My favorite movie

Well, my favorite movie ever is Clockwork orange, a movie directed by Stanley Kubrik, and starring by Malcolm McDowell (Alex DeLarge), Michael Tarn (Pete), James Marcus (George) and Warren Clarke Dim).

Basically, it is a movie about a teenager gang, where the leader is caught by police, and is subjected to an experiment, that is looking for a cure to violence and reoffends. During the movie, the leader and his gang commit a lot of crimes and acts of violence (they called it “ultraviolence”), and after Alex is subjected to this “therapy” the story turns, and even his “drugos” (that was how he called his friends in the gang) turn against him.

This movie talks about fictitious situations, locating the movie in a future Britain, but really the topics are happening nowadays, like teenage violence and drug abuse.

This movie is based on a book, which has the same name. It was written by Anthony Burgess. Personally, I like two of them, the movie and the book, but the interesting thing about the movie to me is the music, which is almost all of it classical music, changed with a Moog synthesizer. Also, I like the slang very much, called nadsat and the aesthetics, because it is very psychedelic, for example in colours, decorations, wardrobe, etc.

I like the whole movie, but if I had to choose one scene, I would decide for the one when Alex is at the Hospital, after he jumped off a second floor of a house, because he was part of a behavioral therapy, and he feels very sick when he listens the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven. So, he is locked in a room, and can’t bear the discomfort, and he jumped. Finally, he is carried to a hospital, and there the authorities realized that it wasn’t a good method, because it is really dangerous to the teenager. So, Alex is cured from this “therapy”, and the press and the politics take photographs with him, and all kind of stuff that hide the really meaning of this “therapy”, which goes against the free will.

Here in Santiago there are a lot of representative things of Chile, but I think that is important for a tourist to visit other places in the country, which are even more representative and beautiful.

Well, the first place I would suggest to visit is San Cristobal Hill, because from there you can see the entire city. Of course, if you are lucky and it is a clear day before rain. The hill is very nice, it is well taken care and there you can do many activities, like going to the zoo, climbing to the virgin on top by Funicular, a sort of elevator that takes you from bottom to top on the hill. Also you can walk by the hill, and enjoy the beautiful views of different gardens. Other thing that I’d suggest is to visit the center of the city. There are many historical places, and it is well known for being the most important part of the city, in relation to the civic activities. There is La Moneda, which is the Government house, and all the secretary of states, the Post Office building, the Cathedral, and a Museum of natural history. All these buildings are placed in Plaza de Armas, which is an important place in the city too. Plaza de Armas is a good place to do an historical tour. Finally, I would recommend a good place to know our food and drinks. La Piojera is a Chilean restaurant which is well known for being a popular place, in Spanish we said it is a “guachaca” place. There you can drink Terremoto, a drink made of a type of soft wine (pipeño) and ice cream. Besides the drink, you can eat typical food, like Cazuela, Empanadas and Pastel de choclo. Anyways, I think that wherever you go, you will find good sites, and nice people.

A Piece of News

Hello!

I´m going to talk about a piece of news that happened last week, but to me it is very important because it is still happening and today it is a very important topic. It was last Thursday, when a group of students of the Architecture and Town planning Faculty of Universidad de Chile decided to demonstrate against the university education, and they walked down Alameda, the most important Avenue in Santiago. This piece of news appears in the newspapers, on radio and on some TV channels, because of the violence of the police.

Well, the demonstration itself is not a big surprise, because the students are permanently expressing against the problems of education, and mainly the students of Universidad de Chile. Either the demonstrations in general, because people is taking part of the issues of the country, and they are getting out to the streets to express their dissatisfaction.

The problem is that, in this government in particular, the police action is getting stronger. In the Faculty, for example, the police used for first time a kind of weapon to break up the demonstration that wasn’t approved. It was a kind of paintball weapon that the police used to mark the students that were suspects of making disorder. This police action has many problems: first, it was not an approved procedure to dissolve demonstrations, because these paintballs could be very dangerous if it heats you on the eye, or another part without the appropriate protection. Second, it is against the right of people to demonstrate whenever they want. The fact of marking suspects is a big offense to the citizens and goes against our free speech. Finally, the action in FAU was excessive, and the police caused structure damages too.

To me the police action is very worrying, because every day is getting stronger, and I think that our free speech is decreasing. The kind of news that I would like to hear, could be about the citizen demonstration done in a pacific way, and supported by government, because the public opinion is very important to make the things in our country :).