•
Rating: "We toured the United States, Germany, France, England, Japan, Mexico, Australia, and we had a fair amount of success, but they were, shall we say, "normal" tours, in normal theaters. We returned to Italy, and it was something else."
Inti Illimani
The difference between the De-idealists and the De-notists lies in the heart.
Caravan
I was sure I would find many musical, cultural, human, and political emotions in this book. Indeed, after a first and rapid cursory flip-through, my eyes landed on a photo of the Inti with Mikis Theodorakis, and it brought back memories of when my grandfather used to play his records for me as a child.
The relationship between the Inti and Italy is a profound one, born out of a sad and well-known event: the coup by Augusto Pinochet, under the supervision of the United States in the person of Secretary of State and future Nobel Peace Prize recipient Henry Kissinger. Those were particular years in Latin America. They are always particular years in Latin America. The Nueva Canción Chilena, the movement that saw the Inti at the forefront, had been providing social impetus and cultural depth to Chilean reality since the late '60s; and this would be a sort of catalyst that would soon lead to the democratic election of a socialist in South America. An absolute first. Cursed comrade Salvador had upset the Americans' hand, who were the bankers of the area. Salvador lost, but he did not cheat. Victories can be found even in defeats; and if it's a paradox, an oxymoron, then we are in the presence of a proud paradox and a proud oxymoron. The Inti, by a twist of fate, were already in Italy on tour during the days of the coup. Those were particular years in Italy. They are always particular years in Italy.
On that September 11th, 1973, the Inti were in Rome, and Giancarlo Pajetta, a historic comrade and leader of the Italian Communist Party, proposed that they stay in Italy while the situation in their Chile was dramatically deteriorating hour by hour. Pajetta took to heart the fate of these Chilean boys. He became almost a paternal figure and a human point of reference, given that the good Giancarlo had a long story of active militancy to tell, dating back to his vacation during the fascist era. Thus, the Inti became regulars at Botteghe Oscure. Even after their return to their homeland in 1988, the indissoluble bond with Italy did not wane: the Italian stories of the Inti are characterized by a striking normality, a desire to share humanity in a profound, passionate, visceral way. The story has something legendary and epic about it, like the story of Vecchioni's Bandolero, like the story of South America, after all. Try listening to "Alturas" thinking that you are there, somewhere between Bolivia and Chile, where time is legend, and the land is narrative. Italian history and Chilean history merge in numerous events that have marked a contemporary journey of the two countries; such as the Davis Cup final between Italy and Chile played in Santiago, Chile, in 1976. The famous final of Adriano Panatta's red shirt. But the debate in Italy, before the Italian expedition departed, was heated; and the Inti, as "representatives of the democratic Chilean people," as they liked to define themselves, were called into question. A heated debate between them and Captain Pietrangeli and a letter published in l'Unità were the two moments when the reasons of the Inti, the reasons for the fear that this final would somehow legitimize the regime, took a strong stance. Reflections play a fundamental role in this book: a long path of reflections forged with fear, crying, pity, and nostalgia.
The anecdotes recount the adventurous daily life of the Inti in Italy, while the human reflections reveal the depth of their soul. In this sense, the splendid introduction of the book is a succession of unfiltered emotions. The stories tell of barbecues at the festivals of l'Unità, of the cultural taste of comrade Longo, a lover of the Chilean Pastel de Choclo, of the historic football matches played in the footsteps of the Battle of Santiago, a historic and epic match between Italy and Chile at the Chilean World Cup in '62. Matches that featured in the lines of Italian comrades such as d'Alema (!), Ferrara (!!) and Adornato (!!!). And then the funerals of Berlinguer, Gian Maria Volontè crying under a portrait of Allende, Fellini and his cinema-circus caravan, all the way to the curious way in which the Inti learned of the end of the dictatorship: a curious circumstance that sees the group as protagonists in New York, under arrest at the airport along with a Neapolitan ecstatic about being under arrest, in America, and moreover with the Inti Illimani. The profound and mysterious legend of Sardinia, which is a bit like South America, is another step with which the Inti shine a light on the social disparities between southern and northern Italy.
While I write this DeRece, the CD included with the book plays: a CD recorded live in September 2003 on the occasions of the stops in Rome, Verona, and that Genzano of Rome that welcomed them as exiles 30 years earlier. The CD retraces many of the Inti's successes ("for a couple of years, the Billboard charts placed us second only to Pink Floyd in terms of record sales in Italy") composed over their now more than four-decade career, as well as containing Italian repertoire songs such as Buonanotte Fiorellino by the Prince or the "Theme of Love" from Nuovo Cinema Paradiso. "La Fiesta de San Benito" closes the CD. But it is not that Benito... Thinking that Benito was in honor of Juárez... But that's another story, which I gladly leave to the De-notists.
Loading comments slowly
