By Samuel Brodsky
Although not as widely recognized in the United States, the Chilean documentary filmmaker duo Bettina Perut (born in Italy) and Iván Osnovikoff have been making ethnographic, idiosyncratic portrayals of their country for over 20 years. They have played a key role in the revitalization of Chilean documentary since its boom in the early aughts, when they first released Martin Vargas from Chile / Chi-chi-chi-le-le-le, Martín Vargas de Chile (2001), followed by A Man Aside / Un hombre aparte (2003).
As early adopters of digital cameras and rejecting a moralist understanding of documentary as a form, the duo have committed themselves to a radical and provocative approach that is not afraid to explore a raw and crude version of Chile, with eccentric and tragic characters and abstract photography that recalibrates our understanding of the country.
From stray dogs, former boxing champions, to Santa Claus impersonators, Perut and Osnovikoff film their subjects with a playful and unflinching lens, using some of Chile’s most absurd and tragic characters as a platform to explore the underbelly of national identity. Combining the sensory with the materiality of landscape, nature, animals and humans, they observe the world from a fragmented glance. Their frames are extremely close and often fractured, perhaps even grotesque.
Some of their titles include Welcome to New York (2005), The Death of Pinochet (2011), Surire (2015), Los Reyes (2018). Their most recent film, La casa, premiered in Chilean cinemas in September; at under 70 minutes long, the film observes a newly renovated mansion and all that surrounds it: the dogs, the sprinklers, a colony of ants, the Roombas. Several WhatsApp voice memos recorded from different neighbors, the nanny, and the housekeepers mediate the wealthy condominium. Meanwhile, a vote for the new constitution takes place on the TV.
TropicalFRONT sat down with the filmmakers for a look back on their work in celebration of 20 years since the release of A Man Aside (2003), as well as the recent theatrical premiere of La casa (2023).
Surire (2015)
Okay, let's start at the beginning, shall we? I mean, how you met and when you decided to collaborate together. That is, before you made Martín Vargas from Chile. How was it that you met?
Bettina: Other way around, actually. We met as a result of making Martín Vargas from Chile. It was through Silvio Caiozzi, an amazing Chilean fiction filmmaker who we both knew. He was walking home from his office one day and heard the controversy about the return of Martín Vargas, this washed out boxer who wanted to return to the ring at 42 years old, and that there was this medical school who were against him returning. It occurred to Silvio Caiozzi to assemble a documentary crew to follow his return to glory and make something out of it. Iván had already worked with Silvio as a screenplay assistant.
David Bravo, who is the other director credited on the film, had been working as a cinematographer for several years already, and I knew Silvio because I had interviewed him for my thesis on Chilean documentary filmmaking since the 90s for university. So we met through this small crew that Silvio assembled of people he liked. He summoned this team and gave us all the freedom to start making the film. He gave us freedom to go to all the fights, to discover the story, and the character. It was during the production and the shooting that we discovered that we wanted it to be an observational film, to leave out the journalistic elements of the story, to make it a free and cinematographic film.
And so Iván and I realized through the months of making the film that we had a very common vision of the world. We didn’t like each other at first, but then we became great friends, and from there we decided to continue working together, independent of Silvio or Carlos.
And what was that vision of the world that you two shared? That common taste or sense of humor? Because I think it's present throughout your oeuvre.
Iván: It was through working with Martín Vargas as a subject that we realized we had a similar sensibility or approach to documentary filmmaking. Neither of us wanted to interview him in the traditional sense. We both wanted to approach him from an observational point of view. This vision was more cinematic, less documentalistic. The important thing for both of us was to make a good film, not just make any documentary or to abide by certain rules of documentary filmmaking. And that’s where Silvio helped us, because he wasn’t a documentary filmmaker—he made fiction films. So we both wanted an artistic style that we wanted to develop, which was to make a documentary more freely, and that kind of approach developed into the future.
B: The common vision also has to do with pushing the limits of documentary further. Pushing the character's limit further, and not having any moral limitations.
Martín Vargas (2001)
Moral limitations?
B: Not being afraid to show the ugly aspects of Martin Vargas, for example. The pathetic aspects. The other director on the film was much more conservative. We wanted to be radical.
So at what stage was documentary filmmaking in Chile at that time? Even before the early 2000’s, in the the 90s, was it more conventional, not as radical as you say?
I: People who had grown up in the 70s and 80s and were emerging out of the dictatorship only made documentaries about human rights issues, except for maybe Ignacio Agüero. There were very few films that addressed anything else, and we were some of the first to develop documentary films that did not directly refer to human rights issues.
So Martín Vargas from Chile and A Man Aside were made as acts of rebellion almost? Against the moralizing tone of Agüero or the overtly political tone of Patricio Guzmán?
B: Well, Guzmán and Agüero are very different. But yes, we were going against them, against the older generation, against a kind of “ethical” documentary. We wanted to create another cinema, and expand the field. And that older generation fought back against us, as well. Patricio Guzmán let us know through the media how he disagreed with our approach.
Right. So what was the reception, then, with those two films? Did anybody else criticize you for taking a more radical approach? Any backlash or claims you were ridiculing Martin Vargas or Ricardo Liaño [subject of A Man Aside]?
I: There was a controversy with A Man Aside, for sure. The film was seen as the abuse of a person. That we were exposing or capitalizing on the misery of a person. And that somehow Ricardo Liaño was also our accomplice in the making of the film. But it was clear that the old guard had problems with the film, and they claimed that we had signed a contract with Ricardo Liaño or something, which wasn’t true.
A Man Aside (2003)
A particular problem came when the film was in competition at a festival where Patricio Guzmán was on the jury, and Guzmán publicly claimed to a forum and to the rest of the jurors, that we had paid Ricardo Liaño. It was a misleading statement, and quite a heated discussion, and it came at a time in the early aughts when all these questions were being considered, to an almost absurd degree: whether it was “ethical” to rearrange the order of events in a documentary in the editing, whether it was “ethical” to change the original sound from the image…
B: And with regard to the controversy that was generated, we never intended and never made a portrait of Ricardo Liaño that was a mockery. We never made fun of him. He expressed his life, his situation and himself as a person. It was a metaphor for the human being, so to speak, a metaphor for the polarity of the human being, for the complexities of human beings and of life! Because human beings can be miserable, kind, tender, exuberant, beautiful, dirty, good, bad, all at the same time.
For us, Ricardo Liaño was very enriching as a person. We always had a commitment and an appreciation of him as a character, even though we were pushing the limits of his character, and his likability. Despite the fact that we can see the misery of this human being, there is also a commitment to him. It also has to do with our belief in the tragicomic, which we have been using as a particular stamp on our films, and our work in general.
Of course. And Ricardo has something kind of sensual and charismatic too. To me at least, that’s very important about the film. That even at his most miserable or undignified, Ricardo has something seductive about him—he’s quixotic, adventurous, full of ideas. I’d like to be more like him in some ways.
I: And the same thing happened to us too, when we were making the film! Of course, we thought: be careful with this guy. But at the same time he was very attractive and it was him who motivated us to make a film about him. I focused a lot on the negative earlier, but I want to say also that the younger generation were on our side with A Man Aside, too.
It’s interesting, the divide between the young guard and the old guard in Chile. It seems like a running theme in the country. Because ever since the 90s, during the Patricio Alywin years and on, Chile has been trying to reinvent itself after the horrible years of the dictatorship, and finding its own identity in democracy. And I can imagine that there were also people, especially in more official positions, who kind of opposed this uglier, “politically incorrect ” version of the Chilean identity that you presented.
I: For a long time it was very hard for us to receive public funding. Because there is this idea that documentaries have to contribute to some social good. So I think it has to do with an edifying conception of the role of movies in society, not just in Chile but in general. An inertia of discussions about the role of cinema, that it has to contribute to social progress in some way.
B: At the same time, I think all of our films have a different tone. And while yes, we do represent the national identity, and most of the characters in our films are all Chilean, we are also just responding to reality as we observe it, as we shoot it. It’s not like we decide, before shooting, what kind of Chile we want to portray, or that we want to show the idiosyncrasy of Chilean identity. We don’t think about it in this way.
Los Reyes (2018)
One thing that I was surprised to see in La casa was to see the name Maite Alberti in the Executive Producer credits. How did you get her involved? And it seems to me like a surprising collaboration, since her films show the goodness of human beings, told within very intimate settings.
I: We’ve been friends with Maite for a long time. She also had a producer credit on Los Reyes. She had seen Surire and wanted to help on our next film. She was present in the initial funding for La casa.
B: But you’re right, that we do things that are very different from Maite’s films. We have a different point of view from her, but it doesn’t mean we disagree.
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You didn’t disagree on an aesthetic level?
B: I think she knows our movies very well. Every time we finish a film we have a group of people to whom we show our first fine cut, and they always contribute a lot. And Maite forms part of that group.
I: On the other hand, cinematographic diversity is very important to us, especially in the documentary genre, and in Chile we have been part of that process of growth that goes from the 2000s to now, which has been enormous. Sure, we still have different critical views on certain movies with Maite, but the important part is that there is space for both us and Maite to exist.
When the social outbreak (estallido social) broke out and the subsequent convention for a new constitution in Chile was formed, I asked myself how Bettina and Iván would film this moment or era of Chile. La casa seems to be an answer. And I wonder, since we're on that, if you feel that Chile has become more difficult to be an artist in. If you feel like there is a problem with freedom of expression.
I: I think there was a climate in which one could have been afraid to say what they believed, if it went against what the political climate seemed to accept. But again, at one point in the early 2000s you could have asked yourself the same question that you asked us now. And what is this one doing? Was it clear or was it a climate of opinion that finally went from being as if we also asked him. We asked ourselves that question and somehow the political layer that La Casa has is an attempt to bring that question into play. In fact, there were people who told us: hey, be careful, because this could cost you. We had someone at a test screening tell us: be careful, because outside they are saying that Chileans are imbeciles.
La casa (2023)
B: It’s a film that shows other voices. We live in a condominium where mainly those are the positions and viewpoints that exist. We are showing a different reality that particularly in documentary films is not portrayed much. And those other voices in the film ended up being, in large part, the vote that took place on September 4th on the Constitution [the vote to reject the new Constitution]. A large part of the country skewed that way. Sure, there's also a kind of sarcasm on our part. Not only are we showing that more conservative and fearful reality, but we are also winking towards the audience.
There are several nods in the film, for example, when we hear a woman talk about how the new Constitution is intended to exalt and give more relevance to nature and the earth, and we cut to the little bird that has its offspring. But there is also our point of view about the voices that speak, which are more right-wing voices. But we hope that the film shows that other side in a way that is new or interesting.
We are not filmmakers who are going to go out and shoot the protests, the carabineros, the social outbreak. Or make a documentary with archival footage. And returning to the topic of European festivals in the United States, we also believe that there is a great lack of knowledge of the reality of channel-type channels. Films are shown there and they take filmmakers who, due to their distance or because of their own desires or ignorance, show a vision that is somewhat biased about what is happening in Chile. So I would like to indicate that as well.
I: For us it was important to stick to ambiguity. It’s not a propaganda film to convince you to vote to reject the constitution, but it also only shows one viewpoint. I mean, there's a lot of voices and these voices comment on themselves. They expose themselves, so to speak. For example, when we show the film here in Chile a ton of people are laughing. It’s something that works as a comedy between us, it works much more than we thought as funny. A lot of things that we thought of as more provocative eventually ended up being really funny. So, a lot of those delirious sentiments kind of auto-comment on themselves. On the other hand, we always worry that we are also relativizing these opinions.
How have things changed for you two in the support of your filmmaking? Do you feel supported by Chile and feel like your documentaries have gotten all the attention they deserve?
B: Of course we feel very validated and recognized within Chile. I don't know if it’s the new generations, or if it’s critics, but a lot of our movies are shown at universities, a lot of young people now reach out to us for interviews. But in the beginning it was much more difficult, it was much more difficult to obtain funding and we had a hard time expressing the idea we wanted to make. We wrote a lot of grant applications and so on, but we couldn't understand that deep down you have to know how to apply for those and you have to know that there is a jury in charge, which often doesn't even have anything to do with the audiovisual. And you had to have something written in an understandable way, in a more journalistic way.
Now, the national scene has changed, there are a lot more grants, there are no longer those prejudices on the part of the juries, the Chilean cinema has grown and is now part of the public debate. There are many documentary filmmakers who are internationally recognized and who have a unique audience for documentaries, something that didn't exist before or there was very little. So the national scene has changed a lot.
