In the opening scene of Oscar-nominated Chilean director Maite Alberdi’s 90-minute documentary, Eternal Memory, we watch as a woman wakes up a sleeping man to begin a new day. She introduces herself to him – her name is Pauli. His name is Augusto. She is an actor and was a government minister, and they have been together for 20 years. They built the house they are living in together. He receives each piece of this news delightedly, as if a present is being slowly unwrapped for him.
Pauli is Paulina Urrutia, former minister of the National Council of Culture and the Arts of Chile under post-Pinochet president Michelle Bachelet. Augusto is her husband, Augusto Góngora, part of the underground television news service Teleanàlisis, which chronicled abuses under the dictatorial regime. Augusto was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2014 at the age of 62 and agreed to Alberdi’s film in 2018. It covers decline intimately over the next four years – perhaps more intimately than was ever envisaged, as the pandemic means that Pauli herself has to take over the filming while lockdown rules apply and neither family, friends nor Alberdi can visit. If so tight a focus makes viewing feel a little claustrophobic and airless at times, that is surely no more than the truth.
