La Flaca Alejandr Movie Analysis

Carmen Castillo’s film, La Flaca Alejandra, helps to recreate the memory of the dictatorial past in order to contribute to the collective memory of the country. This film also helps reconstruct Marcia Merino’s own memory and identity. The film offers a survivor’s perspective and memory through their retelling of the trauma they endured and their collaboration with the DINA, Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional. La Flaca Alejandra is an example of how the official narrative of the dictatorial past is challenged and how survivors expose a new “truth” (their truth) through their memory and add on to the “memory box” of Chile.
In his book, Remembering Pinochet’s Chile, Steve J. Stern argues that the Chilean memory of Pinochet’s dictatorship is like this idea of a “giant, collectively built memory box” (xxiix). This memory box attempts to “give meaning to, and find legitimacy within, a devastating community experience” (xxix). This theory tries to explain what happened during the dictatorship and acknowledges that there is a “great collective trauma” that must be recognized (Stern xxviii). In order to recognize this trauma, Stern introduces this idea of “memory knots” groups of people who brought attention to this traumatic past and the importance of remembrance. An example of these “memory knots” are authors

The documentary does not focus on the traditional heroic male figure of the MIR but instead focuses on Merino’s experience and her characterization as a traitor. La Flaca Alejandra shows this dichotomy between victim and traitor by filming scenes with her reactions while visiting the house on José Domingo Cañas where she was captured and tortured and scenes in which people give their opinion on Merino’s actions. Castillo gives Merino a chance to explain and dispute the accusations in front of the