Machuca

This is a Chilean film from 2004 by this guy. It's centres around the lives of 2 children from different sides of society: the wealthy, the poor. I don't know the political history of Chile throughout the late 60s and early 70s so I can't comment how accurate that was. Apparently under this socialist government a priest allowed some less-fortunate people into the English school to study.

The acting never really daunted on me at the time. I never questioned its authenticity. After watching it I felt it very similiar to Au Reviour, Les Enfants -- probably because the acting from children was great in both, and they're both about children in a Catholic school with priests. But this wasn't in Nazi-occupied France but Socialist-occupied Chile, or so the right-wingers would have you believe they're one and the same thing. Aside from the political history that's portrayed and the film trying to provoke political allegiance from its viewers it concentrates more on the children and their innocence, something that ARLE also did but in a convincing way.

What I mean by "convincing" is that it allows you to ignore it as a film that's forcing you to get all sentimental and emotional about a political history that means nothing to non-Chileans by taking away specifics and orchestrating it into an insightful film about those affected. How 2 children living opposite lives have more humanity within them than any political movement or group. I again want to emphasise how it seemed void of clichéd slow-motion obligatory instrumental sob music. So, unlike a lot of political films, it's more about the people than the politics -- the former being something I think are forgotten about in films.