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100A sensitively wrought work.
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88A fine, exciting film that makes a bloody historical event live all over again by showing it through the eyes of children on the edges of the conflict.
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88An astonishingly intimate and painful coming-of-age story.
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You don't have to know Chile's bloody history to be moved by the poignant new film Machuca, the first movie made by a Chilean about the country's 1973 military coup.
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83Machuca is a quiet film, moving sadly toward its inevitable climax, the final scenes a lesson in the methods by which the military restores order to a divided country.
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80Packs a quiet wallop.
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80Wood's film works, first and foremost, as a powerful character drama; it's not trying to teach historical or ideological lessons.
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80One of those special films that broadens and deepens as it goes on.
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80Richly human in focus, the drama steadily cranks up its political and emotional charge.
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80Tender, funny and smart, Machuca is that rare discovery, an incisive political parable that also succeeds as a drama of sharply drawn individuals.
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80Engaging entertainment and a great work of art.
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Sweet, poignant, and winningly evocative of the period, though occasionally dogged by predictable scenarios and caricatures.
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75It's a tale powerfully told, nevertheless, with an unusual vantage point in its upper-class young hero.
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70Wood's drama packs an emotional gut-punch that's all the more devastating for its being rooted in a dreadful historical reality.
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70Though Machuca ultimately doesn't shy away from taking sides, it wisely keeps the focus on the human element. The politics take place in the background until they demand the foreground.
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70Both sweet and stringent, attuned to the wonders of childhood as well as its cruelty and terror.
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70A respectable entry in the Bicycle Thief school of art-house cinema, which uses a child's coming of age to explore an era of political and social turmoil.
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63Though the film would benefit from further cuts, Machuca still manages to convey the frailty of convictions and the difficulties of growing up -- be it a child or a nation.
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60Machuca is still a half-measure. Wood is fastidious about period set design, but not much else; rather than burning with experience, the film feels opportunistic.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 17 out of 17
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Mixed: 0 out of 17
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Negative: 0 out of 17
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GarethW6
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GLENT10