David Bradbury's documentary "Chile: Hasta Cuando?" ("Chile: When Will It End?") is one of the most daring documents ever made during the hard years of Pinochet's military dictatorship in Chile (1973-1990), a period of terror that initiated on 11 September 1973 with military forces deposing socialist president Salvador Allende and persecuting the "enemies" of the new regime with prisons, tortures, murders and disappearances. A coup, like many others in Latin America nations between the 1960's and 1980's, that was also highly supported by the United States government and intelligence agencies. The film in question shows us the Chilean society of 1985 and its social divisions with supporters of the regime and its silent oppositors.
The brave Bradbury and his crew were allowed entry in the country with the purpose of documenting about a famous wine festival, just a good excuse to get out to the streets and film everything they could about how Pinochet and his soldiers were doing to protesters, oppositors and the common people claiming for justice and for the whereabouts of their family members who disappeared in the previous years, detained (and possibly murdered) by the regime. It's amazing that this team were able to capture all those shots of soldiers brutalizing people (presented several times during the course of the movie) without putting themselves to greater risks of being caught, arrested or even murdered by them, just like it happened to an American reporter in El Salvador a few years earlier, a story that became the basis for the movie "Under Fire" (1983). The documentary also covers simple acts of peaceful demonstration from people outside of the socialist opposition that end up being repressed just the same by the police, in this case, victims of a earthquake demanding for help and aid by the government got themselves repelled with water canons.
Along with those, there's interviews with the brave family members of the disappeared; people involved with the socialist cause with political parties that were kept off as a mute opposition and regular yet highly vocal supporters of Pinochet, common folks that exalt his virtues and blame the country's problems on Communism, something they can barely explain why is it so bad. And also interview with people in poverty talking about the economic problems they were facing, and as the film reveals, despite getting rid of socialist Allende claiming he was bad for the economy and that they were doing the right thing, the economical situation was one of the worst in the country, thousands of people were in the line of poverty during the regime. The nation hasn't grown with Pinochet.
Obviously, Bradbury and team couldn't go directly to Pinochet or another political figure to get their views on everything presented but instead they presented TV archives showing how powerful and confident they were with everything they were doing - one clip shows a reporter asking the general about what he thought of the current country's situation with the on-going wave of protests. His reply "Is there a problem going on? Nothing's wrong, people are chill and with no problems.
It's the brilliant and sharp juxtaposition that creates the great effect for this film. Those regimes don't work, never worked and will never work. They only serve the purposes of the rich, the bourgeoisie unsatisfied with politicians who devote their time to help the poor and needed; and the military system (because they can actually do something for their country outside of war times) who are more inclined to follow who have the money instead of their leadership - frightening fact: Pinochet was appointed commander-in-chief of the Army by Allende in 1972.
An important document, very good project, but not necessarily great because it lacks a few things (a longer running time, maybe). I won't object to the film. They were objective, combative, gave voice to all sides even to those who couldn't be presented in the way they could. As for the movie question the regime ended with a popular referendum in 1988 (theme that can be followed in Pablo Larraín's "No") and to a greater effect in 1990 with presidential elections. A portion of what happened in between those 17 dark years can be seen here. 9/10
