Trailer for The Passion of Michelangelo.
In 1983, as Chilean demonstrations against Pinochet’s military regime gathered strength, the government seized upon the strange story of 14-year-old street teen Miguel Angel as a means of diverting attention from the public’s growing discontent. In Peñablanca, not far from Valparaíso, the charismatic Angel swore he could see the Virgin Mary at the top of a local hill and, with the government doing all it could to promote this “miracle”, hundreds of thousands of people made the pilgrimage to the “holy” spot. Soon Angel had attained rock-star status — with all the perks the term implies — until, inevitably, he fell fast and hard…
Shot on 16mm film for a documentary feel, the film follow the investigation of an increasingly skeptical priest into this affair. Both a cultural critique of what director Esteban Larraín sees as Chile’s need for affirmation in the face of a collective inferiority complex and a succinct illustration of Juvenal’s “bread and circuses” concept of governmental appeasement, Larraín’s political drama speaks volumes about how the Pinochet years deeply scarred a nation’s already fragile psyche.