The Chilean filmmaker sets out once again to reckon with the past of his troubled country, once torn apart by an American imperialism-backed coup that brought about bloodthirsty dictatorship. In Larraín’s cinema, we’ll find all the aberration and the folly of a tortured society, a shadow of its former self. Characters are victims and tormenters at once. The protagonist of 2008 film Tony Manero takes anything he wants by walking all over his neighbour, making use of the institutionalized violence proper of the new regime.
Larraín comes back regularly to Chile’s recent history. He knows how to address the ghosts of the past and how to paint a realistic, yet crazed picture of what was a tragic period. Oftentimes, his art depicts the fight of an individual against the powers that be trying to strangle him and force him to do their bids. The protagonist reacts and gets back in the saddle despite the world around him crumbling to pieces.
In Pablo Larraín’s filmography, we’ll find three biopics: Neruda, showing the Chilean poet leaving his country and political persecution in the late 1940s; Jackie, his first Hollywood film, focusing on the figure of the First Lady and her fate after the assassination of her husband; and Spencer, on Lady Diana, with her story prominent on the background of one of the darkest moments in the history of the British Crown. Larraín also made TV series Lisey’s Story, an adaptation of Stephen King’s supernatural horror novel of the same name, starring Julianne Moore
Ingeniously straddling the realms of horror and dark comedy, Pablo Larraín envisions – this time in black and white – a bleak parallel universe inspired by recent Chilean history. A global symbol of fascism, a ruthless dictator responsible for the disappearance and death ...
A man’s obsession as the metaphor of a decaying society, oppressed by dictatorship.
The strength of the Chilean people that democratically reacts to dictatorship and believes again in a better future.
A home for the re-education of priests who misbehaved turns into a hotbed of evil that feeds guiltless, remorseless souls.
The story of a poet fleeing the country that persecutes him, seen through the eyes of the man who is out to get him.
Blood on the First Lady’s pink dress, the fall of the presidential inner circle, the end of a time of hope and illusions.
A rebel princess who won’t bow before the mechanical, hypocritical institutional codes of conduct.
