Colonia

4/5 Stars

Summary: “Lena and Daniel, a young couple become entangled in the Chilean military coup of 1973. Daniel is abducted by Pinochet’s secret police and Lena tracks him to a sealed off area in the South of the country, called Colonia Dignidad. The Colonia presents itself as a charitable mission run by lay preacher Paul Schäfer but, in fact, is a place nobody ever escaped from. Lena decides to join the cult in order to find Daniel. Based on true events.”

I don’t know how I missed this movie being released, but I found it on Red Box (which I’m now obsessed with) and thought I’d give it a try.  First off, I couldn’t believe it was based on a true story.  I had no idea all this was going down in Chili, and not that long ago.  I love movies with history stories like that.

Colonia was well acted (yay Emma Watson!) and didn’t feel too much like a story we see all the time.  It was creepy, especially when you thought about how this was a real place.  The one problem I have with this movie was that I feel like it would make a better TV show.  I’m sure there was so much more to the story that could have been told.  At one point it went from day 32 to one hundred something.  I would’ve loved to see everything that happened during that time.

Also, I know NOTHING about Chili and I feel like the beginning didn’t explain everything that was going on in the country at the time well enough.  More backstory would’ve enhanced it.

I wasn’t able to see if the story of these specific people was true or just the cult, but either way I could imagine it as a great mini series.

What do you think?