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It was an afternoon in the early nineties. While Chilean society was adjusting to the first months of the return to democracy, a young and lanky Sergio Lagos attended a Los Jaivas concert for the first time at the Germán Becker stadium in Temuco. Those were days when the group traveled from France to perform in the country, after the death of its drummer and founder, Gabriel Parra.
“He was with some friends, we were very impressed,” recalls the television host. Then it is armed as a tole tole, and suddenly I see two people, two older, doing a dance like a condor. With that as the tole tole extended. I’m looking at that … and it was my old lady !! she was with her husband at the time ”.
Those childhood memories partially summarize Lagos’s admiration for the music of the Viñamarinos. Nothing unusual for someone raised with a mother figure linked to some of the big names in the national culture of the late 1980s. In the disco of his childhood and adolescence, he says, there were records by key artists in the fusion of Latin American popular music with foreign sounds, such as Los Blops, Manduka, and even the essential Congregation comes, Congregation.
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“In Concepción, my mother organized concerts,” recalls Lagos. “He took Tita Parra, Motemei, to Congress and they slept in our house, because there was no money for lodging. So that universe of people and works, were the ones we admired when we felt that things were getting difficult; they were synonymous with hope ”.
Hence, he decided to carry out a documentary that, as a tribute, tells the story of the band. The project called The Jaivas, All Together, gathers testimonies from its members, as well as other musicians and people related to their environment, such as Mónica Monsalve, the widow of “Gato” Alquinta.
“I find it very curious that one of the most important bands in our culture did not have one or more stories about them,” says Lagos. Since the irruption of the film Violeta se va a las cielos, this absence has become very manifest to us. And it doesn’t just happen to me with Los Jaivas, it happens to me with the story that the musicians tell ”.
The film, which lasts a little over two hours, was worked with the producer Invercine & Wood. “I left long years ago with my team a bit groping, but then I felt that it was very urgent that audiovisual production professionals were part of this project and the contribution of Invercine & Wood has been fundamental,” says Lagos.
The link with the filmmakers was created through a third party. “It was through Javier Sanfeliú, our friend and Sergio Lagos, with whom we worked on another documentary we made about Roberto Bolaño,” explains the film’s executive producer, Macarena Cardone. Sergio saw it, he loved it, he asked Javier who had produced it, we got together and launched ourselves ”.
But compressing a story close to sixty on the screen wasn’t easy for the team. More, when approaching the huge archive of the group and reviewing more than 1,000 hours of recordings. Meanwhile, a research project led by Macarena Cano was developed in parallel.
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“It’s a story that overwhelms us on all sides, so a two-hour movie is always going to fall short,” explains Sergio Lagos. “In addition, the story comes from long before the formation of the band, for example there is a cinematographic record made by the Parra’s father, who had 18mm tape recorders; there is a lot of history, a lot of material ”.
Therefore, the production team worked on narrative axes to develop the story and gather the entire record. “After reviewing everything together with Fito Gárate and Juan Pablo Venegas, the material was grouped into specific themes or concepts, to be able to articulate a coherent and attractive story,” explains Macarena Cardone.
“Then came the color and audio post-production stage that we work at Filmosonido. It was an intense jewelry work to save the audio and color of a lot of material, impressive how the textures, colors, photos, the life of that file appeared ”, adds the producer.
Worked under the scheme of a road movie, the film also develops in depth a part of the group’s history; his years of residence abroad since the 1970s. Therefore, the production made trips with the musicians to significant places in Argentina and Europe.
“In Holland we went to a hippie community where Los Jaivas reunited with their group of friends in places they never thought they would return. They realized that over time they continue to maintain the same lifestyle that they never lost, ”Cardone recalls. “Those moments are valuable, and you realize that their influence was not only in Chile. It’s like recovering your memories ”.
“Their energy is enormous! keeping up with them was not easy and that forced us to walk very fast ”, he adds.
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The trip removed some internal fiber in the musicians. “For Claudio [Parra] Going back to the stage in Paris, which I hadn’t been on for 40 years, was very exciting ”, Cardone details. “In Zàrate, Argentina they remembered them with great affection and they remain connected with their history that was transmitted from generation to generation; as it was a small town, Los Jaivas are still an icon. Also, Mario [Mutis] He was very excited because he has very dear people, part of the family, and for Juanita [Parra] it was very important to go back to his old home. “
For this reason, the documentary opens a window to the spaces in which the group not only developed its musical work, but also community life, such as the house of Les Glycines, in France. “It has always been one of the great imaginaries we talked about, what that castle must have been like in which Los Jaivas lived making music and living in community,” says Sergio Lagos. I think we all dream about it and idealize it ”.
For now, the film will be screened in a single function, on Saturday, November 7, at 8:30 p.m., on the Puntoticket platform, where tickets are available. But from the production company they already move the strings for their arrival to streaming at some point. “Our plan is to search for Vod and Pay TV platforms in Chile and Latin America,” explains Macarena Cardone.
Asked about the main contribution of the tape, from the production stand out the intimacy of the record, and by the way, the rescue of the unpublished material. “On this trip they revisit their story, connecting with it from a mature place, and without learned speeches and it is super valuable from a visual point of view,” explains the executive producer.
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For Sergio Lagos – whose favorite song of the group is “Frescura Antigua” and “todos los otros” -, it is a valuable story in itself. “Beyond the special of Macchu Picchu Heights, there are no audiovisual documents that can tell the story; It is not a definitive story, but we hope it is the beginning of a broader search ”.
It even proposes a next step. “The movie that should be made is like the one made around Bruce Springsteen, the one called Springsteen and i, in which he never speaks; only people talk about him. I think that’s the next thing you should see; what we Chileans see about them ”.
“Los Jaivas are the best history in Chile, the best,” he closes.
