Pablo Neruda! Presente! (2004)

A dynamic documentary on Latin America's most renowned poet, Pablo Neruda (1904-1973). Neruda was a public poet, statesman, activist, and Nobel Laureate who attained mythic stature in his lifetime. An incurable romantic, incorrigible womanizer, and unrepentant militant communist, Neruda's contradictions found poetic expression in an aching lyricism and potent political verse. He invented a new poetic voice, distinctively Americano, rooted in Latin America's native cultures and untamed geography. Neruda wrested poetry from the rarified atmosphere of the salon and gave it to the people, a communal voice rooted in oral tradition, fired by raw passion and the struggle for justice. "Poetry is like bread," he wrote. "It should be shared by all, by scholars and peasants, by all our vast, incredible, extraordinary family of Man." Compelling biography represents an idea larger than its individual subject-in the case of Neruda, the theme of el deber del poeta, the poet's calling. For Neruda, poetry was a rallying cry for the social function of art, a way of bearing witness to suffering and injustice. Chile's tumultuous history shaped Neruda, and he became a major player in its ongoing political struggles with military dictatorship, fascism, national liberation, and U.S. intervention. The poet lived through some of the most significant events of the 20th century, and his writing is a chronicle of the times, poetically expressed, from the Spanish Civil War to the Stalin purges, the Cold War, and the 1973 military coup that toppled Chile's democratically elected government. Neruda reclaimed "America" in the name of the entire continent and redefined the cultural landscape. Pablo Neruda. Prensete. creates an intimate portrait of one of Latin America's most colorful characters, and introduce a broad North American audience to the power of Neruda's poetry. Still, the film is unflinching when it calls for criticism of Neruda and his controversial acts; it does question Neruda's self-appointed "people's poet" status... It links the meaning of his public life to the state of our world now.