Chilean film-maker Miguel Littin

K.S. Sivakumaran

Latin American Cinema, as knowledgeable cineastes would know, is basically politically committed films. And Chile has a reputation for making such films. Perhaps the greatest icon in Chilean cinema is Miguel Littin. In the 1970s the assassinated intellectual Salvador Allende (pronounced Aiyandae) patronized Littin who made several weekly newsreels for the Chilean Government. Following a coup-de-tat in that country in 1973, migrated to Mexico

“Each of my movies corresponds to a moment in Chilean political life” declares Littin.

Saul Frampton, a critic, writing about him observes that one could ‘trace the fine line in his work between political sentimentality and genuine cinematic ingenuity.”

Here is a passage from the critic that might interest us in this part of the world.

Says Frampton: “ The emerging fashion for Latin American ‘magic realism’ in European and American literary tastes saw Littin making a parallel rapprochement with ‘western’ intellectual culture- the previous agent of cultural contamination”

Littin returned to Chile after 12 years in exile. Masquerading as a Uruguayan businessman under the regime of Pinochet, he made four films.

In 2007 at the IFFK (International Film festival of Kerala), I saw Litttin’s film ‘The Last Moon’. I don’t think I enjoyed the film although it was an intriguing film.

The storyline is as follows:

1914 - World War 1 looms. Two young men live on the west bank in Palestine. One man is a Jew from Argentina and the other is an orthodox Christian. La Ultima Luna (The Last Moon) focuses on what happened just before the protagonist’s grandparents were sent to South America. His name is Jacob. The other is known as Soliman. He reluctantly befriends Jacob.

Jacob wants to buy a piece of land from Solaiman and build a two-storied house. Solaiman’s wife is pretty and she is large-hearted. She doesn’t mind selling the piece of land to the Argentinean. But her husband and others do not like the sale at all. But circumstances force the deal come through and both men have a working relationship. But the people in the area and the British give trouble to them.

There is another woman coming into the story. She is young, beautiful and Jewish. She was shot by the Turks and nursed by the Jews in the area.

Many things happen in the meantime. Solaiman and Jacob at the end stare at each other across the barbed wire. There are a few erotic scenes in the film - not explicit but suggestive. Even the story and the construction of the film have a mystic quality. The audience has to read what the film is trying to say in its own interpretation.

The critic also adds: his best work has been provoked by contradictions offered to socialist ideals through the lessons of history - imperialism, dictatorship and subjugation are self-perpetuating.”

I didn’t understand the film first because the story and the background were a little distanced from my understanding of contemporary setting.. And yet it was worth seeing for its ‘cinematic’ quality.

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