“I had no control over the big events of my life,” says Chilean author Isabel Allende. These big events—her father's absence, the Chilean military coup in 1973 that toppled her president uncle Salvador Allende, a second marriage, and the death of her daughter—are at the heart of this examination of Allende's life and work. Born in Peru in 1942, Isabel was raised in her grandfather's house in Santiago, Chile (Allende's mother divorced her Chilean diplomat father when Isabel was a young girl). Allende worked as a journalist and married young, but after President Allende was deposed, she fled with her husband to Venezuela, living in exile for 13 years. When Allende learned that her grandfather was dying back home, she began a letter that would form the basis for her first novel, The House of Spirits (1982). After divorcing her first husband and moving to the United States, Allende later remarried and continued a writing career that brought her international acclaim. The documentary glosses over these years, moving quickly to the final section, which revolves around her daughter Paula, who died of a rare blood disease in 1992 at the age of 28. Featuring on-location footage from Latin America and Allende's California home, filmmaker Paula Rodriguez Sickert's Isabel Allende: A Writer's Life combines interviews (with the author, her husband, relatives, and friends), archival footage and family snapshots, and quotes from her writings, to create a solid, if somewhat staid, documentary about Allende's life and work. Recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (J. Wadland)
Isabel Allende: A Writer's Life
(2008) 52 min. DVD: $99: public libraries & high schools; $295: colleges & universities. Filmakers Library. PPR. Volume 24, Issue 2
Isabel Allende: A Writer's Life
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