by James Mottram
There isn’t a greater cinematic poet of 20th Century Chile than Pablo Larraín. The filmmaker may be best known internationally for his portrayals of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in Jackie (2016) and Princess Diana in Spencer (2021), but back home he’s always broached the un-broach-able. Films like Tony Manero (2008), Post Mortem (2010) and No (2012) circled the era of Chilean leader General Augusto Pinochet, who led the country through thirteen years of trauma after staging a military coup in 1973. Now he’s gone for the jugular with El Conde, a film that dares to depict the dictator.
“Pinochet had never been filmed before, in a movie or a television show… no one’s put a camera in front of him,” Larraín explains, when we meet at the Venice Film Festival where El Conde premiered in competition a fortnight ago. “Is it too early? Is it too late? We have all kinds of opinions in that regard, in our country.” After all, it was 2006 when he died, leaving behind a nation scarred by his time in power. “But besides, what is the right answer to that, I think that if you’re going to do it, you need the tools of satire because if you don’t, then you can create empathy. And that’s very dangerous.”
In El Conde – which means ‘The Count’ – the film imagines Pinochet as a 250 year-old vampire, first existing in the time of Marie Antoinette. Then we see Pinochet, played by actor Jaime Vadell, living in an isolated mansion in Patagonia with his wife Lucía (Gloria Münchmeyer), while his money-grabbing five grown-up children all circle like vultures as they look to divvy up the family fortune. Reckoning with Pinochet’s multiple crimes is an accountant named Carmen (Paula Luchsinger), who brusquely lists his litany of corruptions as if she were reading out a shopping list.
So, was Larraín always building up to a film about Pinochet? “I honestly didn’t see it coming,” he admits. “I never saw that. It started with these pictures of Pinochet and the cape. And then in the pandemic, I was on the phone with Guillermo [Calderón, his co-writer] and we were just discussing the story. And we had time, like most people, [to] just be on the phone for hours.” After that, Larraín began to discuss the role with Vadell. “And then Netflix showed interest in producing it. And then it was like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’ But it was probably a lifetime process.”
One of the most striking aspects of El Conde is the lush monochrome photography, filmed by Ed Lachman, the veteran DP who has shot for the likes of Sofia Coppola, Steven Soderbergh, Todd Haynes and Robert Altman. “It works on two levels,” says Larraín of the film’s distinct look. “And obviously, Ed Lachman is very relevant in that. One level is to create images that are evocative, that are beautiful, hopefully political; they have visual power that could also tell the story, but at the same time, you’re looking for images that are universal.”
Understandably, especially with the global reach of Netflix, Larraín didn’t want to create a parochial experience. “This is a movie made in Chile, and it could to be easy to fall into the trap of making a movie that could only be enjoyed and understood by us. So, how do we make them as universal as possible?” His solution was to shoot with “intimidating” mid wide-angle shots. “It’s an odd cocktail, but what you really want is [for it] to have personality and to breathe.” Several sequences, as Pinochet flies over the country, will take your breath away.
The way Larraín sees it, his visual approach is in the same tradition as several esteemed filmmakers he is referencing, who similarly plunged their fangs into the vampire movie, like F.W. Murnau (1922’s Nosferatu), Carl Theodor Dreyer (1932’s Vampyre) and Werner Herzog (1979’s Nosferatu the Vampyre). Whilst toning down the gore, the film’s austere look also serves other purposes. “I think the black-and-white also creates the right distance to the subject. But at the same time, it allows you to say the most brutal things with a smile. Which is good!”
Larraín is more than aware of what he’s created. “It’s grotesque, it’s bloody, it’s absurd. And it’s allegorical, I hope.” It is, of course, the allegory that hits the hardest, showing Pinochet as a leader who sucks the very life-force out of his country. “What happened in Chile has the particularities of what happens in our country, but at the same time, I think it’s happening in many places,” the director comments. “The dangerous faces don’t only come with a guy shouting in German with a swastika. They are sometimes hidden in different forms. And it starts with a smile, and then it moves to fear, and then it ends with violence.”
As the film shows, Pinochet objected more to being called a thief than a murderer. “That’s exactly what a lot of people think about him in Chile. They supported [him] until they found he stole all this money, and then they turned their back on him, which is absolutely crazy. What is very interesting, related to the tradition of the vampire character…the vampire character is often a romantic character that wants to leave and find love. And enjoys the fact that he’s eternal. We took it to a different place; we created some form of existential crisis, where this vampire is trying to survive his own memory. And the fact that he’s been called a thief has demoralized him. It’s someone that has the weight of 250 years on his shoulders.”
As for those that protected Pinochet or supported his regime, like British Prime Minister Margret Thatcher? “Chile is still completely broken because of that,” says Larraín. While he hopes El Conde isn’t all bleak, that it might “create a good chain of thought” in people’s minds, he’s making no predictions. “Every time I have an idea of how we will turn out, I’m wrong. I never know the reaction. Sometimes I say, ‘Oh, this movie, this is the reaction’ and it’s completely different. So, I stopped thinking about it. I have no idea how people are gonna react.”
Rather than dwell on the past, Larraín is prepping his next film, about American-born Greek soprano Maria Callas, starring Angelina Jolie. The film is scripted by Steven Knight, creator of Peaky Blinders and the writer of Spencer. But don’t expect Larraín to reveal anything just yet. “I never talk about movies that [are not made yet]. It’s very bad luck!” Still, it’s fascinating that after Jackie and Spencer, he’s returning to another female force-of-nature from the 20th Century. So, what draws him to these women? “They were all alive in 1973. I can tell you that.” How intriguing, that he should pick the year that Chile’s history changed irreparably.
El Conde is on Netflix from September 15th, 2023
