Educational Media Reviews Online

Violeta Went to Heaven is a moving and, at times, abstract portrayal of the life and career of Chilean musician Violeta Parra. The film is based on a book written by Violeta’s son Ángel, who has also had an active career as a folk musician. Francisca Gavilán’s rendering of Violeta is stunningly convincing, and director Andrés Wood creates a sense of mysticism with an unclear chronology, ghostly visitors, and repetitive flashbacks to Violeta’s childhood. Like most flashbacks in most films, these tend to provide—or at least imply—a backstory for events in the main timeline. So in the middle of Violeta performing for a crowd, we visit her memory as a little girl, in which she sees her drunken father playing guitar and acting inappropriately at parties, going mad at gigs and trashing whole restaurants with his instrument. Throughout the film we see many shots of the dead—characters we have met in flashbacks—sitting, staring at the camera, supposedly at her, while she is performing. It’s not clear to me whether they bring Violeta solace or distress, but the film makes it clear that they are incredibly important for her development.

An ethnographer as much as a musician, we initially meet Violeta as she travels between remote Chilean mountain villages with her son to interview people, perform her own sets, and to collect and learn folk songs from elders. We see her struggle with her image and role as a performer. There is a scene in which she and her lover Gilbert Favre perform in a dank and dark rathole, and she shushes the noisy crowd, insisting they listen to their set. The crowd respectfully complies. Some time later, after she’s achieved international recognition as a musician, Violeta is performing at a posh event where none of the attendees are listening except for the waiter. She is visibly upset by these circumstances. Violeta’s relationship with her lover, the Swiss flautist Gilbert Favre, is a focal point in the film. In the earlier days of their tumultuous partnership, she always spoke French (his native language) during their quarrels. But after a time of separation, he returns to her to perform in her venue that she built in the Chilean mountains, and they speak only in Spanish. As time goes on, Violeta becomes increasingly hostile and depressed, and fewer and fewer people visit her venue. She sends her daughter to pick berries while she sets up the tent for her final performance. She shoots herself there, but not before lamenting, “I’m so poor. Everything I wrote and sang is pointless.” This film is appropriate for collections supporting courses in music, Latin American studies, and women’s studies. Highly recommended.

Awards

• Sundance World Cinema Dramatic Jury Prize, 2012