What is the plot?

What is the plot? The film tells the story of the escape of 49 political prisoners from Chile's public prison in 1990, after two years of planning and excavation of a tunnel by a group of prisoners, of communist ideology, who had been accused of terrorism and some sentenced to death by the Pinochet dictatorship. The film tells us everything the political prisoners had to do to escape from prison. That escape still remains the largest in that country.

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It is a prison drama, an escape film from a prison, something that has become a sub-genre exploited countless times. Inspired by real events, it is a dramatization of what happened in real. life.

The real escape occurred on January 29, 1990, organized by members of a revolutionary front and the Chilean Communist Party, who received outside help from family members and other members of those political movements.

I must confess that I found it difficult to feel sympathy for the characters, I am from a country where a leftist dictatorship has killed and destroyed everything. For me it is almost impossible to feel sympathy for the characters who represent a political ideology that has caused pain to my country.

The story is very biased on the political side, the jailers, the military and the people in the government are represented as very bad people. Always with that attitude that also reminds us of the characters in the films about Nazi Germany. On the other hand, the characters of the political prisoners are all very good, focusing on their family relationships, suffering, etc.

In real life, both sides are made up of people who committed crimes, robberies and murders. For me there is no good or bad side, they are all unfortunates who are blinded and fanaticized by violent political ideologies.

There is one scene that made me laugh: A political prisoner tells the prison guard that the government has indoctrinated him, for God's sake! The whole world knows that the main experts in indoctrinating people are leftist governments. This kind of scene and the fact that some characters are very good and others very bad, is what bothered me about the film.

Now, in the aspect of an entertaining prison escape film, I think the film achieves the goal of capturing the real thing, in a way that will please the viewer who is a fan of this film sub-genre.

The characters have to jump over all the obstacles they encounter, from the continuous searches in the cells, to the constant vigilance of the guards, to watch over any prisoner who might betray them, to natural phenomena such as earthquakes. Because of Chile's geographical location, it is an area of constant tremors, so digging a tunnel was risky, it can contain a tremor, but if another one occurred, the tunnel and the entire escape plan could collapse.

I want to emphasize another message present in this type of film, the power to obtain freedom for human beings, can lead them to do incredible things, which seem impossible. Escape from that prison seemed impossible, the planning and coordination of all involved was incredible. Keeping the secret, that other inmates did not realize what they were doing, was a big task. It doesn't show what we are capable of achieving, because of our spirit of survival.

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David Albala is directing his second feature film. The filmmaker, who has a degree in journalism, previously made a documentary about paraplegics, because this man suffered a traffic accident 18 years ago that left him paraplegic. He makes a very careful and clear film in the message he wants to give, you can tell there is a journalist behind the story. I respect his point of view, he lived that time when he was a student. He has talent, which is the important thing, I hope he continues his career in film and makes more stories for the big screen.

The choice of actors was very good, all of them seemed exceptional to me. There are many characters and you could name all the actors who worked in the film, but the actors Benjamín Vicuña, Amparo Noguera, Patricio Contreras, Francisca Gavilán, Eusebio Arenas and Mateo Iribarren are the ones who have more weight in the story. I have seen several of them in other Chilean productions, but the one I recognize most is the actor Bejamin Vicuña, a very famous actor in his country since he was a child. I remember him from the excellent HBO series Profugos. If you want to know all the actors and their filmography, visit the film's file at IMDB and you will be able to see the filmography of each one of them: link

Trailer (Subtitles in English)

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POSTER ( Spanish)

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