Santiago, capital of Chile during the Marxist government of elected, highly controversial president Salvador Allende. Father McEnroe supports his leftist views by introducing a program at the prestigious "collegio" (Catholic prep school) St. Patrick to allow free admission of some proletarian kids. One of them is Pedro Machuca, slum-raised son of the cleaning lady in Gonzalo Infante's liberal-bourgeois home. Yet the new classmates become buddies, paradoxically protesting together as Gonzalo gets adopted by Pedro's slum family and gang. But the adults spoil that too, not in the least when general Pinochet's coup ousts Allende, and supporters such as McEnroe.
Direction
Wood's unflinching child's-eye view of political horror.
Acting
The two leads carry crushing weight with zero artifice.
Cinematography
Wealthy softness vs. slum grain—visual class warfare.
Director
Andrés Wood
Matías Quer
Gonzalo Infante
Ariel Mateluna
Pedro Machuca
Aline Küppenheim
María Luisa
Federico Luppi
Roberto
Manuela Martelli
Silvana
Tamara Acosta
Juana
Francisco Reyes
Patricio Infante
Alejandro Trejo
Willy
María Olga Matte
Miss Gilda
Gabriela Medina
Lucy
Luis Dubó
Ismael Machuca
Andrea García-Huidobro
Isabel
Tiago Correa
Pablo
Alejandro Goic
Father Robles
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Wood, who attended St. Patrick's himself, based Gonzalo loosely on his own privileged childhood—making this an act of generational guilt.
The real 1973 coup footage blended with fiction was so precise that survivors initially thought Wood had unearthed lost archives.
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