THE MELTDOWN © Ronda Cine
El Deshielo, a letter from Manuela Martelli
Renowed actress in Chile and director of 1976, Manuela Martelli offers with El Deshielo (The Meltdown) presented in Un Certain Regard, a new feature film that she also wrote herself. In a country still haunted by dictatorship, she builds a story around childhood and disappearance.
“The Meltdown arose from two childhood memories. The ski hotel owned by my relatives was a place where I spent many vacations as a young girl. It remains vivid in my memory, especially the time spent away from my parents. For most of the day, we children were under the care of the staff and moved freely through the back of the hotel, an area that was inaccessible to tourists.
Around the same period, though without any direct connection, I vividly remember the transfer of the Antarctic iceberg that Chile exhibited at the World’s Fair in Seville in 1992. Through the eyes of a nine-year-old girl, the transatlantic journey of this colossal piece of ice felt like a fable unfolding in episodes on television. The exhibition commemorated the 500th anniversary of the so-called “Discovery” of Latin America, and the iceberg’s displacement was presented as a heroic gesture by a country emerging from dictatorship and opening itself to international trade. “If we could transport this ice, we could transport fresh products anywhere with the same efficiency,” the slogan proclaimed.
“ Seen through the eyes of a nine-year-old girl in the snow-covered Andes, The Meltdown is a film that refuses to forget. ”
These two memories, seemingly unconnected, share a similar dimension. Both the hotel and the exhibition have different layers: one that is displayed and another that remains hidden. In the hotel, the façade is where things appear almost magically: beds made, meals served, fireplaces lit. Beneath that surface lies the anonymous labor that sustains everything, invisible and silent. The exhibition, in turn, reflects how a country chooses to present itself to the world. What remains hidden is everything that might fracture that image, everything we prefer not to reveal, even to ourselves.
During the return to democracy, there was widespread hope that the country would be redefined and that the neoliberal economic model would bring prosperity to all. The iceberg became a symbol of that hope. With the promise of a brighter tomorrow, many agreed to “leave in the past what belonged to the past.” But the past was horror. How could it be forgotten?
