Literature and Cinema

Sergio Villalobos-Ruminott

Protocol 2
The Chilean coup dtat and the crisis of the nomos

What summarizes the cruelty of the Chilean coup dtat

is

the

monumental

presidential

aerial

house,

on

attack

on

September

La
11,

Moneda,
1973.

the
That

morning, the National Air Force under the command of

general Pinochet and the other generals of the socalled Junta, ordered the bombing of La Moneda and
Salvador

Allendes

spectacular
batalla

de

act

is

family
also

Chile,

residence.

the

first

Patricio

scene

Guzmans

This
of

La

famous

documentary. This opening scene is a complex image of

those years and of their social turbulence, but also
is an allegorical representation of the end of the
Popular Unity and its political project, the Chilean
road to socialism.

This

Chilean

road

to

socialism

represented

an

alternative to the violent or insurrectional model of

revolution, which best example is the Cuban process of
late 1950s. Chile was developing a pacific transition
to socialism, through the republican institutions and
within

the

constitutional

frame.

However,

the

main

hypothesis of Guzman in his documentary is that the

break of the Chilean constitutional frame was due to
the extreme right-wing movements (Patria y Libertad),
and the political parties of the opposition. Already
from

1970,

at

the

inception

of

Salvador

Allendes

government, a series of soft coup dtats were taking

Literature and Cinema

place

and

Sergio Villalobos-Ruminott

the

spectacular

bombing

of

1973

was

the

logical conclusion to that process. In other words,

the

coup

is

coordinated

just

the

boycott

spectacularization

against

the

Chilean

of

government

emanated from the United States and the national army,

a boycott of regional scope.

Guzman was recording (for La batalla de Chile) since

the beginning of 1973, in what he claimed to be a
rather spontaneous way, yet he was able to articulate
a very coherent narrative about the Chilean situation
as

he

went

into

exile.

However,

beyond

any

intentionality of the cameramen (as in the theory of

the cinematic ghost), the voices and different accents
of

people

in

the

recorded

scenes

are

particularly

telling. We might say that the documentary is as much

an archive of images as an archive of voices and faces
of a people who was severely repressed the next 20
years (under Pinochet dictatorship).

So, beyond the coherence of Guzmans narrative, there

are

two

different

people

in

the

film.

The

epic

subject that is intentionally captured by the shooting

and which represents the subject of the revolutionary
process, and the involuntary people whose accents
and

voices

are

also

in

the

film

but

appear

in

an

indirect frame or plane, in a different dimension of

history. To interrogate this involuntary people as a
presence

without

metaphysic

of

presence,

as

ghostly image of the classical subject of history, is

Literature and Cinema

Sergio Villalobos-Ruminott

the main task of a critical understanding of cinema

today.

In the documentary, the voices of the people not only

express social classes; they also express a particular
mood

or

political

temper.

They

reflect

festive

disposition to participate, to be part of the process,

a will to speak out and against the others as if the
future of the country was at stake in every single
moment.

Thus,

intervention

the

coup

that

was

canceled

not
the

only

military

Chilean

road

to

socialism; it was also a coup to the public language

of politics if not a coup to politics itself (un golpe
a la lengua pblica y poltica; un golpe a la misma
lengua de la poltica). It worked as an end of the
Popular

Unity

as

social

articulation

that

still

needs to be interrogated beyond the classical populist

theory of interpellation. After the violence of this
intervention,

what

was

lost

was

the

trust

in

languages ability to imagine and communicate a better

world: the coup was the end of a historical utopia,
the

synecdoche

of

Latin

American

transition

from

telluric imagination to globalization.

The peoples two images or the peoples two bodies

is

the

key

to

non-theological-political

understanding of history. This is what is at stake in

La batalla de Chile and we need to think carefully.

The utopia of national liberation and socialism was

not

only

Latin

American

aspiration;

it

somehow

Literature and Cinema

expressed

Sergio Villalobos-Ruminott

the

Third

World

at

large

in

its

anti

imperialist fights. Whether we are talking about the

armed strategy of the guerrilla or about the political
strategy of the traditional left parties (the Popular
Front), what was at stake in this time was not only
the democratic agenda forever postponed in this part
of

the

world,

but

also

the

necessary

autonomy

and

national / popular sovereignty always interrupted by

the

foreign

might

be

powers

and

considered

interests.
as

the

The

Chilean

synecdoche

coup

of

the

historical exhaustion of such goals and as the big

bang

of

new

historical

period,

big

bang

of

globalization and neoliberalism.

If

we

refer

to

Carl

Schmitt

understanding

of

historical articulation of poweri, we might say that

the Chilean coup marked the transition from what we
might

call

organization

the
of

nomos
power)

of
to

the
a

earth

(a

new nomos

of

telluric
the

air,

which is not anymore resisted by the partisan but now

by

the

presents
world

atmo-terrorist.
three

history:

nomos
the

In

or

nomos

general,

Schmitts

configuration
of

the

sea,

of

model

power

which

is

in
an

organization of power based upon the control of the

ocean and, accordingly, on maritime power (as in the
modern British empire). For this empire there should
be

counter-power

that

makes

possible

the

equilibrium. This equilibrium is called Katechon and

its limit is represented by the figure of the pirate.
The second is the nomos of the earth based upon the
control of land (desert, cities, jungles, etc.) and
its telluric character is represented by the figure of
4

Literature and Cinema

Sergio Villalobos-Ruminott

the partisan. For Schmitt, this is basically the nomos

of

the

Jus

Publicum

imperialism,

which

Europeaum,

equilibrium

or
was

modern
given

European
by

Third

World and its movements of national liberation.

Nonetheless, for Schmitt the end of the Second World

War was not only the beginning of the end of the Jus
Publicum Europeaum, it also started the configuration
of a new nomos of the earth, in a planetary level,
related

to

the

American

hegemonic

position

in

the

world through the Cold War period. The former Soviet

Union was, therefore, the counter-power that allowed
the

equilibrium

in

the

second

half

of

the

20th

century, the so-called Katechon.

With the recent globalization of economy and society

at

large,

we

also

territorialization
materialization
financial

which

turn

development

of

of

proliferation

of

of

have
the

process

world,

main

virtual

de-

sort

of

de-

characteristic

is

the

international

of

economy,

technologies

atmospheric

weapons

the

and
of

the
mass

destruction. Somehow, from September 11 of 1973, and

the spectacular images of the bombing of La Moneda, to
September

11

images

the

of

of

2001,

bombing

and
in

the

New

equally

York

spectacular

(and other

less

spectacular places), we are witnessing the exhaustion

of the contemporary Katechon or nomos of the earth,
and the very emergence of a new nomic articulation of
global power, which we might call nomos of the air.

Literature and Cinema

Sergio Villalobos-Ruminott

If the pirate was the conflictive figure of the nomos

of the sea, and the partisan or telluric guerrilla-man
(as in Ho Chi Minh, El Che, Fidel, Mao Tse-Tung, Vo
Nguyen Giap etc.) the conflictive figure in the nomos
of the earth, the current configuration of the nomos
of the air has as its conflictive figure this sort of
unearthed

cosmo-partisan

or

also

called

atmo-

terrorist. Therefore, the bombing of La Moneda was a

particular

kind

of

terrorism,

not

only

State

terrorism, but also a terror pointing out to a new

world order.

This

is

general

frame

to

understand

the

new

aesthetical and political orientation of current Latin

American cinema. Post-utopical, commercial, globalized
and, most importantly, a cinema that requires a new
formulation regarding the relationship between films
and politics, image and history, or, in other terms, a
cinema

that

requires

new

consideration

about

aesthetical and political imagination able to come to

terms with the spectacularization of everyday life.

So, the final question regarding La batalla de Chile

will be: what happened with the peoples two bodies
today? It is true that contemporary mass media and the
virtualization of the world mean the exhaustion of the
spectral or involuntary dimension of the image? How
differentiate between the ontology of the commercial
images and the hantologie of images?

Carl Schmitt. The Nomos of the Earth in the International law of the
Jus Publicum Europeaum (New York: Telos Press Publishing, 2006).