CHIP | Travel and Tours | News and Information | Living in Chile | Environment | Human Rights | About Us

by Emily Byrne

A war movie whose beauty lies in its lack of action, and whose end is as unremarkable as its beginning, doesn’t sound like an appealing prospect. But somehow, “Mi Mejor Enemigo (My Best Enemy)” manages to harness unsettling stillness to its advantage and tell an alternative story of “the war that never was.”

Set in 1978, during Chile’s conflict with Argentina over ownership of three islands in the Beagle Canal, “Mi Mejor Enemigo” follows the story of a Chilean border patrol unit that gets lost on their march to the border.

When the soldiers set off from the barracks, their goal is to “Kill five Argentine soldiers each with 20 bullets,” but after days of wandering the pampas encountering no more than a stray dog, they soon become disillusioned with their role in “the war that never was.”

An impermeable bleakness begins to shroud the pampas; the soldiers are locked in a hollow game of waiting without hope of returning home soon. The soldier’s apathy begins to set in; conscript Rojas starts to question why they are fighting over some islands he has never heard of.

Finally, they sight some Argentine soldiers hiding in a trench. The Chilean patrol digs its own trench only a short distance away and settles into futile, stalemated trench warfare. A stray dog that the Chilean soldiers met on the journey begins to act as a go-between for the soldiers. The Argentines tie hierba mate around the dog’s neck to give to the Chileans in exchange for cigarettes.

Eventually, the two warring factions are brought together over a game of football, played with a makeshift ball and twigs for goalposts. The two border patrols become friends; the Argentines help care for a Chilean soldier who cut his leg, and they share meat from a sheep that strayed from a passing gaucho’s herd.

The border patrol soldiers decide to settle the dispute for themselves by burning a border along the pampas. The two commanding officers establish where the border should go by asking their soldiers to move “two steps toward the Atlantic,” or a little bit further into Chile.

But then the real war begins; fighter planes and tanks spoil their war games. Soldiers are killed on both sides and the friends are forced to fight as enemies. When, two men down, the troops finally return home, Gloria – a waitress in the cafe in Rojas’ home town who he dreams is awaiting his return – rejects his advances. Rojas’ failed romance highlights this film’s wonderful disappointment: the soldiers get no glory, and the film does not succumb to a happy ending for Chile or Argentina.

`It is honest about war’s cruel futility and its inability to make any changes for the better.