It’s a unique experience watching a movie about your country when you are abroad. It’s even more unique when that experience is about how Chilenity was built. On Tuesday, Sept. 10, I watched the Chilean movie “The Settlers” (Gálvez, 2023) at the Campus Theatre. 

Tierra del Fuego. Three horsemen. A British soldier, an American mercenary and the Chilean, el mestizo, are hired by the landowner José Menéndez to clear the path between both Oceans, which meant killing the indigenous people known as the Onas, or Selknam. 

Fiction is a productive way to face reality. This statement is confirmed by this remarkable bilingual (Spanish and English) movie, which got prizes in platforms such as Cannes (prize conceded by the International Federation of Film Critics), the LimaFilm Festival (Best Screenplay), in 2023 and the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights (Fiction Grand Award) in 2024.

Before the movie screening, Professor D. Bret Leraul hosted an insightful Q&A session with Felipe Gálvez, the film director. At the end of this conversation, Gálvez said: “I can’t tell you to enjoy the film, but enjoy the journey.” I hope you can also join me in this brief reflection about how law and arts operate in the construction of the Chilean nation in Latin America. 

In 1901, laws promoted by the Chilean State did not reach the extreme south and landowners were the leaders in a “lawless” land. What were the consequences of this? What other strategies were used by politicians and intellectuals to build a nation like Chile? Were there resistance and rebellion? These are some of the questions suggested by this movie.

Private investors in Tierra del Fuego viewed the indigenous population as a nuisance, which is depicted by the movie. Its fundamental scene is when McLennan, the British lieutenant and Bill, the American mercenary, slaughter an Onas family in a foggy moor. Santiago, the Chilean mestizo, had doubts. Hidden, he points to McLennan but does not shoot. Is he able to do something other than killing the indigenous? Does this character have the capacity to stop the atrocities committed by the settlers? 

In this movie the settlers yell, but the Chileans murmur. Santiago, the Chilean, has a remarkable angry monologue staring at the firepit which recalls the moral taught by the church and the proscription of any crime. Both McLennan and Bill ignore the content of what he said and tell Santiago he has no right to speak. This reminder is necessary because Santiago is not like the other Chileans: he knows how to speak English and he knows how to shoot. Those tools protect him at the same time as they mark a difference from the rest of the inhabitants of the region. However, he has no money. He says the only reward he wants for his participation in that cruel expedition is a horse. He will get more than that.

Ten years later, in 1910, José Menéndez came back into the film. His family is visited by Manuel Vicuña, an intellectual from Santiago who wants to recover the story that occurred years ago: the expedition led by McLennan. At this moment we – the viewers – realize the most violent scene was not depicted: the ocean becoming red with indigenous blood. However, the Chilean landscapes, perfectly portrayed by the movie – as well as Santiago and his wife – were the only witnesses of that big massacre. The intellectual wants to rebuild the facts. He wants to tell that story in Santiago. How? Why? What is the purpose? Who will be the heroes and villains of this movie and in the movie which Vicuña is filming now? 

The Latin American nations were built under norms and representations, a strategy Gálvez knows perfectly, or by the norms contained in representations. At the very end of the movie, in 1910, Santiago and his wife, Rosa, are “kindly” invited to integrate a rising Chilean nation. That year the whole country was celebrating a century as an “independent country.” Vicuña dresses Santiago and Rosa “as Chilean people” and starts to record a short film destined to be exhibited during the celebrations. In the film, Santiago does what he is told, but Rosa disobeys. “Do you want to be part of this nation or not, Rosa?” Vicuña yells. Rosa understands what was not possible through law will be pursued by moving images. The final foreground on Rosa’s face seems to be saying more than any speech about rebellion or freedom. 

I finished writing this article on Sept. 18, a day that traditionally has been celebrated as “Fiestas Patrias” in my country, Chile, the celebration of the National “Independence.” What truly happened that day – something that nowadays every Chilean knows – was the colonial hierarchies were replaced but did not disappear.