The second film in Patricio Guzman's The Battle of Chile trilogy is The Coup d'Etat (1976). Part two does not pick up immediately after part one--it more or less runs parallel at times. It follows the steps leading from government disunity and an initial coup (that failed) to the successful coup only a short time later. From there it builds up the tragic story of the Allende lead "Marxist" party, telling us who plotted against them and why, all set behind the backdrop of mass public support, which was eventually quashed by the right-wing terrorists. The film has to be admired also for publicly stating that the CIA helped the bourgeoisie elites and military government (lead by General Augustus Pinochet-a legacy of Henry Kissinger's foreign policy during the Nixon administration) eventually kill close to 30,000 people. Furthermore, this film had to be smuggled out of Chile and edited it by the film makers as exiles. It makes me wonder if anything could have been done to prevent the coup d'etat, but probably not with all the American support and money behind it. Just other example of the devastating effects of American intervention in foreign countries, which continues today in Afghanistan and Iraq among others.
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