MOVIES/CHILE

PAST FORGETTING

Amnesia Directed by Gonzalo Justiniano

FOR MORE THAN A DECADE, Chile's leading directors have turned out films about the armed forces' cruelty toward the country's political prisoners following the 1973 military coup. In his fourth movie, Gonzalo Justiniano presents a variation on that theme, looking inside the military to probe the ethical dilemmas its members faced as well as their moral deterioration. Screened first at international festivals, Amnesia garnered generally positive reviews when it appeared in Chile, and despite the controversial subject, it scored a record-high rating when it was telecast nationally last June.

Co-written by Justinian and Gustavo Frias, Amnesia concerns the revenge taken by a former conscript, Manuel Ramirez, against the sadistic Zuniga, who was his sergeant in a desert detention camp. Through flashbacks, Zuniga's brutality is brought sharply into focus. He orders Ramirez to execute a group of prisoners that includes a pregnant woman. When he refuses, Zuniga carries out the killings and forces Ramirez to dig a large hole and incinerate the bodies. Twenty years later, Zuniga has adopted a selective amnesia that allows him to remember nothing negative; he advises Ramirez to do the same.

MOVIES/INDIA

Many in Chile's military today--and their political supporters--would prefer their countrymen to be amnesiacs like Zuniga. Others question the value of reconciliation based on denial. "In Chile,'' says Justiniano, "there is pressure to make people forget about the past, to make people think it is necessary to look toward the future without looking back.''

BOLLYWOOD TICKLES--AND TOUCHES NERVES

Oh Darling, This Is India Directed by Ketan Mehta

FACED WITH THE CONSTANT DEPRESSING news of political and economic instability, where else does India, the world's largest producer of movies, find relief but in a darkened theater? In Bollywood pictures, audiences can find escapist fare featuring the hero who defeats the bad guys and gets the girl. Or they can laugh and learn by watching Oh Darling, Yeh Hai India (Oh Darling, This Is India), a political satire-cum-Bollywood farce that holds just enough truth to disturb its viewers--and the censors, who initially balked at some "unpatriotic" scenes. The "delightfully tongue-in-cheek" movie, raved the Sunday Times of India, is "an intelligent cinegoer's guide to contemporary India."

Oh Darling takes the cookie-cutter plot of a masala (spice) movie and overloads it with outrageous twists. While India faces a new bankruptcy crisis and a pending attack by a neighboring country (Pakistan is never named), our hero, an unemployed young man, pairs off with a depressed prostitute on her evening off. That night the villain, a deluded megalomaniac named Don Quixote, kidnaps the President and replaces him with a double. The fake President tries to auction off the country to foreign bidders--a snipe at the current multinational race to bring consumer products to India. The hero rallies the people and manages to save the country. He and his lady live happily ever after ... or do they? Darling, this is India. Another cinematic adventure must be just around the corner.

ARCHITECTURE/GERMANY

MAKING CONNECTIONS IN THE BIG CITY

Specks Hof; Leipzig

A SUDDEN LEAP IN PROSPERITY is not always the best thing for a city. The shopping and entertainment complexes transforming the eastern German landscape are draining vitality from metropolitan centers. One refreshing exception is Leipzig. Although the "inner city is still one large construction site,'' noted the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, "it is already full of urban variety and life.'' Contemporary buildings complement restored architectural prizes, and the city of Bach and Mendelssohn is vibrant with activity.

Built between 1909 and 1929, the art nouveau Specks Hof is the most recently restored landmark and will be officially unveiled to the public Sept. 27. At the end of World War II, only three of its nine vaulted arcades had survived the bombing; the labyrinth of passageways and galleries now contain sleek modern offices and smart shops. Two West German firms, real estate developer Rendata and the construction company Bilfinger & Berger, financed the $140 million renovation. The investors honored the city's tradition of patronage by commissioning artists to decorate the inner courtyards of Specks Hof. In one of them, artist Johannes Grutzke made fun of the consumer mood that has revitalized Leipzig with 16 large bas-relief medallions of cast-off footwear. Glazed in enamel, the oversized shoes symbolize today's throwaway society.

ET CETERA/BRITAIN

BARNYARD TRUTHS

Animal Farm by George Orwell; Secker & Warburg; Animal Fun Park by David Caute; Radio 3

FOUR PUBLISHERS REJECTED the fable about cunning pigs, silly sheep and a loyal cart horse. The Soviet Union and Britain were allies, and George Orwell's 1945 allegory about the soul-murdering lies of communism was all too plain. To its credit, Secker & Warburg took on the book, and Animal Farm went on to become an international best seller. On its 50th anniversary, the firm has produced a new edition, with ink-and-watercolor illustrations by Ralph Steadman, that sold out in two weeks.

Updating the tale, Radio 3 broadcast in late August a two-hour play by David Caute about the descendants of the Animal Farm creatures. The narrator, a fox named Bertolt, tells how Animalism, the porcine theory that evolved into an evil ideology, is defeated through "Gorbynost'' and "Pigstoika.'' The winner in the struggle is another species: humans stage a counterrevolution against the degenerate ruling boars of the farm and plan to make the barnyard and fields into a human-operated entertainment venue, an Animal Fun Park.

Not long after its publication, Orwell wrote that "Animal Farm ...was the first book in which I tried, with full consciousness of what I was doing, to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole." How well he succeeded. The Soviet government lies atop the famed rubbish heap of history, but the story told in Orwell's quiet, measured voice is still the most lucid and enduring argument against any kind of despotism.

--By Julie K.L. Dam and Emily Mitchell. Reported by Meenakshi Ganguly, Holly Johnson, Elizabeth Lea and Wanda Menke-Gluckert