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The turbulent days of 1973, in which Augusto Pinochet seized power over Chile before embarking on two decades of brutal oppression, are seen through the eyes of two young boys from opposite ends of Santiago society in Machuca. Chilean director Andrés Wood's evocative rites-of-passage drama tells the story of friends Gonzalo and Pedro (Matías Quer and Ariel Mateluna), and uses the boys' changing relationship as a metaphor for the social tensions that helped destroy a nation.

All the ingredients you might expect of a political South American film are here - the characteristic colours of revolution, images of deprivation and corruption - but they're kept mostly in the background. In the foreground are the characters, especially the wealthy Gonzalo and penniless Pedro, but also their families and classmates.

"ELOQUENT AND MOVING"

The bright but shy Gonzalo and the fearless Pedro, together with Pedro's flirty cousin Silvana (Manuela Martelli), share many of the film's sweetest and most engaging moments, enjoying the excitement of adolescence despite the turmoil surrounding them. Wood, borrowing from films such as Kes and Dead Poets Society along the way, seems much more comfortable with this personal material than with the larger historical context.

Ultimately, the kids' relationships are as doomed as those of their more politically entrenched parents, and the outbreak of violence signals a disturbing end to their innocent friendships. Machuca is an eloquent and moving take on the tragedy of a society that attacks its own and successfully humanises difficult ideas of political and class loyalty.

In Spanish with English subtitles.