Skip to main content

El Conde Makes Literal a Nation's Horror


Earlier this year I watched Pablo Larraín’s Ema -it was the first non-English, non-biographical film from him I’d seen and I liked it quite a bit. It is a wild, freaky, sexy movie about a queer woman’s determination to reconnect with her pyromaniac son -quite a degree removed from the like of Jackie and Spencer, indicating that while he’s been identified in the western world by methodical biopics, in his native Chile, Larraín is something more of an eccentric. I haven’t seen movies like No or Neruda that would back this up, but El Conde certainly does: a bleak satire film set in the final years in the life of Augusto Pinochet that re-imagines the infamous dictator as a centuries-old vampire.
I suppose casting the great monster of your nation’s history as a literal supernatural monster is one way of reckoning with their legacy -surprised Germany or Spain hasn’t tried that yet. It’s a bizarre idea, one devoid of any nuance; Pinochet’s story in the film opens on him being an aristocrat survivor of the French Revolution, and driven ever afterwards by the perceptively unjust execution of the elites of that country -Marie Antoinette especially. He often refers to Chile and it’s people now that he’s been ousted as “ungrateful”. And there’s a reveal in the third act that very bluntly comments on the “origin” of Pinochet and his place in the world politics of the time he came to power in.
Jaime Vadell stars as the parasitic old cretin, framed in a state of luxury yet diminished power –almost like Lear. Vadell plays brusquely all of the lingering anger and spite that seems to keep him alive as he awaits death –he is starving himself of blood, which his non-vampire family is concerned over. It’s not out of any feeling for him though, rather concern over the minutia of their inheritance. Larraín and co-writer Guillermo Calderón haven’t any sympathy for the family –though perhaps due to libel reasons, they rename all of the children and family colleagues. Only Pinochet himself and his wife Lucia (Gloria Münchmeyer) are explicitly identified –her great desire being for her husband to make her a vampire as well. In the absence of this, or any affection at all, she is having an affair with the White Russian butler Fyodor (Alfredo Castro) –the only surviving vampire Pinochet turned.
Shot in black and white, the movie is almost exclusively set at an isolated estate on a rock over the sea that evokes the cold and barren topography of Bergman films. There’s a kind of beautiful emptiness all around, thrown into relief especially in scenes where Pinochet goes flying -a particularly unsettling kind of flying where he seems carried on the wind by billowing cape. Often, the vampire imagery puts you in mind of other stylistically engaging examinations of creatures of the night like The Hunger or A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. In at least one scene, the erotic connotations cannot be ignored. And all this does present a rather notable problem: Larraín’s aesthetics and flourishes do not compliment the nature of this story. They are too elegant for their subjects, and even for the attitude the filmmakers espouse towards them. Pinochet and his family are ridiculed in a largely cynical way -the bluntness of their evil politics are emphasized. To some degree, Augusto and Lucia are caricatured more holistically, but the impression is still one of formidable power -just exaggerated, and I don’t know that it leaves the satire very strong.
Of course, I’m lost on several details. The movie spends a chunk of time dealing explicitly in specific controversies of the Pinochet era that go over the head of most non-Chileans. Particularly related to laundering schemes, as an auditor Carmen (Paula Luchsinger) comes in to investigate and compile a dossier of the family’s finances. These interviews are full of pointed references and allegations that Carmen, as a kind of audience surrogate, takes delight in grilling them on. Granted, she is there with an ulterior purpose -a double-ulterior purpose as it turns out- concerning exorcising Pinochet’s vampirism. The captivating Luchsinger, who had had a memorable part in Ema, is perhaps the film’s greatest stand-out, as she sharply manipulates the family, and Pinochet especially, with intense confidence and a stunning charisma irresistible to Larraín’s camera.
The film is narrated and often excessively so in English by Margaret Thatcher (Stella Gonet) -who eventually shows up in person with a shrewd allegorical relationship to Pinochet (a role that just as well could have been filled by Henry Kissenger to be honest). All throughout, her exposition is coloured by ironic frankness, callously toned observations and context. This scathing commentary is a lot easier to grasp for non-Chileans as it implicates the larger powers than Chile that facilitated Pinochet’s regime and were apathetic allies to his crimes. Clearly that’s the take on Thatcher here as she shows up in the last act to directly protect Pinochet from the schemers. There’s greater violence here, wilder plot beats, and also an unwavering bleakness. Both the conclusion of the story and what it seems to stand in for metaphorically are rather grim summations of the post-Pinochet world, how the evils he and his kin wreaked still manage to linger and not just for Chile. The precise meaning there is a little ambiguous, and it might have been a mistake for Larraín to lean so much into a dour tone coming into the end stretch -much as it still features that ridiculous yet stylized vampire miasma. Solemnity does not suit its precepts much.
El Conde is a movie that feels like it is in conversation somewhat with last year’s Argentina, 1985 -another South American movie reckoning with the legacy of a dictatorial regime. And I think it’s noteworthy how where that film took a very conventional biographic courtroom drama approach, this one is far more extravagant and unusual while circulating some of the same points. Argentina, 1985 is inherently self-congratulatory over how it dealt with war criminals, but El Conde in it’s wry cynicism, is pessimistic -insinuating that Pinochet and those evils that fuelled him never died. The attitude is that making him a blood-sucking, soul-destroying monster is merely literalizing his impact. And though I think the way El Conde handles its satire is flawed and that it makes poor choices in setting its tone, it ultimately has something more authentic to say -not only to Chile, but the United Kingdom, the United States, any of the powers that legitimized Pinochet and what he did to that country. It is a weird little movie, but one that warrants real consideration.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Strange History of the American Spoof Movie

Parody movies have been around for a lot longer than we tend to think of them. Even from the earliest days of Hollywood there were movies meant to satirize a particular subject or genre. In the silent era, Buster Keaton was responsible for a few. And in the early sound era, almost as soon as the monster pictures took off did you see comic versions of them -Abbott and Costello hosting a few. But parody movies tended to be subtle for most of cinema history, or parody came in conjunction with another goal of the comedy. It really wasn’t until the 1980s and 90s that it took off and became popularly understood. And there is perhaps a line to be drawn to the counterculture comedy explosion that began in the 1970s through avenues like  Saturday Night Live , which frequently parodied from even its earliest years popular movies and cultural properties of the time. But that is still a way’s back. To my generation though, ‘parody movie’ is perhaps a less known term than the more blunt ‘s...
Post a Comment
Read more

Notes on the Title Cards of The Lord of the Rings

It might be sacrilege for one who both considers The Lord of the Rings  trilogy to be one of the greatest triumphs of cinema and has been an avid lover of the films since adolescence, to declare that the original theatrical cuts of the films are better than the much beloved extended editions. Easily it’s my most controversial opinion regarding these movies. Don’t get me wrong, I do like the extended editions quite a lot, especially as someone who just enjoys spending time in that universe. They flesh it out more, add extra flavour, and in increasing the length by about an hour really emphasize the epic quality of these films. But I find that the original cuts are generally more cleanly paced, more seamlessly edited, and much more accessible to audiences. All the stuff there is to love about The Lord of the Rings  is there in the original versions, the plethora of new and extended scenes merely add to that for fans. And of those, they fall into three camps for me: 1....
1 comment
Read more

Back to the Feature: New York, New York (1977)

New York, New York  is a two hour forty minute musical movie largely about a toxic relationship and I understand why it was Martin Scorsese’s first big flop. Some have blamed its poor reception on the kind of movie it was, of a style and tone Scorsese wasn’t known for, but I find that hard to believe. Even after only five films, he’d proven himself an extremely versatile director, and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore  found an audience. Sure this jazz musical love letter to New York City was following up Taxi Driver and its’ far more cynical take on the city, but then it’s also ‘from the director of Taxi Driver ’ which itself was a big hit. Was it a matter of public appetite for musicals, or mere word of mouth and early critical reception that dissuaded viewers? Irrespective of that, I was stunned to discover this movie was the origin of the titular song, which I’d assumed was much older (it’s definitely got the sound of something that might have come out of the Jazz sce...
Post a Comment
Read more