Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Machuca (2004) - Great personal investment and heart beats behind Wood's riveting coming-of-age drama

6/28/2019

Machuca (2004) - Great personal investment and heart beats behind Wood's riveting coming-of-age drama

♥♥♥♥♥

+ Best Big Flop Movie of the Year + Best Chilean Movie of the Year + Best Coming-of-Age Movie of the Year + Best Political Movie of the Year

The three excellent child actors in Andrés Wood's Machuca peak up from, for some reason, a piece of cardboard on this poster for the film

Gonzalo is a boy from the better part of the middle class in Santiago, Chile in 1973, when the situation in the country under its Socialist president Salvador Allende becomes so bad that the boy's private school takes in some students from poor backgrounds, - among them a new friend named Machuca.

Machuca is written by Mamoun Hassan (The Good Life/La Buena Vida (2008)), Roberto Brodsky (El Brindis (2007)), Eliseo Altunaga (Between Two Hurricanes/Entre Ciclones (2003)) and its great Chilean co-writer/co-producer/director Andrés Wood (Historias de Fútbol (1997)). It is a film that is auspicious for older children (age 12 and up) and adults alike.
The context is complicated and heated politically, but the core narrative of friendship in spite of outer circumstances, and of life as an 11 year-old, is simple and compelling. Gonzalo, Machuca and Silvana, the girlfriend of Gonzalo, are played with distinguished empathy by Matías Quer, Ariel Mateluna (The Magician/El Mago (2014)) and Manuela Martelli (My Last Round/Mi Último Round (2011)), and among the adult actors especially Ernesto Malbran (Sub Terra (2003)) as the idealistic Father McEnroe does a memorable job.
With very credible staging, the story builds tension steadily; SPOILER the audience member familiar with the period will be able to predict how the school and the boys' friendship will develop towards a very sad precipice.
Machuca powerfully shows the results of excessive political enmity and racism. It is an outstanding film.

Andrés Wood: 2004 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Watch a 3-minute clip from the film with English subtitles here

Cost: 1.7 mil. $
Box office: 3.1 mil. $
= Big flop (returned 1.82 times its cost)
[Machuca premiered 24 February (Switzerland) and runs 121 minutes. Wood rehearsed with the child amateur actors for 7 months prior to filming. Shooting took place in Santiago, Chile. Wood has stated that shooting took place only on sundays, - due to the small budget. The film opened #73 to a 4k $ first weekend in 1 theater in North America, where it peaked the following week at #67, never widened to more theaters and only grossed 26k $ (0.8 % of the total gross). Its biggest markets were production country 2.2 mil. $ (71 %), Spain with 338k $ (10.9 %) and the UK with 213k $ (6.9 %). The film was Chile's official Oscar entry of the year but went unnominated. It was nominated for a Goya award, among other honors. Wood returned with The Good Life/La Buena Vida (2008). Mateluna returned in La Vida Es una Lotería (2002, TV-series), JPT: Justicia para Todos (2004, TV-series) and theatrically in Pega Martín Pega! (2007); Martelli in Like a Crashed Plane/Como un Avión Estrellado (2005)). Machuca is fresh at 89 % with a 7.54/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Machuca?

No comments:

Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (15-24)

6/28/2019

Machuca (2004) - Great personal investment and heart beats behind Wood's riveting coming-of-age drama

No comments:

Post a Comment

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (14-24)

My Blog List