But the seaside town’s local priest has other plans for her, and soon Carmen is tending to the gunshot wound of a young political rebel named Elías.

Before her family arrives, she drives to the house with their live-in maid to oversee the work. As in some of the best psychological thrillers, a limited point-of-view brings us closer to the mindset of a main character in crisis, and the filmmakers of “Chile ‘76” make the most of this technique, even if they don’t stick to it completely (as few films can).Ĭarmen is an elegant, well-to-do grandmother - surely one of the chicest we’ve seen in cinema in recent years - and the pink paint she buys is for the interior of her summer house, which is being renovated and where her husband, children, and grandchildren will be heading during the winter weekends. We never see what happens on the street, as the filmmakers don’t cut to it, confirming that much of what we’re about to witness is from a singular perspective (Carmen’s). The movie immerses the viewer in an anxious atmosphere - and announces its formal qualities through its expressive use of color, sound, and framing - in the first scene: lead character Carmen is in a hardware shop trying to get the paint-mixing attendant to match a certain Venetian shade of pink when outside a woman screams as she’s taken away by government forces. In terms of impact, though, one might never see the color in the same way after watching “Chile ’76.” Referenced in the movie’s mise-en-scène (wall color, cake frosting, etc.), via light filters, and even the title sequence, myriad tones of pink denote danger, uncertainty, and vulnerability, conditions that match its depiction of Chile after Pinochet’s coup. As a color, pink has been hot for several years now, from the so-called millennial pink of a few years ago to the “Barbie” pink of the upcoming movie.

A Watched Pot by Mr. Blue