Against Reason and by Force

1974

50min

This Mexican documentary explores the meaning and aftermath of the brief Marxist interlude during which Salvador Allende governed Chile. It was the Mexican film crew's good fortune that the cameras they worked with bore the magical number "13," which identified them incorrectly as belonging to the state-run television under the new dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. This mistaken identity enabled them to go places and interview people with great freedom, and they took complete advantage of it. The title of the documentary is a word-play satirizing the Chilean State Motto: Por la Razon or por la Fuerza (By Reason or By Force).