For more than twenty years, the Chilean military dictatorship harshly imposed a kind of Capitalist revolution on the country. The combination of unbridled economic liberalism with an autocratic state made the country ripe for the fiercest forms of competition. El entusiasmo is a modern epic about the confusion that reigned among the generation that grew up under dictatorship. After the return of democracy, they were shown a new role model and set of in search of material or personal enrichment. In 1980, when Pinochet was still the dictator of Chile, the young Isabel, Fernando and Guillermo meet. They find each other in their shared preference for the Utopian ideal of the ‘independent republic’ conceived by Guillermo, a reaction to the Capitalism preached by the dictatorship. Ten years later, democracy is restored and Isabel and Fernando have a child: Miguel. In the desert hamlet of Arica, on the border with Peru, they start a company organising adventurous excursions for tourists. There they also meet their old friend Guillermo, who now makes smooth reports for European TV stations. Business is looking up for Fernando. However his marriage to Isabel is starting to show signs of fraying when he enthusiastically links up with a consortium that wants to start up a vast tourist complex.
