Airing Thursday, new film by Peter Raymont looks at how playwright survived Pinochet coupFeb 19, 2008 04:30 AMLee-Anne Goodman THE CANADIAN PRESS
Until 9/11, playwright and novelist Ariel Dorfman wasn't terribly interested in seeing a documentary made about how he narrowly escaped being "disappeared" by Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet on Sept. 11, 1973.But as he took in the horrors of that day in 2001 exactly 28 years after many of his closest colleagues and dearest friends were presumably assassinated in Santiago, their bodies never recovered he began to wonder if perhaps the time had come."I had felt that it would be a bit indulgent to spend that much time on my sorrows and my hopes when there is, in the world, so much devastation," said Dorfman, who was the cultural adviser to socialist president Salvador Allende when Pinochet staged a bloody military coup to overthrow the government."But my thinking began to change on Sept. 11, 2001. It was the juxtaposition of that date with the Chilean date, which got me to thinking there may be something gained, something of value, in telling my story, because it would perhaps provide guidance or at least a different experience on how you can deal with terror, how you can deal with extreme violence."Enter Canadian documentarian Peter Raymont, best known for his Emmy-winning film Shake Hands With The Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire. Dorfman met Raymont at a North Carolina film festival two years ago and the pair immediately hit it off."When I saw Peter's film about Roméo Dallaire, I thought here's somebody who might have just the sensibility and the sensitivity to be able to deal with these issues and accompany me on this journey."The resulting documentary, A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman, airs Thursday night at 10 on Bravo!It details Dorfman's life of exile: both from the U.S., as a child, due to the communist leanings of his parents, and from Chile as an adult after Pinochet came to power.The film also poignantly delves into how Dorfman has remained haunted for the past 28 years by his decision on Sept. 11, 1973, not to walk down a Santiago street towards the chaos at the government buildings. It was a bit of instinct that surely saved his life but left him with no small amount of survivor guilt.The documentary was shortlisted for Oscar consideration this year, though it failed to make the final cut.The Toronto International Film Festival also named it one of the Top 10 Canadian films of 2007.The 65-year-old Dorfman, who now teaches at DukeUniversity, is a prolific author and playwright best known for his play Death and the Maiden, about a torture victim who encounters the man she believes tortured her. But he confesses all the attention about the documentary has been surprising to him."I did not expect it to have the reception that it's had; I just thought somebody would come with me to Chile and then they'll hastily put together some documentary, I guess," he says with a laugh in a telephone interview from his home in Durham, N.C."I'm not a documentary maker I like them a lot but I've never done one myself. I am very much a person of imagination. Everything I write is related to parallel realities, so this was new for me."Some of the most moving moments of the documentary involve Dorfman hooking up with old friends and compatriots from Chile's socialist movement of the early 1970s, and sitting down with the wives, mothers and daughters of many of those who disappeared in the aftermath of Pinochet's coup and have never returned."It gives you a glimmer of the pain of loss," Dorfman says of the film."Most people find it very difficult to really put themselves in the skin of somebody who's had the loss of a disappeared person, because those sorts of things don't happen very often in our society. But anyone who's lost someone suddenly, who's had someone just vanish from their lives for whatever reason, can relate to that kind of loss."While exploring themes of loss and sorrow, however, Dorfman says he had a lot of laughs as he and Raymont spent time together making the documentary."We would embarrass everybody, including the film crew, because we would just belt out all these melodies, show tunes, mostly, in the middle of these long, protracted dinners," he remembers.
"I am sure it confused the Chileans and Argentinians seeing us sing Oklahoma! and My Fair Lady, but that's a little bit how the relationship developed. He's now a very dear friend."
THIS AIRS TONIGHT AT 10:00 pm on Bravo
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