Thursday, January 5, 2017

The story of Chile is mostly filled with political turmoils, important personalities and great food. Is a country with so much richness with is represented the words of writers, sounds from their musicians, and visuals from their visual artist.

During the late 40's the government of Gabriel González Videla he started a witch hunt against communist, a new breed of politicians who solely believe in the common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social class. One of the members was the poet Pablo Neruda. This is the premise of the film Neruda by Pablo Larrain (Jackie, NO)

The film starts with the petition of Chilean president Videla (Alfredo Castro) to capture the poet Pablo Neruda (Luis Gnecco) for his role the antagonism between the senate and the communist party. This was becoming a politic conflict started in the US in the McCarty era and the cold war>

Neruda is forced to escape and hide in several houses, but he is closely chased by Óscar Peluchonneau (Gael Garcia Bernal.

The concept of the film is pretty interesting. Since Neruda was a fan of cop stories, the movie set the tone of a classic film noir. Peluchonneau is the narrator of the story, guiding us and taking us to the scenes, the emotions, the moments but also the the characters conflicts. But there is a twist instead of borrowing the narration style of films like The Maltese Falcon, Larrain give a poetic voice to Peluchonneau.

Some scenes is like reading a chapter of a book, several times in different locations, the style is complex and effective, altering time and space but not the story arch.

Federicu Juis music is engaging and repetitive the right way, Sergio Armstrong cinematography is beautiful capturing the silhouettes of clandestinity or the vast countryside of Chile and Argentina when Neruda try to escape.

Neruda is a great document about Chilean history, but with heavy influences of American culture. Gnecco and Bernal deliver great roles as the main characters of this poetic film noir drama set in Latin America.


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