Le cas Pinochet

In September 1998, the Chilean senator for life and dictator in rest Augusto Pinochet visited London. A pain in his back took him into the hospital. He had barely awoken from the anaesthetic when he was arrested by Scotland Yard on suspicion of violating the UN convention on torture, terror and genocide.Since 1973, the year of Pinochet’s bloody coup against President Salvador Allende, Chilean citizens have collected thousands of files about arbitrary arrests, torture, disappearances and executions. However, the archives have not freed any prisoners, brought any murderers to justice and nor have they helped find one single `missing person’. Not even when the dictatorship ended in 1989 and Chilean courts again formally became independent. In Le cas Pinochet, Patricio Guzmán follows events after Pinochet’s arrest. The question whether justice will be done if Pinochet is brought to justice, gives the film the dynamism of a legal thriller. Guzmán juxtaposes the progress of the legal battle with several bloodcurdling testimonies by victims of the terror, for whom the Pinochet case means recognition of their suffering and helps them start to recover their selfesteem.