Pinochet's Children

It has been almost a year since I saw the documentary Pinochet's Children. The film had a tremendous impact on me, the audience, and the participants - but not the world. Of course, I had an advantage when I saw it: the director, Paula Rodriguez, introduced the film, and there were several Chileans in the audience. Needless to say, the discussion after the film was very emotional. The people around me had lived through knowing that their friends and family - a sister in one case, a close childhood friend in another - had been "disappeared" and killed, often for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. I had only the antiseptic second-hand accounts of Pinochet as a villain.

Chile seems a remote place; indeed it contains the southern-most point one could go in the Americas. As an American, it seems impossible that one could walk, or drive, from here to there, however. So is American isolationism a myth? Possibly, the public is aloof, but it seems that "America" the nation is actively involved. It is no real secret that the CIA participated in the coup that put Pinochet in power, though international politeness downplays the extent of our involvement. It seems odd that a democracy would have such a bifurcation between populace and government. Yet, I'm not intending to get on my political soapbox - I'm using Chile as an illustration of our innate selfishness.

I'm sure that many would protest and say that American apathy is endemic to our nation, but I think that it is really a human characteristic. One tribe does not really care about the other, the American condition is a luxury, not a symptom of who we are. That isn't to say that said attitude is right in any sense. I'm just stating that most people (i.e., a significant portion of a population) would exhibit the same characteristics given the same environment. In other words, people are more-or-less interchangeable.

It is our very interchangeability, our same-ness, that makes a documentary such as Pinochet's Children powerful. We observe people and places that do not seem foreign in circumstances that are incomprehensible. The film, being a film, contains an element of make-believe - we "know" movies to be artificial. Thus, we engage with the feature on a personal level - we are not bounded by limitations of propriety or issues of safety. Yet, as documentary, we realize that the film really isn't make-believe. We are uneasy. Thisuneasiness is likewise a universal human trait. As members of our family-tribes/clans, we may isolate ourselves, but we still recognize ourselves in each other. As observers, we are troubled. I cannot say what the perpetrators feel.