, a ghostliness in the final recordings, and the actress' interpretation, good as it is, misses that.

The DVD I got, sourced from Korea, has English subtitles, admittedly with a few errors in the writing, and wonky lettering at times, but nothing serious, perfectly legible. Then again, they're not always around when you want them. For example, early on, Violeta asks an old man to teach her hsi songs, but he refuses, and we learn this is because of a death in the family. Later, we see him singing but the subtitles don't materialise. Nonetheless, it's basically Chilean Blues, and we all can get the spirit of the Blues. The pain of the people.

I guess it's worth seeing, in the absence of a decent documentary that has English subtitles. A frustrating portrait of a frustrating genius.

This film based on the life of the great Chilean singer, composer, folklorist and traditional music compiler Violeta Parra is not bad, but the script followed the pedestrian structure of formulaic biopics, when the subject was a very complex artist, with a strong personality. It more or less follows the dialectic of "inspiring incident->song", "inspiring incident->song" and so on... Francisca Gavilán is very good, but Andrés Wood did much better with less compromised projects as the remarkable «Machuca.» Unfortunately, he was dealing with a major figure of world culture, and the result was rather average.

Absolutely worth viewing for a fresh look at what cinema can be.

I was very impressed; This film documents the life (and death) of Violeta Parra while using cinematographic techniques that are, in my opinion, fresh and outstanding.

Also very noteworthy is the authenticity of the conditions in Chile during Violetas' time and the understanding shown of the people in the country are very well done.

I thoroughly recommend it ... take a handkerchief with you and be prepared to be lifted into Violetas' world.

Gracias Andres, Gracias woodproducciones !!