…À Valparaiso
Directed by
Ivens met Salvador Allende in Havana. With his support, in 1962 the director went to Santiago de Chile where he taught cinematography at University. As in his previous teaching experiences, the best approach he could find to his subject was the practical one. The cooperation with Santiago university students produced …À Valparaiso, a documentary on the peculiar features of the Chilean seaport. Vertically built on five hills rising from the port, the city distributes its life on different levels and floors. Valparaiso recalls a sort of Dante's Hell, where height denotes the social status of the people crowding on the long staircases at rush times. The documentary is not meant to have a marked political message. It seems rather to be tied to the lyric cinema-poème of such films as The Rain and When the Seine meets Paris, where the strong descriptive impact and the clearness of the images are the main visual contents.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the Creative Europe Media Program. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.