Movie review of "El Conde": Augusto Pinochet Decides to Die
The Chilean dictator literally drinks the blood of his people in Pablo Larraín's satire.
The dictator, whose political power has not lost its power except in a very narrow circle of cronies, wants to die. He has already faked his demise several times in an attempt to start life anew, but the bloody trail continues to linger and to cover his tracks. In the center of satirical fantasy Pablo Larraín again Augusto Pinochet - once the director has already reflected on the figure of the tyrant in the historical drama "No". And if in the last picture the answer to the question about the prospect of eternal life of the dictator even at the level of historical memory was negative, in the new picture Larraín allows the macabre evil to linger on earth.
Augusto Pinochet (Jaime Vadell) is 250 years old, and he makes smoothies out of hearts for breakfast - which is probably why he's well-preserved. It so happened that the tyrant could drink the blood of his people not only in a figurative sense: in the director's version, the historical figure, who has not entered the chronicle thanks to something good, is also a vampire. And if we're used to blood-sucking tyrants liking to linger in power, Pinochet nobly decides to die. "Count", as Augusto himself asked to call himself, did everything for the people who did not recognize the greatness of the ruler. Except for his children, who dream of taking away the hidden treasures of the politician, Pinochet has nothing to hold on to - and the offspring are not really.
Larraín has a special fondness for dissecting the private lives of those who are always under scrutiny. In 2016's "Jackie," the director screened the behind-the-scenes travails of John F. Kennedy's wife, and two years ago he made the world feel even more sorry for Princess Diana - even though everyone seemed to have already cried. Larraín was not immediately ready to face Pinochet's figure, and in the end he backed himself up anyway: if you imagine that the atrocities are not human but infernal, it's as if an excuse appears.
На протяжении всей картины нас сопровождает горделивый голос, отстаивающий Пиночета не то перед зрителем, не то перед другими героями. Сочувствием проникнуться не выходит, да и задача у вещателя другая — вселить ужас от преклонения перед тираном. Разношерстность отношения к Пиночету Ларраин иллюстрирует сценой очередных похорон: кто-то плюет на стеклянную крышку гроба, а другие с характерным жестом кричат «Хайль!». Удивительное рядом: 20% чилийцев считают Пиночета одним из лучших правителей страны ХХ века.
But there is nothing outstanding about Larraín's horror. The farce created on screen seems to have been preemptively rendered in black and white for security purposes: when Pinochet smashes a woman's head with a hammer in a fit of rage, the monochrome seems to clean up the bloodthirstiness. For a figure who installed one of the bloodiest regimes ever, the threat of money-hungry children is too banal - and disproportionate in sinfulness. Larraín doesn't go with an aspen stake on a now helpless historical figure who, by all accounts, he cares a great deal about. And yet "The Count" proves to be toothless. The only place where Pinochet the vampire has no descent is in depriving him of the opportunity to justify himself to the people. The dictator has no choice but to die and not to disturb the eyes - his love for the country and power in such dimensions is shared only by a servant of Russian origin and he takes eternal life as payment for his loyalty.
"The Count" had ambitious mockumentary material - Tarantino didn't shy away from shooting Adolf Hitler in "Inglourious Basterds" and burning Charles Manson's followers in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood." But Larraín chooses the tone of a humble intellectual and prefers Chilean emotionality to British humor, which is not whip-smart enough for a tyrant.
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