We know that the film “Cautiverio Feliz” (Happy Captivity) (1998) by Cristián Sánchez, based on the work with the same name by Francisco Núñez de Pineda, took special care of the historical reconstruction of the facts and, above all, of the staging of the aboriginal life style. In this article, we analyze the interviews and commentaries that appeared in the press of the time the film was released. This was an enquiry that allowed us to reveal the kind of cultural notions used to justify this kind of audiovisual representation. Even though an exploration of this kind does not allow us to come to conclusions about how the work was received or interpreted by the spectators, it offers us a broader view of the cultural and communicative process involved in watching cinema.