剝削

The film tries to explain the aims of Popular Unity by adopting a sort of 'self-criticism' style. An land reform agent has come to expropriate an estate. He arrives at the place and is received with every honor by the landowner. While chatting with him, he discovers they were at the same college. The two belong to the same social class. They recall their college memories, the things they have in common. At night, a dance is held in his honor which is attended by the landowner's ancestors, a parade of ghosts who have died in defense of their property: farmers, landlords, priests, soldiers. Just then the land reform agent discovers the skull of one of his dead colleagues from Alessandri's time, when they were trying to enact the agrarian reform of the 'maceteros'. There, in front of the corpse, in Shakespearean style, the agronomist adopts the same political tactics as President Allende. Like him, he falls back on sophism, using the intrigues invested by the bourgeoisie against the bourgeoisie itself. He asks himself whether it's right to behave this way and comes to the conclusion that since he too is bourgeois he'll be able to use bourgeois expedients successfully, at least as effectively as the bourgeoisie. And suppose the bourgeoisie decides to break with legality? Well, he reassures himself, in that case he'll call in the people to help. At that moment they come and tell him that the peasants have occupied the estate. So the land reform agent goes and talks to the peasants. The discussion you get here is a real one. The film turns to realism, to a denunciation: the peasants tell the viewer that the owner has hidden the machines. We're confronted by the same question faced in El Realismo socialista. The peasants explain why they've been forced to take action, and the land reform agent explains that his presence is enough, the law is on his side, they should go away. The following day the peasants oppose the expropriation. They threaten the agent and kill him. They leave him lying on the ground while the owner escapes. The final sequence -- which was inspired by Chinese postcards -- shows the peasants occupying the streets.