Maite Alberdi allows us to travel back-and-forth through the life of writer Augusto Góngora. Part of the documentation and reconciliation after Chile’s fascist junta, his own memories are now scattering with Alzheimer’s.

With an often unfocused camera, his wife Paulina Urrutia invites us into the intimate moments where she helps him remember. There are many laughs as he seems aware of his condition and delighted anew each day to be married to her.

With him, we watch footage of his interviews, book launches, and news reports, which helps us all piece together the kind of man he was and what it was to be in Chile during that time. Of course, it’s not always happy and his moments of anger, loss and confusion are hard to watch, but impossible to look away from.

There is a clear connection between Chile’s history and his condition, particularly when his past self talks of memory being identity. Pauli is ever present and mostly irrepressible in her optimism, which sometimes makes it feel that she is playing a part to camera. There is no shying away from the difficulty of going from partner to carer though.

Overall, there is a thread of lightness and love that stops us wallowing in the tragedy of it all.

Director: Maite Alberdi
Origin: Chile (2023)
Language: Spanish with English subtitles
Genre: Documentary

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