Before night falls.(Machuca)(Movie Review)

Nation, The, January, 2005 by Klawans, Stuart

The Chilean coup of 1973 was carried out with a Lone Ranger comic book, a bicycle and several cans of condensed milk. Other equipment, including rifles, also figured in the event; but according to Andres Wood's surprising new feature film, Machuca, the military hardware remained mostly on the outskirts of consciousness.

It seems the condensed milk played its major role during the run-up to the coup. Silvana, a wild girl of the shantytowns, used to extort this treat from 11-year-old Gonzalo, a chubby, piglet-nosed rich boy whom she repaid with her lactose-sweetened kisses. The bicycle was Gonzalo's means of getting to her: pedaling from his fancy neighborhood in Santiago to Silvana's tumbledown district beside the Mapocho River. Once there, he could hang out...

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