1976 (2023)

Set in Chile in (unsurprisingly) 1976, Manuela Martelli's drama-thriller focuses on Carmen (a wonderful performance from Aline Küppenheim, a wealthy and elegant woman who's drawn into Chile's anti-Pinochet resistance. As the film begins Carmen is deciding on a colour shade to paint the main room of her holiday home right by the beach, and while she is lecturing the contractor a shout is heard from outside; someone is being taken away by the secret police, to which the response by all at the scene is to turn away and deny, or at the very least ignore what is happening. This in a nutshell is what makes 1976 so effective, the threat is never directly seen, indeed this opening exchange is the closest we come to any real visual confirmation of the dictatorship's presence, but it hangs over proceedings like an ominous cloud. At the holiday home Carmen has befriended a local priest who, after finding out that Carmen used to be in the Red Cross, asks for her help in seeing to a young guest of his who has a bullet wound in his leg. As she gets to know the young man it becomes obvious the bullet wound is a result of resistance fighting, and begins to help in her own way. The sense of terror amongst the characters generally isn't palpable, but the threat is very real, and in the few sequences where Carmen begins to do odd jobs for the resistance, the life and death threat becomes pronounced. 1976 is a very impressive and engrossing piece of work, and is currently streaming on BFI Player. 7.7/10