Our appointment with Chile starts with a folk-rock song played as the background of a cinema screening of the docu-movie “Woodstock”, a 1970 account of the famous festival held near New York the year before. The song sets out strong, impactful, just as the film goes on to be - “Tema de Los Titulos” (Title Theme), performed by the band Los Jaivas (who worked on the film’s whole soundtrack) feels like a letter to democracy, freedom and independence, opening up with the lines “O dependencia colonial o independencia nacional”.
The political landscape of Chile at the time of filming was troubled and tumultuous and it is reflected on how the main characters live their personal and romantic lives in this soap opera-like teenage love affair.
We’re in the Capital city, Santiago de Chile, it is 1973, the year of the Coup d'état. President Salvador Allende and his Marxists-socialist government are about to be overthrown by a military coup led by General Pinochet who, after forcibly taking power, ruled as dictator in the Country and instilled fear, torture and terror amongst its citizens for almost twenty years (until 1990).
Our lead is María (Beatriz Lapido) a young, teenage girl made of dreams, ideals and aspirations. María comes from a lower-class family, the “dominated” class, living in a shantytown-like neighborhood in one of Santiago’s poorest areas. She falls madly in love with Juan Carlos (Rodrigo Ureta), a young and handsome and wealthy boy from the “dominating” class. They had met at a festival held uptown, through her friend, Thelma.
Maria and Juan Carlos are seen together in a car, driving towards a beach. The voice of Maria in the background is narrating to us the events that led her to fall in love. It is cold and the wind is blowing at dawn. Juan Carlos insists that the girl take off her clothes and jump into the ocean with him. She is ashamed of her history, of where she comes from. She is ashamed of her clothes as he undresses of his expensive garb. Both naked, take each other's hand and step into the tempestuous waters together, happy (a metaphor for their relationship, if we wish). It is the start of their relationship.
Maria becomes fascinated with the charms of bourgeois society, and as her family discovers her affair, they start to resent her. The film’s dialogues are clear and effective in an essential and intellectual way. The characters, although young, are smart and interested in the topics and stories of the world, as anyone who is forced to live through military force and U.S. forced intervention would be. Maria appears to be strong, but she is in fact a fragile, naïve girl when it comes to love. Just as many of us are, she is guided by dreams too. Reality is not important as long as she has the “smell”, the comfort of her loved one – she seems trapped in “Harmony” book fantasies. Juan Carlos’ verbality is more toned-down, he tends to not express himself in passion, his limited vocabulary works as a counterpoint to Maria’s expressiveness and intensity, all of which define their respective classes.
Ups and downs, family feuds, religious interaction, virginity loss, jealousy, threats and passions, conflicts and confessions, this is Palomita Blanca. A movie for generations, an intimate and historical account of the Chilean society. It is not just a film, but a whole experience. The colours, photography and settings have a rough beauty, making us recall dreams of times passed. Ruiz builds this story as a modern-day (at the time) Romeo and Juliet, a love that was never meant to be but a great one, nonetheless.
Raúl Ruiz, with this masterpiece, reminds us that in politics, nobody is pure, but that love can still be pure and beautiful. The film was released in 1992, 19 years after its production. Unsurprisingly, it had originally been censored by Pinochet’s military government because of its language, intimate and naked scenes but ultimately it was hidden away for almost two decades, clearly for political reasons.
Many things happen in our ever-changing lives. Social and personal changes disrupt the way in which we see and interact with the world, but they should never change the way in which we love.
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