"Argos Film and the University of Chili present" "VALPARAISO" "Two more hours to Valparaiso." ""Hurrah me bullies, heave the capstan, o, Goodbye, farewell, goodbye, farewell." "Goodbye to the drudgery, goodbye to the ship, Hourra, oh Mexico" "Then we'll bound for Valparaiso"" "The port lies below" "It was the richest port." "It was the goal, the destination." "It was often lauded." "One scissors' snip at Panama put it in its place at the bottom of the bag, on the Pacific coast." "It's still a port." "Valparaiso Chile, 300,000 inhabitants, between the Cordillera and the Ocean." "It is not the richest, but it lives, It lives well." "A commercial city lives with it, alongside it, below, at the base of the hills." "Another city exists on the hills." "Not a city, a federation of villages, one per hill." "42 hills, 42 villages." "Not another city, another world." "Two worlds that communicate by ramps, by stairs, by cable railways." "Pronounced horribly as Valparaiso in French it's Val Paraiso, the Valley of Paradise." "Paradise as a sunlit step after the nightmares of the crossing for the sailors who baptized her." "Or the last step before Paradise." "In this city, everyday at noon the sun performs its wonders." "All the women of Valparaiso bring out their parasols to walk all the penguins of Valparaiso." "All the bridges jut into midair." "All the homes are triangular, impossible to furnish." "All the stairs end midhill." "One must go back up or fly away." "With the sun, misery no longer seems like misery and the cable railways seem no longer like cable railways." "This is the lie of Valparaiso." "Her lie is the sun." "Her truth, the sea." "Created, forged, peopled by sailors." "Here the traces are English... the Bank of London the triumphal arches.." "...the Sign of the Lion the Salvation Army, and perhaps an inferior quality of whisky." "France offered the New World the gallantry of its corsairs and that last of secret societies, the Alliance Francaise." "The Spaniards baptized the city." "They converted her, adopted her, and married her." "She fooled them with the Dutch." "She persists." "But all the maritime nations have left her a small souvenir." "One finds exactly what one finds in sailors homes." "The souvenir of Casablanca, the souvenir of Singapore." "How many homes are souvenirs of boats until the point when, falling down, they become boats themselves." "Up, down up, up, down, up." "A one legged man climbs the stairs." "1 21 steps." "He knows it, he counts them." "One needs a strong heart, and also a good memory." "One can descend by the ramp ten times faster than by the stairs." "The descent is ten times faster than the climb up again." "One descends laughing." "One climbs panting." "It's funny, it's tiring it's abominable, joyful, inhuman solemn, ridiculous and strange." "Too many people up above, and too few down below." "In one hour, it will be the opposite." "Taken and retaken without end, like the fort of Douaumont." "It's an activity from war or maneuvers with assaults, sorties, breaches repulses, victories and defeats." "And sometimes, truces." "No one dies of hunger by the sea." "There are fish." "But fish do not fly." "So once again, the cable railways." "Very picturesque, the cable railways." "But the life of the people above depends on them." "And not everything goes up with them." "Water, for example, which is lacking." "And yet the wash is done, and girls wear white blouses." "What price the white blouses the clean faces when water arrives in barrels?" "What price the most simple things, bathing, cooking?" "What price the desire to live?" "And what price happiness?" "Everything goes by the cable railways." "There are thirty of them." "They have few accidents, but they break down." "Until they are repaired, the life of the entire hill is disturbed." "Controllers and mechanics watch the whole city go by they know adventure and secrets better than anyone." "They are the keepers of the museum of the hills." "The hills are called Hill of the Baron, of the Cross of the Butterfly the Nuns, the Milkmaids." "The higher one ascends the hills, the poorer the people." "At the summit, the poorest of the poor." "Around each hill there are large houses made of black iron and rust, the castles of the poor." "How do they live?" "The hills are against them." "Children do not take the elevators, just to save a few cents." "All these are necessary:" "Water, gas a school, a clinic waterworks." "But first, water." "Some have created a solution with iron and rope." "But the problem is a common one." "The hill's 'Junta', a kind of citizens' council, convenes:" "We must do something." ""We need houses to solve the serious problem of the hygiene in our neighbourhood, in the center of the main port of the country." "It is therefore indispensable to interest the public, and private organizations in building." "The Governor of the province has promised us his help."" ""The Workers Committee knows that the organizations and the owners do not agree." "It is a new delay."" ""We need water immediately!" "This haggling drags on." "One cannot see the end of it!"" "When it burns, it burns well." "The entire male population belongs to the firefighting corps." "Wooden homes, and then the wind." "The wind blows hard, up there." "It's good for drying laundry, but not as good for children's lungs." "At least the air is pure and clear." "This is the third element of Valparaiso:" "...the air of the hills, which is somewhat like their gaze." "Like the gaze of their people, courteous, a bit melancholic friend of animals and quiet pleasures on which we like directing the same calm, courteous, and amicable gaze." "Around this city of seamen, lies a people of horsemen." "The butcher's on the hill is called 'Buffalo Bill'." "Near Valparaiso, at Vina del Mar, a horse has won the Grand Prize." "This is its hour of glory, and it takes advantage of it." "After five years, the horse enters into the city's game, up, down up, down." "But up above, Buffalo Bill the butcher waits for its meat." "A black cross on a horse is the sign of death." "And the horse's eyes widen from fear, for it knows." "Men do not know." "They do not want to know." "They believe in an eternal future, shut up in a bottle." "At least something will remain of them." "When worry touches them, with its cold nose instinct brings them towards the warmth and the light." "This is the fourth element of Valparaiso: blood." "And this is its memory." "Memory of the pirates." "Hawkins, Drake Joris of Spilbergen." "Torture and pillage." "Memory of Spain." "Torture and pillage." "And colonial oppression for centuries." "Memory of fires." "The elements take over from men." "After fire, the sea." "Memory of storms." "The boats of Jules Verne, moored at the docks of the drowned of Gavarni." "And it goes on." "England supports Chile's independence." "Isabelle the Second of Spain has bombarded the city." "The last stand of a frustrated colonizer." "And then the earth opens, in turn." "Earthquakes, floods, fires cyclones and pillages this was to be the destiny of this peaceful people." "And it's not finished yet." "But what will finish?" "The sirens haven't finished singing in the port." "They are there, waiting." "They listen." "They wait." "Neither the alphabet of pavilions, nor the regular movement of ships correspond to what once was Valparaiso's adventure." "But nostalgia for yesterday's adventure is a useful way to flee the adventure of today." "On its hills, where the first good wind will bring the great kite championship with its duels, feints, triumphs adventure is about conquering liveable homes gardens that can be cultivated, and justice." "This is today's adventure." "It is another conception of adventure." "Perhaps the children of construction workers will once play 'construction' as we once played 'pirates'." "A film by Joris Ivens" "Assistant Sergio Bravo" "Editing Jean Ravel" "Photography Georges Strouvé" "Assistant Patricio Guzman" "Commentary Chris Marker" "Spoken by Roger Pigaut" "Music Gustavo Becerra" "Orchestra conducted by Georges Delerue" "Song "Nous Irons a Valparaiso" translated by Germaine Montero" "Directorial assistants Augustin Altet-Rebecca Yanez" "Editing assistants Annie Mouilleron" " Annie Meunier" "Assistant operator Léonardo Martinez" "Head of direction Chile Luis Cornejo" "Assisted by Manuel Carasco" "Editing Jacques Maumont" "Producers Anatole Dauman-Philippe Lifchitz"