El astuto mono Pinochet contra la moneda de los cerdos (2004) Iván Osnovikoff & Bettina Perut

Clever Monkey Pinochet versus La Moneda’s Pig This is a film about the September 11, 1973 military coup in Chile, from the point of view of Chileans who were born and grew up after this traumatic event. Based on improvisations and collective creation work, groups of pre-schoolers, adolescents, and university students from different social, cultural, and political origins, recreate history through mise-en-scenes that come from their own imaginations. The film articulates this creative vortex in a multiple-narrative flowing cinematic mosaic that gives an account of contemporary Chile by reliving its past. Bettina Perut and Iván Osnovikoff – the couple currently living in New York that made the remarkable documentary “A Man Aside” – again show their talent with the documentary “Clever Monkey Pinochet versus La Moneda’s Pig”, an interesting inquiry on September the 11th, 1973, that trusts in the view of today children and teenagers (between 5 and 25 years old) to reenact an event which traces remain unerasable. Far from the obvious judgment, Perut and Osnovikoff record the performances of children from all social classes (from public to private schools) showing Allende’s government and the later military coup. They all perform their tasks well, they disguise themselves, set up their imaginary, become empathic with the characters, show funny versions of that sort of unpublished chapter of “Starwars” we didn’t exactly see in cinemas (yes, you will see children versions of Allende and Pinochet fighting with jedi swords) and dramatically revive an event that, in a certain way, they feel familiar. But the saga is far from ending. Thus, the fragmented documentary inserts everyday situations that tell of a split country and their respective ways of living together: the social violence (young people from different social classes harshly argue in a barbecue), the scope of democracy (students of a boys school vote for the incorporation of girls in the academic institution), or the value of dialogue (law students expose their points of view with respect to the lawfulness of the Military Coup), among other memorable moments. “EL ASTUTO MONO PINOCHET CONTRA LA MONEDA DE LOS CERDOS” (title given by junior students) is a witty documentary, an unpublished and necessary psychological project (“Machuca” already tried to show from fiction the issue’s renovation, which can be made through the children’s look, so full of “wonderment” and far from dogmas) and is also a funny film that from time to time reaches absurd surrealistic streaks. We cannot use another term when we have in front of our eyes Allende and Pinochet (personified in two little girl dancers) fighting for the big award of a program like “American idol”.