Machuca

The story is presented from the perspective of Gonzalo Infante – the 11-year upper-class boy – and it takes place in an agitated time in Chile, when the working class was demanding social vindications and profound changes to the national socioeconomic structure, having elected a Socialist president. In that context, the higher classes grew fearful of the socialist movement and some of its most prominent members comploted against the government of Salvador Allende. Gonzalo's father, while sympathetic to the less favored and not part of the right-wing movement, wants to leave the country with his family for Italy, where he frequently travels due to his work at the UN FAO. Gonzalo's mother is rather hopeless with the state of things, and is having an affair with a wealthy and much older Argentinian.

Gonzalo attends a private school where the strong-willed school principal, Father McEnroe, has launched a social integration project, which is deemed by some of the parents as a 'lefty venture' rather than a Christian, charitable work. When five underprivileged students are admitted to Gonzalo's class, he makes friends with Pedro, for he feels compassion for him because some rich classmates pick on him.

Gonzalo accompanies Pedro and his neighbor Silvana to sell flags and cigarettes at demonstrations on the streets: first, nationalist flags at a right-wing demonstration; and later, socialist flags at a leftist rally in support of the government. Silvana calls Gonzalo a snob and names him 'strawberry-face', but eventually they grow fond of each other and even get to kiss.

Pedro visits Gonzalo's home and is impressed by Gonzalo having a room for himself, with toys and a closet full of clothing, but also witnesses the tensions and cruelty latent in Gonzalo's family. When Gonzalo visits the shantytown dwelling of Pedro, he is appalled by the extremely poor conditions he lives in. Their friendship mirrors the friendship between the Lone Ranger and the Native American Tonto in Gonzalo's favorite comic-book series. Gonzalo becomes aware that their friendship is against all odds when Silvana finds them reading an issue of the magazine and comments on the plot being implausible because "Has a white person ever been seen to be friends with an Indian?"

As the political unrest grows in Chile, the boys' friendship is put to the test. Pedro's drunk father taunts him, telling him that, while his alleged friend will grow up to be rich, he will be stuck in the lower class for good, most likely cleaning toilets for the rich. The wealthy parents of the students at St. Patrick's school have divided opinions on Father McEnroe's project. While some support Father McEnroe's new policies — Gonzalo's father among them — many others — including Gonzalo's mother — think that, for the country's sake, social classes are better off not mixed.

The vegetable garden that the students take care of at school turns out to be a failure, which jeopardizes the financing of Father McEnroe's project. At an anti-Communist demonstration, Gonzalo's mother snatches Silvana's merchandise when the latter is being threatened by other protesters, so Silvana retaliates spitting on Gonzalo's mother's car windshield and calls her a whore. This increases the tension between Gonzalo and Pedro, which leads them to get into a fight and be driven apart.

Then comes the coup and Father McEnroe is removed by the military, not even being allowed to perform mass at the school's chapel. So, when he attends the first mass performed by a new priest, he receives communion but does not swallow the sacramental bread to preserve it from desecration, and declares the place profane. Pedro leads the other students in honoring the priest and therefore is expelled from the school.

Gonzalo goes to visit the shantytown where Pedro and Silvana live but he arrives there only to see it being raid by soldiers, and he witnesses an unfortunate incident between the dwellers and the military that ends up with one of the later shooting Silvana, who dies right there. Spotted by a soldier and finding himself dragged into the incident, Gonzalo struggles to convince the soldier that he does not belong there, until he shows him his nice clothing and fair complexion. The soldier lets him go and warns him never to return, so Gonzalo is forced by the circumstances to forsake his friend.

Gonzalo returns to his family's new home – which is now even more opulent than before thanks to his mother's lover and the redistribution of wealth the new government has imposed – and is left distraught over the events he has just witnessed, remembering the last time he saw Pedro, staring at the ruins of their dwellings.

Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post deemed the film to be "that rare film that merges the personal and political without sacrificing restraint or intellectual honesty".[8]

Mike Goodridge of ScreenDaily described the film as a "small, artfully crafted movie", otherwise deeming it to be an "unsettling piece" which [unlike other films with similar themes] "doesn't fall into easy traps of sentimentalism".[5]

• Cinema of Chile
• List of Spanish films of 2004

• Machuca at IMDb
• Machuca in Wood Producciones
• Kenneth Turan 2005. Youthful innocence sacrificed on the altar of politics
• Machuca in the Philadelphia Film Festival
• "Chilean movie recalls U.S. priest's presence amid turbulence of coup" 22 November 2005, www.georgiabulletin.org