The Battle of Chile: Part III

The 1979 closing part of Patricio Guzmán's trilogy reverses the direction of the first two films: where those followed the road to the coup, this one is about the ordinary people trying to hold the Allende government up. Answering a strike by employers and middle-class employees, workers occupy their factories and try to run them themselves; thousands of cordones industriales, workers' councils, are formed, alongside popular supply committees, land occupations and neighbourhood assemblies. The film's strength is showing this organising with enthusiasm and without illusion at once. Long conversations with workers include their arguments with each other and what they failed to achieve. Guzmán has an explicit political side and does not hide it; the documentary is best read not as a neutral record but as a defeated movement's archive in its own voice. Who it's for: viewers interested in Chilean history, the tradition of political documentary and accounts of workers' organising. Who it's not for: those expecting neutrality, or anyone starting here without having seen the first two parts.