This document provides context about the 2004 Chilean film Machuca, which is set in 1973 during Salvador Allende's socialist government and the military coup that brought Augusto Pinochet to power. It summarizes the historical background of Allende's democratically elected socialist government being overthrown by Pinochet's military coup. The film focuses on the conflict and tensions that arise at an elite private school in Santiago between the son of an upper-class family supportive of the coup and a student from a poor neighborhood supportive of Allende, reflecting the larger social and political divisions in Chilean society at the time.

1. Machuca
Classroom Conflict

2. Machuca

3. Machuca
•
Andrés Wood 2004
•
Aged 8 in 1973, St. George’s College, Santiago
•
Story inspired by the real life events at the
school under the Headship of Fr Whelan

4. Historical Context
•
Santiago de Chile 1973
•
Salvador Allende UP (Unidad Popular)
•
Military Coup September 11th 1973

5. Salvador Allende
•
1908 - 11th September 1973
•
Marxist, democratically
elected as President Chile 1970
•
La vía chilena al socialismo
•
Policies of nationalisation,
welfare provision, education
reform
•
Tensions between indigenous
and settler populations

6. Augusto Pinochet
•
1915 - 2006
•
Commander in Chief of Army
•
Lead coup, overthrowing
democratically elected
president
•
Ended civilian rule
•
Brutal suppression of
opposition, ‘caravan of death’,
‘the disappeared’

8. “No a la guerra civil”

9. “…a la guerra civil”

10. Gonzalo Infante
•
From Santiago’s upper class
•
Family - anti Allende
•
How is his social class
signified?
•
Status, freedom granted by
class

11. Pedro Machuca
•
Indigenous
•
Lives in one of the
neighbouring poblaciones
•
Streetwise

12. Silvana
•
Indigenous
•
living in the poblaciones
•
Precocious
•
Symbolises a (class) alliance?

13. Father McEnroe
•
Liberal priest, head teacher St. Patrick’s School for Boys
•
Grants places to poor boys social integration project
•
Metaphor for Allende’s
socialist policies
•
“This is no longer a holy
place”

14. Representations of
Education

16. A site of conflict
•
(Fisher, Harris & Jarvis)
•
Signifiers of class differences
•
Racialisation
•
Silence
•
•
•
The son of the lady who
washes our clothes
Meetings mediated through
violence
Martín-Cabrera and Voionmaa
(2007)

17. Opposition
•
Opposition to the experiment
•
Angry parents/parental choice
•
Opposition to Allende
•
Questioning the social role of
education?

18. References
•
Martín-Cabrera, L. and Voionmaa, D.N. (2007)
‘Class conflict, state of exception and radical justice
in Machuca by Andrés Wood’, Journal of Latin
American Cultural Studies: Travesia, 16(1): 63-80
•
Poulson, S.K. (2009) ‘History, Memory and
Nostalgia in Childhood Films’, CinemaScope:
Independent Film Journal, 5 (13) [Online] http://
www.cinemascope.it/Issue%2013/PDF/STINNE
%20KROGH%20POULSEN.pdf [Accessed 6th
February 2014]