Framing ruins: Patricio Guzmán's postdictatorial documentaries

The representations of ruins in three of Patricio Guzmán's postdictatorial documentaries-Chile, la memoria obstinata (1997), La isla de Robinson Crusoe (1999), and El caso Pinochet (2001)-can be seen as allegories of different aspects of Chilean history: the defeat of Allende's democratic alliance, the end of the Pinochet regime, and the challenges of social reconciliation in contemporary Chile. Guzmán's strategy of screening architectonic ruins evokes the ruin of the socialist and dictatorial regimes in Chile. The filmmaker also presents a second image of ruin that evokes the ruin of the screen and, in this way, confronts viewers with the limits of representation, language, reconciliation, and testimony.