La Colonia Penal

The way that the Chilean people speaks, like 'going for the branches' or changing the subject from nowhere, is, according to Raúl Ruiz, a clear example of a critic to the realistic representation, understood like a interested construction maintained by the economic power throughout the twentieth century. Of course, this critic has no relation with political parties or politics itselfs, but it comes from the instinct, something like the manifestation of the critical essence of the chilean people.

Over this premise is created La Colonia Penal (The Penal Colony), a 1970 chilean film directed by Raúl Ruiz and named as a rare case of chilean surrealism. Based on a Kafka story, show the travel of a journalist to a caribbean island, old penal colony recently made independent, that has decided maintained his economy over the sell of news. For this purpose, all the habitants of the island are dressed like soldiers  performing fake tortures.

A real crazy. The protagonist of this film is a real journalist and the dictator of the island is the classic Luis Alarcón.

And this is not more called surrealism. A new group of theorists baptized it as 'realism in trance' or 'socialist realism'. But that goes for another post...




Here is the full movie online: