Paseo Ahumada Sequence

Many sequences in Chile: la memoria obstinada confront temporalities in provocative ways. Professor Ernesto Malbrán, who appeared in La batalla, reflects throughout the film on the nature of memory and argues that the dictatorship was not a definitive defeat for the left, but rather a temporary one. In another sequence, a youth band marches through the Paseo Ahumada, a commercial, pedestrian thoroughfare that symbolized Pinochet’s economic reforms of the 1980s, and plays “Venceremos” (“We shall Overcome”), the anthem of Popular Unity. Bystanders look on, stunned. Some applaud the gesture, while others clearly watch with disdain. As a final example—the list could go on an on—Guzmán returns to the National Stadium where he was detained in 1973;
Ruins—material objects from another time—give rise to the film. The opening sequence confronts the viewer with several of these: a presidential sash, Allende’s official Socialist Party identification card, and an eyeglass case bearing the initials S.A.G. (Salvador Allende Gossens). All of these objects serve as material touch points, in almost Proustian fashion, for Guzmán’s homage to his political father: Allende. As the film progresses, however, we come to understand that what we assume will be a reflection on Allende’s life and legacy, turns out to be, first and foremost, a film about Guzmán: “Salvador Allende,” he says toward the beginning of the film, “marked my life. I would not be who I am if he had not embodied the utopia of a freer, more just world that seized my country in those times [1970–1973]. I was there, an actor and a filmmaker. . . . Detained in the National Stadium, subjected to the machinery of forgetfulness that was being put into motion, only one desire motivated me: to save the reels of La batalla de Chile that contained the proof of the waking dream we lived with Allende.” (Fig .
Yet final word we hear Millán speak is “Venceremos”: an ambiguous signifier within the semiotic web the film weaves. It both cites another (unrecoverable) time, but also acts as a call to arms, despite the odds. Cautiously optimistic, though melancholically so, it brings to mind John Beverley’s observation that revolution in Latin America “did not fail because of its internal contradictions—although there were many—nor was it condemned to defeat from the start; it was defeated by what turned out to be, in the end a stronger, more ruthless