The year 1976 is considered one of the bloodiest years of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile. 1976 is also the title of Manuela Martelli’s first narrative feature. Best known for her roles in the films B-Happy by Gonzalo Justiniano and Machuca by Andrès Wood, Martelli’s directing debut is an intimate portrait of a woman coming to terms with the violent society she lives in.
Carmen (Aline Kuppenheim) is middle-aged and bourgeois. Her days in a small village on the Chilean seaside pass by muffled. She takes care of the renovation of the family holiday house, of her grandchildren, and of a mysterious young man with a wounded leg, who turns out to be a political opponent of the Pinochet dictatorship. Through him, she gets in contact with the resistance and finally faces the brutality of the political system she is a part of.
After celebrating the debut of 1976 at the Directors’ Fortnight, a parallel selection of the 75th Cannes Film Festival, multitalented Martelli shared with us the creative process behind this movie and draws back on historical synchronicities and contingencies.
Giulia Dickmans, UniversalCinema Magazine (UM): This year the new Chilean president Gabriel Boric was elected. By many, he is considered the first real caesura with the Pinochet dictatorship. In parallel, a popular assembly is working on the reform that will finally change the national constitution, in place since that time. Your movie talks about Pinochet’s brutal rule. Is it a coincidence? When did you get the idea for 1976?
Manuela Martelli: I started working on the movie seven years ago when all the things that have happened in Chilean politics lately were not even imaginable. So, for me, the need to question if, and how, the middle class was able to look beyond their home’s walls during the dictatorship, was more urgent than it could appear today. Especially because after the student uprising of 2019, I started seeing the same images of violent oppression visible during Pinochet’s rule. They were exactly the same, it was shocking! I could juxtapose the two, and the only difference would be that the modern ones were in color. Then, the plebiscite found place and the writing of the new constitution started, initiating a brilliant new time in Chilean history, which we are living in now. So, I started wondering how this movie can dialogue with this new setup. And actually, I see that all these different steps are contingencies, they were necessary to come to terms with our history. And my movie is one step in that direction. We must remember the past to understand what we are living nowadays in Chile.
(UM): So, how come you decided to shed a positive light on the church, which was one of the main allies of Pinochet? By this, I am referring to the figure of the priest who invites Carmen to take care of the young resistant, which he defines as a Christ, sacrificing himself for the community.
Manuela Martelli (MM): When I started doing some historical research, this decision came very spontaneously. For many people, the priests often represented a valuable help. For example, la Vicaría de la Solidaridad was, and still is, an important humanitarian organization for all those Chilean who had lost a member of their family due to the dictatorship. It was not my intention to praise the church, because their role in those years was problematic, but I also wanted to show the contradictions of those times. I don’t want to hide that those people, that were part of the church or higher classes, were privileged. They definitely had more chances to save themselves, so it was also easier for them to become politically active. Therefore, I also wanted to touch upon the guilt, and how much the privileged classes were brought to action because of guilt feelings.
(UM): 1976 reminded me of another movie that debuted a few months ago at the 72nd Berlinale, namely Call Jane by director Phillis Nagy. In both movies, the protagonist is a well-off housewife getting in touch with a revolutionary world, but only when called to absolve to her main social task as a caregiver. Have you ever thought of creating a female protagonist with a more mature political consciousness?
Manuela Martelli (MM): No, I think it would have been forced. I wanted to write a very organic story. I didn’t want to put my ideology in front of the life of a bourgeois woman of that period. I gave her realistic instruments to implement her political and personal changes. Otherwise, it would have been staged and felt ideological. I was inspired by many conversations I had with the women of that time, who did and did not take action in the resistance, but always kept their identity as housewives intact.
(UM): And what about the colors in the movie? They seem to have a strong symbolic meaning throughout the whole narration.
Manuela Martelli (MM): Also this was a very organic choice. At the beginning of the movie, there are all these cute pastel colors, which had to represent Carmen’s world. This “Colorito” is initially her deliberate stylistic choice. She expresses all her sensitivity through them, by choosing these delicate colors for her private domestic life. But then, she gets in touch with the outside, with violence and brutality, and after all, in the end, to paint her house, she picks this bloody color. So, in a certain way, her personal journey happens also through the colors. Her changes are reflected in those.
Note: A Persian version of this interview will appear in Independent Persian.