(2023, Cile, 110')
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 of thousands, Augusto Pinochet is now an elderly vampire who, after feigning his own death, continues to feed on his own malevolence and the blood of his fellow citizens. At the ripe old age of 250, Pinochet can no longer bear to be remembered as a thief – a murderer, yes, but not a thief! – and decides to starve himself to death. However, an encounter with a young French accountant ignites a glimmer of hope in a lost soul.
The talented Chilean director is one of the most sophisticated auteurs on the international scene, both in terms of form and content. His country’s past, torn apart by the coup that led to a bloody dictatorship, is still an open wound. His cinema embodies all the aberrations and madness of a tormented civil society, reduced to a hopeless shadow. The characters, whom the director obsessively follows, are both victims and perpetrators, starting with his Tony Manero in 2007, who prevails over others by using the violence institutionalized by the coup regime. Like with El conde, Larraín repeatedly returns to Chile’s recent history, summoning its ghosts and painting a realistic yet hallucinatory picture. Among his most acclaimed works are three biopics: Neruda, which portrays the Chilean poet in the late 1940s as he flees his country; Jackie, his first Hollywood film, focused on the figure of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, both released in 2016; and Spencer about Lady Diana in 2021.
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