Ruiz is no lover of documentary. But the opportunity to make an essay-film offering his ‘observations of Chile’ produced in him a mammoth work, recently shown in seven parts on Chilean television. Shooting with a digital camera, Ruiz refinds the mobility and mercuriality of his early Chilean work. But he is also able to explore anew the transmutation of reality into fiction: Chile becomes the imaginary country of Cofralandes, ‘a popular version of paradise, a folkloric paradise. In the beginning there is a song about a place where poor people can live without poverty, and they can eat everything – even the houses. The rivers are made of wine.’

This dream-Chile is shown through the eyes of three travellers, French, German and English. A camera-witness accompanies them, belonging to a Chilean narrator who rediscovers this strange country that is his birthplace. The extravagant characters, unusual situations and unreal images speak of a land where sweetness kills, and oblivion of memory rules.

And yet, gradually, moments emerge from this Sargasso Sea in which pleasure and mad laughter are revealed as good companions to pain and uncertainty. But also where a child’s poem conceals a massacre, and a smile hides an earth tremor. Chilean Rhapsody, the introduction to Cofralandes, brings out the best in Ruiz: mystery, humour, intellectual speculation, science, nostalgia, poetry.