Popular reviews

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  Review by nadine smith ★★★★½

  nothing else in cinema is or ever will be as harrowing and haunting as that final shot. there's chaos in the streets, soldiers turning on civilians, before the camera appears to fall and the image becomes incomprehensible. we are brought back to a moment a few seconds earlier and informed that on this day, the argentinian cameraman who has served as our proxy eyes into a deteriorating political situation not only recorded his own death, but captured an ugly face of the chilean army that would emerge again during the coup two months later. the image is paused and cropped to bring emphasis to the object and executioner, who points his gun directly at us just as the frame freezes.…

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  Review by Spencer ★★★★ 2

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  Watch a reactionary party pull out every CIA-funded ratfucking technique it knows to thwart a popular socialist government before giving up and just shooting people.

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  Review by Darren Carver-Balsiger ★★★★★ 9

  Essential cinema. The Battle of Chile is one of the most significant documentaries ever made. Part I, subtitled The Insurrection of the Bourgeoisie, is a valuable document of a country falling to organised chaos. Shot during the final months of the government of Salvador Allende, Part I details a socialist government gaining popularity whilst outside forces try to topple it. The film does not deny existing problems that ordinary people face, but it does present a government totally undermined by private business and foreign powers. Specifically the USA is cited numerous times for its connections to businesses and the armed forces.

  The Battle of Chile is direct and to the point, filled with words of the people gathered through street…

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  Review by 🐱Andrew Chrzanowski🐱 ★★★★★ 4

  ☆"Institutional conflict alone is not enough to justify a coup d'état. It is also necessary to provoke violence and social chaos."☆

  Do you think it can't happen here? It can happen here.

  Patricio Guzmán's untouchable series of his home country begins with La batalla de Chile -- primera parte: la insurrección de la burguesía ["The Battle of Chile -- Part I: The Insurrection of the Bourgeoisie"], a chronicle of the political tension surrounding the election of Salvador Allende and the eventual violent overthrow by the army of General Augusto Pinochet.

  He begins in March 1973 as rallying forces coalesce around their candidates and platforms before the election. Allende has been President of Chile for about two years, elected on a…

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  Review by Carlos Valladares ★★★★★

  Essential cinema, which is to say essential politics. The most successful psy-op by the right, using the left's own methods, in modern history. (Besides the Big Red White & Blue One, courtesy Joe McCarthy.) And yet the cameras keep rolling, the workers keep marching, the Allendes keep budding. Every young person needs to watch this + Chile, Obstinate Memory. Do we in the US have any clue what even went down in Chile in the 1960s and 1970s? If you don't, you'd better. It concerns you, it concerns the sweep and scope and potential of humanity. Guzmán and company are among the bravest to ever pick up a camera. Living history.

  One particularly head-spinning scene among many: the stadium of copper…

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  Review by Sergio ★★★★★

  Un poco más tarde, Leonardo Henrichsen, camarógrafo argentino, filma su último plano. No sólo registra su propia muerte, también registra, dos meses antes del golpe final, la verdadera cara de un sector del ejército chileno.

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  Review by Adriana Scarpin ★★★★★

  WOW. Retrato ultra contundente da eterna escrotidão da burguesia, como o discurso dela pode mudar o país e a época, mas continua sempre o mesmo bordão egoísta de sempre, qualquer semelhança com o Brasil desde a jornada de 2013 não é mera coincidência.
  DVDRip no MakingOff

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  Review by Brian Formo ★★★★★ 2

  An essential document of political power games in direct opposition of laborers, the will of democracy, and, in the end, the nation itself. When opposition consumes and letting people suffer is part of the tactics. Making a nation worse on purpose for power. All of this is horrific on its own, but then the US $ contributions to that opposition come in.

  We all know of Pinochet being installed by a military coup where soldiers were trained and funded by the US. But Battle of Chile starts before that at a pivotal moment of an election. Using interviews captured on the street, carnage captured on the street, and diegetic sound only; the boots on the ground approach makes you feel like you are present every step of the way until the camera hits the ground after documenting the start of what will become the coup. Deeply upsetting. Supremely necessary to watch.

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  Review by catalina ★★★★★

  Allende, el pueblo te defiende ahora y siempre. ❤️

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  Review by bailey ★★★★

  The whole Allende movement is a perfect case study on the pitfalls of socialist reform in an existing capitalist structure, and the necessity of a total political revolution. The bourgeois fascists will not give up their power willingly and they will resort to the most insidious and vile actions to retain it. Castro tried to warn him and he didn't listen. The way the copper mine strikes in particular were coopted by the Christian Democrats is proof enough. We see that same cooption in the US everyday. Look no further than the liberal response to Leftist calls for police/prison abolition.

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  Review by angie ★★★★½

  Jesus fucking Christ. you can literally see the class disparities

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  Review by Doug Dillaman ★★★★

  America, 2019: OMG foreign powers have interfered with the proper functioning of our democracy!

  Chile, 1973: oh you poor things, that must be terrible for you