José María Berzosa
Chili Impressions
José María Berzosa (Spain, 1928 — France, 2018) is a missing link in the history of Spanish cinema, his filmography, made entirely in France, characterised by the use of sarcasm and parody against despotic power. Coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of the 1973 coup d’état in Chile, the Museo Reina Sofía screens the full version of his documentary series Chili Impressions (1977), following one sole screening in Spain, which took place in Filmoteca Española in 1981. The documentary’s four episodes unmask the monstrosities of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, while also spotlighting film’s capacity to confront tyranny and represent the subjugated.
Berzosa, who made around a hundred documentaries for French television, came to occupy a unique position in the TV industry as he developed his own themes using a distinctive language and was lauded by the critics as one of the most original film-makers in the medium. Exiled to France from 1956, he was initially a director’s assistant for film-makers such as Jean Renoir and Luis Buñuel, but soon became a reference point in his own right due to his television reports, the aforementioned Chili Impressions among them. Berzosa stood out for conceiving documentary in a baroque style using words from the time and with the co-existence of complex narrative strategies ranging from the staging of direct interviews, the use of counterpoint and antithesis in the editing, the idea of filming malevolence and infamy head-on and, his most idiosyncratic trait, the use of humour as a weapon against a harsh and implacable reality.
Berzosa also centred his gaze on dismantling the myths of Spanishness that spread during Francoism, for instance in Rouge Greco Rouge (Red Greco Red, 1973) and Comment se débarrasser des restes du Cid? (How to Dispose of the Remains of el Cid? 1974), which is perhaps the reason why he went to great lengths to film the Chilean dictatorship, which, in the words of the chaplain of Augusto Pinochet, bore the most similarities to the Franco regime. In the four episodes of Chili Impressions, Berzosa pieces together a portrait of the regime from different angles: Les pompiers de Santiago (The Firefighters of Santiago), which presents a group from an alt-right corporation; Voyage au bout de la droite (Journey to the End of the Right), a route through the formation of the dictatorial State; Au bonheur des généraux (To the Generals’ Happiness), an approach to the Military Junta and its cultural tastes amid genocide; and Monsieur le président (Mr President), a portrait of the different sides of the dictator. The series was shot in January, February and March of 1977 and was first broadcast in France from April to May 1978 following a futile attempt at censorship by the Chilean Embassy. Today it constitutes one of the most powerful and astute examples of cinema against the brutality of dictatorship.
Programa
– Presented by Chema González and Daniel Berzosa, the film-maker’s son, in the first session
This first episode in the series addresses the ostensible normality of reactionary ideology among Chile’s middle class, represented by the Fourth Company of the Fire Department of Santiago. “There are no political prisoners in Chile”, Augusto Pinochet states at the beginning as Berzosa, in a counterpoint that is characteristic in his editing, shows, in a way that is both realist and measured, the painful testimonies of the mothers and wives of those who have disappeared or are prisoners under the dictatorship. In wilful ignorance of such a reality is the happy society under the restored order: the fire chief, Napoleonic and military, declaring himself apolitical like his department, or the landowner and ex-diplomat who renounces his land. In short, a theatre Berzosa exhibits in all its farse and artifice.
Sabatini Building, Auditorium
144 people
Free, until full capacity is reached. Doors open 30 minutes before the screening
– Presented by Luis E. Parés, the director of Cineteca, in the first session
In this second episode, different figures explain their political commitment, forming a portrait of Chile’s new ruling class. Monseñor Gilmore, chaplain-general of the Army, speaks about the advantages of the Army teaching young people, while Enrique Ortúzar, president of Chile’s Constitutional Commission in the wake of the coup d’état, describes a particular kind of authority-based democracy. Following these conversations, Berzosa employs a counter-shot: the situation of artists who have remained in Santiago and are under extreme surveillance, a farmer talking about the misery in rural Chile and a powerful extract of Pablo Neruda reciting his words.
Sabatini Building, Auditorium
144 people
Free, until full capacity is reached. Doors open 30 minutes before the screening
Can a lack of ethics be reconciled with aesthetics? This appears to be the theme of this third episode, in which Berzosa films a grotesque and humorous portrait of three army officers who, along with commander-in-chief Augusto Pinochet, make up the Military Junta. Gustavo Leigh Guzmán, Air Force commander, Navy commander José Toribio Merino, and César Mendoza Durán, chief of Police, are interviewed in their homes alongside their wives, discussing issues of a literary, musical and philosophical nature. The efforts of all three to portray themselves as sensitive dilettantes, mentioning figures such as Picasso and Bach and even showing their artistic creations, reflect how the beginnings of major dictatorships — one such example being a young painter called Adolf Hitler — can be rooted in considerable artistic frustration.
Sabatini Building, Auditorium
144 people
Free, until full capacity is reached. Doors open 30 minutes before the screening
This final episode shows the dictator in all his heroic guises: the peerless army officer, the intrepid explorer, the model citizen, the international geopolitics strategist, the concerned father, the faithful husband. The masks progressively peel away as Berzosa intersperses interviews with the mothers of those who have disappeared under the regime. In a typically Berzosa-esque sequence, we see Pinochet, dressed as a civilian, and his wife, Lucía Hiriart, sat in their home. After discussing film, music and family, the film-maker asks Hiriart: “Does your husband have any faults?”. “No, none”, she replies. “We all have our faults…”. She gives it some thought: “Okay, he can be a little domineering,” she says to the icy smile of the dictator. A simple phrase that dismantles the propaganda around a hero.
Sabatini Building, Auditorium
144 people
Free, until full capacity is reached. Doors open 30 minutes before the screening