Left cinema from Chile via Paris

The Cinema of Raul Ruiz
Melbourne State Film Theatre
February 4-13
Reviewed by Choly Reyes

Raul Ruiz was forced to leave Chile amid the slaughter that followed the right-wing coup of 1973 against the left-wing government of Salvador Allende. Exiled in Paris, Ruiz developed a successful career as director and film maker.

The Australian Film Institute is preparing to tour a festival consisting of 20 of his films. Some of the highlights are Treasure Island, Ruiz's unique adaptation of Stevenson's classic, Of Great Events and Ordinary People and Three Crowns of a Sailor.

Of Great Events and Ordinary People is a 1978 work on the French presidential elections. Though commissioned by French television, it was never aired there. The roughly hour-long film begins as a series of street interviews, but proceeds to a sardonic self-examination of Ruiz's capability to ask questions in a country which is not his own.

While Ruiz doesn't strive for beauty, but a crude “verité”, Of Great Events and Ordinary People has a spontaneity flowing from its contact with ordinary citizens whose only common denominator is a hope for change in a society suffering serious problems of unemployment, homelessness and despair.

The festival opens in Melbourne on February 4 at the State Film Theatre. For more information call (03) 651 1611.

This article was posted on the Green Left Weekly Home Page.
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