My Imaginary Country

My Imaginary Country documents a new kind of grassroots protest, one in which every participant is also a citizen journalist; in which police and army atrocities are captured by a hundred phone cameras.

It is a frozen image of a point in time; a graceful snapshot of change in motion.

All the ingredients here are invaluable, and the film’s vision comes alive with a real sense of hope about the soul of Chile and its thirst for change that’s palpable, not imaginary.

You can feel how awed Guzmán is by these young people – chiefly, in fact, young women – and the vast populist force they summoned up.

Testament to his curiosity as a storyteller, as Guzmán investigates the macro issues, he also pays close attention to details that may seem irrelevant, but that expand our understanding of how this breaking point injected renewed hope into the citizenry.

While this is a first-person documentary, with the director providing voice-over narration, it expresses a poignant humility and a patient willingness to listen.

Invigorating insights into a nation at a crossroads

It’s not his [Patricio Guzmán] most ambitious or poetic film, but it represents an old campaigner’s tribute to his young successors.

Guzmán doesn’t need to hunt for symbolism as the protesters are often supplying their own.

The trouble with making documentaries about current events is that things can go topsy-turvy overnight...And, sadly, Guzmán has once again only seen what he wanted to see.