My Imaginary Country
Mi país imaginario

Since 2010, the now-octagenarian documentary filmmaker Patricio Guzmán has been making cinematic meditations on the geography and history of his native Chile. Movies like Nostalgia for the Light, The Pearl Button, and The Cordillera of Dreams look at nature through a political lens. The perspective Guzmán brings to docs about his country's natural environment is not surprising given that he made his name and international reputation with docs about Chile's political environment. His three-part work of cinematic reportage, The Battle of Chile, chronicled the tension and unrest in his country around the congressional election of 1973 and the CIA-supported counter-revolution that began against the government of socialist president Salvador Allende. Now, in 2022, Guzmán is releasing a film that feels like the concluding chapter (at least for him) of the ongoing story he began with The Battle of Chile. 
My Imaginary Country documents the spontaneous and longstanding protests of a million and a half Chileans who took to the streets of the capital city from 2019 to 2021 to demand justice, health care, proper education, and, most of all, a new constitution that would undo patriarchal rules imposed on the country during the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. Shocking front-line footage of the protests and the attempts to control and thwart them by the armed authorities are contextualized by interviews with key participants and witnesses, all tied together by Guzmán's usual calm, expository voice-over narration. Through all this, the film captures the tireless and dangerous efforts of social movement activists, most of them women, and the ordinary citizens who joined them, which eventually enabled the rise of the young, left-wing coalition leader Gabriel Boric.
Guzmán was not present when his country erupted into protests, and he completed his film just at the climax of Chile's recent election, without the full awareness of how slim the victory would be. My Imaginary Country is not the same kind of blow-by-blow, on-the-ground work of poetic journalism that The Battle of Chile feels like. However, it is every bit as vital and fascinating. In an era where older political activists seem to ooze contempt for their younger counterparts, who in turn often view those that fought for the rights they now enjoy as out of touch or corrupt, it's wonderful to experience an elder statesman like Guzmán appreciating and celebrating younger activists. Rather than disparaging the movement for not having official leaders (something common to many modern left-wing coalitions, which the older generation seems unable to understand), Guzmán views this with a kind of astonished wonder. His optimism for the future is infectious, even when the hard-fought victories feel tenuous.

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