The Cordillera of Dreams

Patri­cio Guzmán’s intro­spec­tive nar­ra­tion lingers over drone-mapped footage of the Andes, one of the world’s longest cordilleras (moun­tain ranges) as the shad­ow of their tec­ton­ic phys­i­cal­i­ty envelops San­ti­a­go, Chile’s cap­i­tal city. We’re told that if Santiago’s cob­ble­stone streets – forged out of rocks from the cordillera – could speak, ​“they would speak of the blood that ran over them”, as the spec­tre of Augus­to Pinochet’s 17-year long mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship haunts Chilean poli­ty and society.

Poet­i­cism segues into cut­ting polit­i­cal analy­sis as the end of Pinochet’s dic­ta­tor­ship led Chile to become the first test­ing grounds for a force­ful imple­men­ta­tion of neolib­er­al eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy. The intro­duc­tion of San­ti­a­go film­mak­er Pablo Salas – who, unlike Guzmán and many of his exiled con­tem­po­raries, stayed in Chile dur­ing the dic­ta­tor­ship – pro­vides an astute digres­sion into Chilean polit­i­cal memory.

His vast archive of tapes bore active wit­ness to the dark­est chap­ter of the country’s recent his­to­ry, simul­ta­ne­ous­ly immor­tal­is­ing the people’s spir­it­ed resis­tance. Guzmán wist­ful­ly laments his long absence from his home­land and the cir­cum­stances that led him to flee, imbu­ing his reflec­tions with a tan­gi­ble sense of mourn­ing. The cordillera​’s essence is the ​“mate­r­i­al of dreams”, but as Chile’s soul is sick with the ills of neolib­er­al­ism, dreams of futures that defy mar­ket prof­itabil­i­ty must result in nightmares.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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