Chile: Missing

I enjoyed Missing. I thought it was interesting subject and the filmmakers turned it into a fairly suspenseful movie. The film was well-made and well-acted.

The director presents Chile functioning under martial law in the immediate wake of a government overthrow. Violence is random and ongoing. Bodies are scattered around the city. The streets are lined with armed military personnel and armed military vehicles. Citizens are picked out and questioned on a whim. Women are told they can no longer wear slacks, but must wear dresses and skirts. A curfew has been instituted and deadly force is used to enforce it. Phone lines are down. Transportation out of Chile is spotty if not impossible. Overall, it's is an environment of fear, violence and uncertainty.

Hr. Harmon’s world view changes dramatically over the course of the film. Early in the film, Mr. Horman seems to have faith in American institutions.  He is convinced that his idealistic, leftist son and daughter-in-law have gotten themselves into some kind of trouble, and he has to fly to Chile to sort out their messes. His son’s arrest seems irritating to him. He believes there has been a misunderstanding, but that everything will be done to correct it and everything will be fine. As long as a person is respectable, god fearing, and polite —all things will be restored to harmony. He believes in justice and due process. Mr. Horman believes what American officials tell him. He does not question their authority.

Ironically he accuses his jaded, quarrelsome, critical daughter-in-law (she had two weeks of run- around prior to her father-in-law’s arrival) of being uncooperative and idealistic. Who’s the idealist? By film’s end, Mr. Horman is resigned to her attitude—actually admires her after his experiences and observations.

By mid-film and to the end, Mr. Horman is no longer polite. His own sense of idealism has been shattered by the details—or lack of details and a few outright lies is fed by American officials. His faith in institutions, due process, and justice is shattered, though the final collapse occurring off screen when his lawsuit against American officials he deems responsible for his son’s death is dismissed.

The filmmaker portrayed the US as rather shady and reticent; less than forthcoming—which is how I interpreted it. American officials appear cooperative, but they do not offer much information. My interpretation is that the Americans were something like an organized crime ring, a spin machine. Mr. Horman is given the run-around—blanket “we don’t know” or “if we can’t find him that he’s not here” statements. Later in the film, Mr. Horman is given contradictory information, and what seemed to be an outright well-conceived lie. It definitely looks like a cover-up. At the film’s end, even as the truth came to light (his son’s body actually was there—and he’s dead), the director does not attempt to redeem American officials. When the Hormans are asked for transport fees associated with the body, the American officials insensitively demand the money up front, at that very moment, in an airport coffee bistro.