My Life with Carlos (Mi Vida con Carlos) is a beautifully crafted first-person doc from Chile that succeeds on multiple levels.
On the surface it’s a fairly straightforward chronicle of a son’s quest for his father. German Berger-Hertz was an infant when his father Carlos was murdered by Pinochet’s goons in 1973. He grew up in Spain with a committed, activist mother who dedicated her life to the cause both at home & in the world (as a human rights attorney), but it was only when he became a father himself that Berger-Hertz began to put aside his rage & ask deeper questions.
What emerges is a chronicle of a country & a family told with great respect for the persistence of memory & infinite tenderness for the complexities of real life as it must inevitably be lived by mere mortals.
Kudos to Berger-Hertz for this great artistic accomplishment.
My Life with Carlos is part of this year’s Chicago Latino Film Festival schedule. See it TONIGHT at 6:30 PM @ the Landmark Century in Lincoln Park!
Berger-Hertz is in town to personally introduce the film at the beginning & do a Q&A at the end. In between, while you are watching the film, I will be interviewing him one-on-one at the Starbucks on Diversey. More soon.
Photo: Berger-Hertz (center) with his uncles. (Carlos was the oldest of three brothers.)
