El Conde
Augusto Pinochet – aka ‘The Count’ – is given the biographical treatment in Pablo Larraín’s latest tweaking of historical fact.
Count the crimes: Jaime Vadell as Augusto Pinochet
Pablo Larraín has never let the truth get in the way of a good biopic. Following his cinematic profiles of Pablo Neruda, Jackie Kennedy and Princess Diana, Larraín now turns his mischievous gaze towards the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. What actual historical fact may be true – Pinochet’s human rights violations, embezzlement and tax evasion – are merely a flavour here, an afterthought, of this political satire-cum-arthouse bloodbath. More intriguing is the tyrant’s obsession with Marie Antoinette (he keeps her head in a jar in his basement), his passion for rare books (such as Darwin’s diaries) and his ability to fly at night.
Larraín, whose last film was Spencer, a loose interpretation of the inner life of Princess Diana (played by Kristen Stewart), now takes a barrelful of liberties with his biography of Pinochet, taking the general’s bloodlust to literal lengths. Accused of state terrorism and the deaths of over 3,000 people (and the torture of over 30,000), Pinochet’s rule may seem ripe for the lampooning, which may delight some but disturb many others.
A macabre chuckle at the expense of Chile’s recent dark history, El Conde is an extraordinary piece of cinema, a visually distinctive black comedy with its fangs bared. The first shock is to find that the black-and-white fantasy is narrated by Margaret Thatcher, as voiced by Stella Gonet. The Scottish actress previously played the Queen in Spencer, but more significantly portrayed Thatcher in Moira Buffini’s West End play Handbagged – so experience would seem to be on her side. But just as Larraín seems to care little for historical accuracy, so Gonet’s mimicry will probably be lost on South American audiences. Chile itself is described here as “an insignificant corner of South America,” in spite of its imposing war crimes, so we know exactly where Larraín’s tongue is in his cheek. In fact, cheek is the order of the day, particularly when we discover that not only is Pinochet still alive (he actually died in 2006, aged 91), and hiding out in a wintry desert retreat, but that he has been alive for 250 years. His bloodlust is recorded early on in the film as he licks the blade of the guillotine that so recently severed the head of Marie Antoinette, before joining the revolutions of Haiti, Russia and Algeria.
Larraín takes his burlesque to ghoulish extremes. Unlike the liberties taken by a satirist such as Armando Iannucci with The Death of Stalin (2017), Larraín injects so much surrealism into his scenario that it’s hard to know what to make of it. It is, though, exquisitely written, with Thatcher’s sympathetic narration frequently leaving one gasping for breath. Such as when, with deep understanding, she informs us that, “it’s said that when one samples the succulent muscle of a still palpitating heart, it’s hard to go back to being a normal person. It’s time to sleep, to find a dark, damp spot. A dungeon perhaps, or a sewer. Or the body of a woman” – all set to scenes of vampiric mayhem. Pablo Larraín is never less than a masterful filmmaker, although his latest experiment is more an exercise in the absurdly Gothic than a satisfying commentary on the evil of a dictatorship.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Jaime Vadell, Gloria Münchmeyer, Alfredo Castro, Paula Luchsinger, Stella Gonet, Catalina Guerra, Amparo Noguera, Antonia Zegers, Marcial Tagle, Diego Muñoz, Daniel Contesse.
Dir Pablo Larraín, Pro Juan de Dios Larraín, Screenplay Pablo Larraín and Guillermo Calderón, Ph Edward Lachman, Pro Des Oscar Ríos Quiroz, Ed Sofía Subercaseaux, Music Juan Pablo Ávalo and Marisol García, Dialect coach William Conacher.
Fábula-Netflix.
110 mins. Chile. 2023. UK and US Rel: 15 September 2023. Cert. 15.
