Violeta Went to Heaven

“Creation is a bird without a flight plan,” the singer, artist and folklorist Violeta Parra (1917–1967) once said. “It never flies in a straight line.” It’s fitting, then, that this film about one of Chile’s heroes goes beyond linear biography, to present a poetically episodic portrait of a woman whose songs, like Edith Piaf’s, echoed the soul of her nation. Key moments of Parra’s life — from her impoverished childhood to her international stardom — are beautifully woven together, like one of her own tapestries. At the core of the film is a rapturous performance by Francisca Gavilán, who brilliantly captures the essence of Parra’s magnetic, tempestuous and self-contradictory being.