Bachelet Wins in Chile--and Linked to Our Beethoven Film

The former Chilean (and progressive) leader Michelle Bachelet easily won election as president again today in a runoff.  And, in somewhat less earthshaking news, she is featured at the climax, almost as the punchline, in our new Beethoven film, Following the Ninth.

 One of the film's main characters, who has described being imprisoned and tortured at a notorious camp in that country during the Pinochet years, takes us to a memorial to all those who died there.  (The film shows how prisoners were inspired to keep resisting by women who gathered near the prison and sang the Chilean folk version of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy.")  And he reveals at the end that Bachelet was a prisoner herself (that's her in photo above as young woman) there--with her mother. (Her father, who served under Allende on food distribution, was also held and tortured and died of a heart attack.)  Now elected twice to lead the country.