I wanted to but couldn't!

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

The film is about children who get along, and then get separated. This happens because their families belong to different political sides, in a time and place where this was big deal.Spirituality unite us, politics divides us. I don't give the film the last star because it tends to biased towards the left(we have on bad leftist(the drunk) and a few mildly bad right wingers(a clueless semi-hippie, a crazy guy who thinks he's bruce lee, an adulterous mother and the wealthy guy who sleeps with her). Without the bias, the film could have been a much more profound tale of humanism among children, serving as an example to politically divided adults.Also, as a Latin American, I've always felt away from both the bully-like military backed right wing, and the hopelessly classist "it's not my fault" left-wing.So I strongly empathized with the story.

Andrés Wood is a highly regarded Chilean filmmaker, a man unafraid to take on controversial issues and present them in a manner that is revelatory to his audience, whether that audience is in Chile or other South American countries - or in Europe or North America. In MACHUCA he transports us to the year 1973 in Chile when Pinochet's military coup overthrew Allende's socialist 'democracy'. Knowing that there remains a divided opinion of this period of time, a time when Allende supporters who could not escape the country were murdered or placed in detention camps as political prisoners, Woods sensitively recreates this period through the eyes of children from the populace divided by the middle class and the poor, a technique which works on every level.Saint Patrick's School for boys in Santiago is headed by a kind priest/principal Father McEnroe (Ernesto Malbran) and the rich to middle class uniformed boys include one 'strawberry faced', quiet, chubby Gonzalo Infante (Matías Quer) whose family is of means but has issues of covert infidelity with the mother (Aline Küppenheim) and father (Francisco Reyes). The Allende government is shaky, and in an attempt to appease the poor class, Saint Patrick's School takes on students from the shantytowns to 'democratize' education. Among these new students is Pedro Machuca (Ariel Mateluna) who seems to be a loner but soon becomes the brunt of the rich kids' prejudice. Gonzalo befriends Pedro and gradually the two form a strong bond which leads to each of the boys learning about their separate families and life styles: Gonzalo's life of luxury dazzles Pedro while Pedro's humble shack houses warm family that Gonzalo envies. The friendship leads to a close examination of the schism of racism and political clashes brought into sharp focus as the military coup changes everything. Only friendship remains intact in a dramatically tested fashion.Andrés Woods marries the political and the human aspects of this chaotic time in Chile and offers us insights into the ongoing changing governments of South America. His script (which he wrote with Eliseo Altunaga, Roberto Brodsky and Mamoun Hassan) is spare leaving space for much of the story to be told by observing the interaction of his two main characters with their associates. The result is a deeply moving film, an opportunity to observe the tenuous times of a period most of us barely understand. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp

In 1973, in Santiago of Chile of the first socialist president democratically elected in a Latin-American country, President Salvador Allende, the principal of the Saint Patrick School, Father McEnroe (Ernesto Malbran) makes a trial of integration between students of the upper and lower classes. The bourgeois boy Gonzalo Infante (Matías Quer) and the boy from the slum Pedro Machuca (Ariel Mateluna) become great friends, while the conflicts on the streets leads Chile to the bloody and repressive military coup of General Augusto Pinochet on 11 September 1973, changing definitely their lives, their relationship and their country."Machuca" is a touching and realistic tale of friendship and coming to age in times of military coup in Chile. The Chilean director Andrés Wood made this fantastic movie following the political genre of Costa Gravas, but with a subtle drama with two children getting conscience of the fight of classes and the changes in their country by force and violence. The story in some moments seems to be a documentary so perfect the direction and acting are. The debut of the two lead actors, Matías Quer and Ariel Mateluna, is awesome: the eyes of the silent Matías Quer disclosing reality and the facial expression of Ariel Mateluna are amazing. "Machuca" is a highly recommended movie, and for the younger generations slightly see what happened in the 70's in South America and particularly in Chile. A few figures about Pinochet's dictatorship: 30,000 Chileans were killed; 100,000 Chileans were arrested without a trial; 22,000 students were expelled from the universities; 150,000 Chileans were exiled. My vote is ten.Title (Brazil): "Machuca"

This is the story of the rich versus poor at the time of the 1973 military junta in Chile which took out Salvador Allende and replaced him with a military junta headed by Pinochet.Two young school boys, one rich and one poor, befriend each other. The rich one invites the poor one, Pedro Machuca, into his world of relative wealth. Machuca enjoys it and takes to it like a fish to water. However, changing political events in Chile change their relationship as the military takes over things.A good film, almost documentary like, which gives us a much better view of the events in Chile. Because of the political nature of the film and because Chile remains friends with the U.S. it seems unlikely it will play in most places in the U.S. Hopefully they will come out with a DVD eventually, but so far none in sight.