Stars: Gael García Bernal, Luis Gnecco, Alfredo Castro
Storyline
An inspector hunts down Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, who becomes a fugitive in his home country in the late 1940s for joining the Communist Party.
Cast: Gael García Bernal -
Óscar Peluchonneau
Luis Gnecco -
Pablo Neruda
Alfredo Castro -
Gabriel González Videla
Pablo Derqui -
Víctor Pey
Mercedes Morán -
Delia del Carril
Emilio Gutiérrez Caba -
Picasso
Marcelo Alonso -
Pepe Rodríguez
Victor Montero -
Rubén Azócar
Alejandro Goic -
Jorge Bellet
Jaime Vadell -
Arturo Alessandri
Diego Muñoz -
Martínez
Néstor Cantillana -
Francisco Reyes -
Bianchi
Marcial Tagle -
Héctor Noguera -
Country: Chile, Argentina, France, Spain, USA
Language: Spanish, French
Release Date: 3 Jan 2016
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Did You Know?
Trivia:
Official submission of Chile for the 'Best Foreign Language Film' category of the 89th Academy Awards in 2017. See more »
User Review
Author:
Rating: 8/10
This is a fictional plot around the very real character of Pablo
Neruda, the Chilean poet who, during the 1940's, had also been a
senator in the Chilean congress on behalf of the communist party. The
film is set in 1948, when the authorities crack down on communists - a
time that may be viewed as a chilling precursor to 1970's Pinochet -
and the basic plot is about Neruda's escapes from the police, endeavors
that force him all over Chile. Luis Gnecco as Neruda is fantastic and
so is Mercedes Morán as Delia, Neruda's aristocratic wife. At one
level, the film offer a troubling inquiry into the personality of this
esteemed poet-intellectual-communist. He is an admired spokesperson for
the workers and the downtrodden but he is also a hedonistic drunk and a
spoiled womanizer; rough and gentle, strong and weak, Neruda's
character and image keeps shifting, and it is to the credit of this
film that it never for a moment tries to offer a solution to these
complexities. In one memorable episode, a waitress asks Neruda, as he
sits at a club-restaurant surrounded by his intellectual-hedonistic
friends, suffused with alcohol, whether equality means that everyone
will live like he does or whether it means that he, Neruda, will settle
for less. I shall not disclose his response.
The camera-work covers a wide range of scenes, from film-noire urban
settings to stunning snow covered terrains, all very precisely
accompanied by period costumes, designs, motorcycles and horses.
However the film aspires, and succeeds, to be by far more than a good
period piece. Rather, it is a film about obsession. The psychological
roots of this obsession are only hinted to, and this is a good thing
too. And the obsessed is Gael García Bernal, playing the detective who
relentlessly pursues Neruda. His performance is nothing short of
stunning. As the film progresses, and it never rests for a moment, we
gradually lose, alongside the characters in the film, any firm grip on
reality. Just like in captivating poetic gestures, it becomes less and
less clear what is real and what is fiction, what is an event and what
is a fantasmatic representation of it, who is a character that actually
acts and who is an imaginary ghost. And this is the film's most
important achievement.
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