The film, Missing directed by Costa-Gavras, brings to life the paranoia and suspense that resonated from the Chilean military coup d’état in 1973. Through its interpretation of the dramatic overthrow, the film brings forth the darker themes of the era such as the mistreatment of the public, the intricate web of information having to do with the American involvement, and the information withheld by the authorities about missing persons. A coup d’état, in definition, is construed as a sudden overthrow of a pre-existing governmental structure usually instigated by a small group with some form of support from the military. The execution of the coup itself is well represented as a rapid overturn of political power with the aid of the military. …show more content…
Missing does well to shine a light on the civil rights, or lack thereof, of the Chilean people. The population was faced with a brutal reality of a threateningly heavy military presence in their lives. During many cases throughout the movie, the aggressive military took centre stage and stood as a symbol for the unseen horrors that were taking place at the time. On many accounts, the movie featured the unfair and cruel treatment of the public at the hands of the soldiery, painting it in an almost villainess or antagonistic perspective. From the harassment of women in the streets to the suppression of free speech in the numerous book burnings, the movie decisively showcased the actuality of the Chilean people in a way that put audiences at edge with the sense of nonchalance that was used as a tool for building tension. A particular example of this strategic placement can also be seen during the second half of the movie: when the sickening brutality of the regime begins to show in the amount of corpses that begin to pile up in hospitals, morgues and sometimes on the streets. During the length of the film, the two main characters must also watch their every step in their desperate search to ensure that the army has no reason to arrest them, being as they are American citizens. This reflects the notion of the opposite occurring; the army does in fact make arrests of Chileans nationals …show more content…
Missing focused more on the personal journey of the two main characters without providing a great deal of outright context on the events preceding the actual story. However, the appearance of the military on screen continuously brought up the notion that the government had all of the control. Even more, the strategic looming presence of the soldiers throughout the film only added to the suspense and raised the stakes of the search being conducted by the two protagonists. The presence of the armed forces is a basic characteristic of a coup and essentially goes hand-in-hand with total autocratic government. Therefore, without making it blaringly obvious, the movie allows audiences to infer the governmental status of Chile without any need for a great detail of prior background
Alfredo Corchado — is the author of the book named " Midnight in Mexico:A Reporter's Journey through a Country's Descent into Darkness”. We are, probably, all interested in finding out the facts, news, and gossips about Mexico. This country was always associated with something mysterious. For me personally, the title of the book seemed to be very gripping, I was interested in revealing the secrets of life in Mexico, thus I decided to read this book. I was really curious, what can Alfredo Corchado tell me about the life in this country, the country, where the constant massacre is the picture, people used to see. In his book, the author tells the reader about the real situations, which took place in Mexico, reveals the secrets of the people’s lives and tells the story from the “inside”. He describes the way he lives his life, and does his work. The " Midnight in Mexico: A Reporter's Journey through a Country's Descent into Darkness” is a memoir. Author tries to transform his own experience into the story line. Corchado shows the reader the darkest episodes of Mexican society, while relying on his own experience.
While U.S. government hostility to the Allende regime is not doubted, the U.S. role in the coup itself remains a controversial matter. Documents show that the CIA had wanted the overthrow of Allende in 1970, immediately after he took office. The CIA was notified by contacts of the impending Chilean coup lead by General Augusto Pinochet two days in advance. Immediately after the Allende government came into office, the U.S. sought to place economic pressure on Chile. U.S. National Security Council documents stated that pressure should be placed on the Allende government to prevent its success and limit its ability to create policies against the U.
Poor Kids is a documentary that highlights a major issue the United States is suffering from. This issue is known as poverty, more specifically, childhood poverty. This documentary views the world through the eyes of children that are subjected to lives of poverty due to the poor financial state that their parents are in. Life is very rough for these children and they must live their everyday lives with little to none of the luxuries most people take for granted. Poor Kids sheds light on the painful fact that there are children that starve every day in the United States.
History usually forces itself into the present in Juan Jose Campanella’s film “El Secreto De Sus Ojos” (The Secret in Their Eyes). Although it was filmed in 2009, the story is an attempted memorization of the violent reality in 1970-1980s Argentina, an era in which the country was rapidly sinking into military rule-ship. Campanella offers flashbacks into Argentina’s dark days, a period where violence homicide, rape and injustices ruled. Through memory, the film narrate a era in which it was impossible to be an innocent person as the innocents were falsely accused, tortured and even murdered for crimes they never committed, all these for the whims of those in power. Even though, the film is set in the 1970s, it does not call immediate attention to the animosity, the hopeless feeling and the constant struggle between the desire to forget vs. the attempts to remember the chaos and confusion of these years. However, through the use of memory Campanella allow the views to portray an almost perfect picture of what happened in Argentina.
To begin, Romano, Benjamín’s rival symbolizes the corruption present within the Argentinean judicial system. In attempting to quickly close Liliana Coloto’s case, he frames two innocent laborers and orders that they be beaten (Campanella, The Secret in Their Eyes). Romano believes himself above the law and perpetuates a cycle of injustice and violence throughout the film. S...
Major turning points in history such as the overthrow of a country’s government, political violence, guerrilla movements and civil wars, bloody revolutions, brutal dictatorships, domestic violence, criminal violence, physical and sexual abuse and psychological damage are all well known throughout history and they serve as a common theme in literary works of the time period. This is especially true of Isabel Allende, in which the true event of the overthrowing of the Chilean government by the military is an important aspect of the plot in her novels. The aim of the paper is to analyse Isabel Allende’s Of Love and Shadows as a story reading in between the shadows of violence and the gentleness of love by mixing politics and love and demonstrating
The setting in ALIVE gave you a real sense of how terrible it was for the Andes
"Fed Up (Soechtig, 2014)." narrated by Katie Couric, focuses on the growing link between sugar consumption and the obesity epidemic. The film aggressively attacks the food industry, advertising, and the government who, it claims, all contribute to the U.S. sugar-dependent, obesity problem. The film sets out to prove the government, and food industry is knowingly causing an increase in the amount of obese children. It reserves its most critical comments for government advisory panels who make and enforce food and health policy, and its failure to properly regulate the food industry. They claim lobbyists for the sugar board have been instrumental in the removal of negative statistics from research papers worldwide. Instead
...f that Ricardo and his town are the superior heroes in the story. The crowd’s lack of ostentation characterizes them as a humble dwellers living in an unpretentious town. Through positive reinforcement, the crowd, with the help of the policeman, urges Ricardo to continue to oppose the invading photographer and his hive of cohorts.
In the story the main character, Juan, stresses about a letter he sent to a lady that can get him in serious trouble with the government involving death as a punishment.This piece of evidence shows the lack of care the government gives to their community. Another piece of evidence that shows the lack of freedom/privacy is that every letter sent in their system has to be examined carefully. In other words, it shows that they have no rights to send personal letters to someone else which is important to the idea of freedom, or the lack of it. This also gives the reader a hint that maybe they take this job seriously for hiding their secrets or making sure no one goes against the government
Between the years of 1976 to 1983, the period known as the ‘Dirty War’ was in full force in Argentina. During this period, thousands of people mysteriously went missing, and are referred to now as the ‘Disappeared’. It is believed that many of the disappeared were taken by agents of the Argentine government, and perhaps tortured and killed before their bodies were disposed of in unmarked graves or rural areas. Whenever the female captives were pregnant, their children were stolen away right after giving birth, while they themselves remained detained. It is estimated that 500 young children and infants were given to families with close ties to the military to be raised. Within this essay I would like to touch on the brief history of the Dirty war and why the military felt it was necessary to take and kill thousands of Argentina’s, and also the devastating affects the disappeared, and stolen children are having on living relatives of those taken or killed. It is hard to imagine something like this happening in North America relatively recently. To wakeup and have members of your family missing, with no explanation, or to one day be told your parents are not biologically related is something Argentina’s had to deal with, and are continuing to face even today.
...all want to believe that the crime was truly “foretold”, and that nothing could have been done to change that, each one of the characters share in a part of Santiago Nasar’s death. Gabriel Garcia Marquez writes about the true selfishness and ignorance that people have today. Everyone waits for someone else to step in and take the lead so something dreadful can be prevented or stopped. What people still do not notice is that if everyone was to stand back and wait for others, who is going to be the one who decides to do something? People don’t care who gets hurt, as long as it’s not themselves, like Angela Vicario, while other try to reassure themselves by thinking that they did all that they could, like Colonel Lazaro Aponte and Clotilde Armenta. And finally, some people try to fight for something necessary, but lose track of what they set out for in the first place.
The movie I decided to analyze for this course was American History X (1998), which stars Edward Norton. Though this movie isn’t widely known, it is one of the more interesting movies I have seen. It’s probably one of the best films that depict the Neo Nazi plague on American culture. The film takes place from the mid to late 1990’s during the Internet boom, and touches on subjects from affirmative action to Rodney King. One of the highlights of this movie that really relates to one of the key aspects of this course is the deterrence of capital punishment. Edward Norton’s portrayal as the grief stricken older brother who turns to racist ideologies and violence to cope with his fathers death, completely disregards the consequences of his actions as he brutally murders someone in front of his family for trying to steal his car. The unstable mentality that he developed after his father’s death really goes hand-to-hand specifically with Isaac Ehrlich’s study of capital punishment and deterrence. Although this movie is entirely fictional, a lot of the central themes (racism, crime punishment, gang pervasiveness, and one’s own vulnerability) are accurate representations of the very problems that essentially afflict us as a society.
As a fan of cinema, I was excited to do this project on what I had remembered as a touching portrait on racism in our modern society. Writer/Director Paul Haggis deliberately depicts his characters in Crash within the context of many typical ethnic stereotypes that exist in our world today -- a "gangbanger" Latino with a shaved head and tattoos, an upper-class white woman who is discomforted by the sight of two young Black kids, and so on -- and causes them to rethink their own prejudices during their "crash moment" when they realize the racism that exists within themselves.
The entire movie is bursting with counter narratives, when the audience believes they hold an accurate grasp on what is truly happening, there is a misguiding event, as the storyline is continually challenged. The viewer’s beginning formations about what is going on are learned to be always questionable because what is repeatedly steered to trust and is revealed not be the truth in the conclusion of the film. This neo-noir film had multiple scenarios that make the previous actions untrustworthy to the actual message. This proves that all the observations and thoughts the viewer possesses are only relevant to what they are exposed to and shown and not to what is, in fact, happening.