Several factors influence voluntary immigration, more commonly for economic reasons and looking for a better way of life, however migrant refugees face other motivations, leaving their homes to escape violence or even death (Sachleben, 2014, p. 152).  I emigrated to Australia from Chile, looking for a better quality of life and different opportunities.  However, this was not the same for many of my compatriots who fled Chile in fear or imprisonment, torture and death due to their political views.  The repercussion of the 1973 coup d’état during the Pinochet dictatorship was for many Chileans to seek asylum in other countries, especially members and supporters of the Popular Unity government which was democratically elected but overthrown by Pinochet and the military. (Simalchik, 2006, p. 95) This forced many Chileans into exile.

Exile has been used a tool of political punishment, excluding people from their own place, community and roots.  Manguel notes this sense of exclusion, “History, through the shifting of viewpoints, may be forgiving; the exile is relentless in his accusation because his memory never changes.” (Simalchik, 2006, p. 97).  This is similar to the experience of Patricio Guzman, a recognised Chilean documentary filmmaker, who was exiled from Chile to Europe taking his precious film reels to escape persecution from Pinochet’s regimen (Guest 2020, para. 1).  As much of his footage documented the violent acts leading to the military coup, he was helped to smuggle the films by Swedish diplomats (Simalchik, 2006, p.100).  In his most recent film, The Cordillera of Dreams (2019), Guzman explains that he cannot recognise the Chile that he left in 1973, although the Cordillera reminds him of his childhood and also that it has been the witness to Chile’s past.  In the film, Guzman juxtaposes his experience with that of Pablo Salas, another Chilean film documenter that shares a similar history of filming the political unrest in Chile, however he never fled his country despite the great risk he was under.  We can sense the admiration Guzman has for Salas who remained in Chile and continued to film as well as value of the archival footage in maintaining the history and memory of the country.  Fuentealba notes the similarities between Salas’ archival footage and the recent large scale protests in Chile, where military and police used excessive force, including tanks, tear gas and rubber bullets (2020, para. 8).  For Guzman in exile and for those part of the protests, this is a painful reminder of the past they wish to overcome, “My wish is that Chile recovers its childhood and its joy” (Guzman, 2019).

References

Guest, H. 2020, ‘Patricio Guzman’s Chile trilogy”, Harvard film archive, 29 February, viewed 20 September 2020. <https://harvardfilmarchive.org/programs/patricio-guzmans-chile-trilogy>

Fuentealba, P. 2020, ‘When Chile’s Past Blurs with its Present’, Americas quarterly, 13 January, viewed 20 September 2020 < https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/when-chiles-past-blurs-with-its-present/>

Sachleben, M. 2014. World politics on screen : understanding international relations through popular culture. University Press of Kentucky.

Simalchik, J. 2006 “The Material Culture of Chilean Exile: A Transnational Dialogue”, Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees, 23(2), pp. 95-105. doi: 10.25071/1920-7336.21358.

The Cordillera of dreams 2019, Icarus films, Brooklyn, NY directed by Patricio Guzman.