The Eternal Memory
Composite Score: 83.5
Featuring: Augusto Góngora, Paulina Urrutia, Gustavo Cerati, Pedro Lemebel, Javier Bardem, and Raúl Ruiz
Director: Maite Alberti
Writer: Maite Alberti
Genres: Documentary, Biography, History
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Box Office: $118,613 worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
The Eternal Memory is Maite Alberti’s documentary about retired Chilean journalist Augusto Góngora and his wife, actress Paulina Urrutia, focusing on their 23-year-long relationship, their individual careers, and the ways that they handle Góngora’s deteriorating mental state from Alzheimer’s. The film’s blend of archival news reports, home videos, and intimate shots of the couple in the present paints a beautiful picture of their life together and their lives apart, weaving the history of Chile into the history of the couple, raising questions of collective memory as it explores Góngora’s personal memory. The film received much critical acclaim, earning an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature Film.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
The Eternal Memory combines three genres of documentary into one, and all of them feel a bit unoriginal on their own. It’s an Alzheimer’s documentary, a relationship/biographical documentary, and a history of Chile under Pinochet documentary. Each of those categories has other films in it that probably are better on their own at exploring and widening their subject matter than this film does on its own. It looks at Góngora’s experience with Alzheimer’s through a truly sympathetic lens but doesn’t offer much new to the conversation around Alzheimer's, choosing instead to encourage empathy – admirable, but not overly original. The relationship between the film’s central couple and their individual lives probably comprise the most original aspects of the documentary, but the actual exploration doesn’t do anything groundbreaking in its filmmaking. The film’s take on Pinochet isn’t overly new or surprising, given its country of origin, but it’s not a bad addition to the film by any stretch of the imagination.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
What makes the film work is the way that it weaves its three topics into one single film without any noticeable seams or breaks. It all flows together as part of this wholistic story about love, memory, history, and performance. Without Góngora, the film doesn’t get to explore the history of Chile or the nature of Alzheimer’s; just as without Paulina, Góngora would struggle to cope in the world that he now lives in. Each piece of the film props the others up, making it this creative mosaic of themes, topics, and people that you can’t help but appreciate. The Eternal Memory might be a reference to Alzheimer’s or to the memory of Pinochet’s regime in Chile or to the love that Góngora and Pauli share, but most likely, it’s all three, and that’s why it’s a triumph of a documentary.
The intricate work done by Maite Alberti to weave together three potentially independent themes and stories into a single narrative revolving around this one couple in The Eternal Memory makes it an impressive documentary and one of the Greatest Films of All Time. While each of the film’s individual pieces might feel familiar and even potentially overdone, together, they make something new and worth watching. Currently, this film is available to stream on Paramount+ if you’d like to check it out, or you can rent it on other streaming platforms if you don’t have that streamer.
