El Conde Review: Brilliant Netflix Film Reimagines Pinochet As A Literal Vampire
El Conde , the latest from Pablo Loren, best known for his portrayals of history's ghost women Jackie (2016) and Spencer (2021), is a tense story delivered with a howling rhythm. It is a vampire story in which the dictator Augusto Pinochet, who terrorized Lorraine's home country of Chile between 1973 and 1990, was enveloped, captured and turned into the bloodthirsty general of Bram Stoker's imagination.
The film's political angle is a bit murky, or at least lacks the insight and relevance of Lorraine's other films about the Pinochet regime: Tony Manero (2008), Posthumous Message (2010) and No (2012), but he is clean and fair. bitterness Lauren takes the opportunity to turn political ideology into a horror show. We see Pinochet on the prowl, silently hovering over downtown Santiago.
In fact , El Conde begins in 18th-century Paris, where Claude Pinochet, a soldier in Louis XVI's army, devotes himself to vampirism. He was quickly appalled by the revolutionary fervor in the air. So, with Marie Antoinette's severed head under her arm, she travels the world destroying freedom and democracy wherever she finds it, going down in history as a reborn Forrest Gump. Pinochet becomes Pinochet (Jaime Waddell). He eventually ended up in Chile, where he led a military coup that toppled the socialist government of Salvador Allende, a dark day in the country's history that celebrated its 50th anniversary this week.
The story is told to us by a voice-over narrator (Stella Gagne), whose identity is kept secret until she enters the story herself, a real revelation, even if de Gonne's practiced, slow tone and sad tone make it an instant giveaway. . Pinochet died in 2006 at the age of 91; Here it is revealed that he faked his death to live somewhere in rural Chile with his wife Lucia (Gloria Munchmeier) and the Russian servant Fyodor (Alfredo Castro). From time to time, Fyodor takes the heart out of the freezer, puts it in a blender and makes the most disgusting smoothie for his owner.
Pinochet falls into a terrible depression, angry that history has forced him to call him a thief (with smallpox, of course, thanks to his heritage as a murderer and a tyrant). "Why should I live in a country where they hate me?" He cries. "El Conde" is a spare, sad film, and Edward Lachman's black-and-white cinematography deliberately leaves it like a separate editorial look at FV After the dark silhouettes of Murnau's Nosferatu . Lucia cheats on her with Fedor. His five adult children are apparently fighting over the inheritance. Everyone is running around like hungry rats. This is suffering bordering on karma.
But however much Waddell portrays Pinochet as sick and pathetic; The music of Juan Pablo Avalo and Marisol Garcia turns into a demonic hum every time you enter the room. We are never allowed to stray too far from the memories of the tortures and executions he witnessed. His evil is only hidden behind a mask of illusion, and it is enough to fool Carmen (Paula Luchsinger), the young nun sent to exorcise his soul, who stars as the blessed Carl Theodor Dreyer, who the Passion of Joan of Arc drawing.
At Pinochet's (obviously fake) funeral, a mourner spits on his coffin, knowing he will be stopped by the plastic sheet protecting his corpse. Perhaps Larran views El Conde the same way. He will never achieve his goal, but the anger is always worth it.
director: Pablo Laraine. Actors: Jaime Waddell, Gloria Munchmeier, Alfredo Castro, Paula Luchsinger. 15, 110 minutes.
El Conde will be broadcast on Netflix from September 15.
