Tag: Pablo Larraín

Ema

Posted on by victorfraga

This is a movie that starts out on fire – a metaphor appropriate for the lives of characters who seem to burn with the heat of their passions. Director Pablo Larraín takes a break from his usual environment – the historical drama – and delivers a modern and tension-filled character study centred on a powerful performance by Mariana di Girolamo.

She plays the title character, a dancer whose marriage to choreographer Gastón (Gael García Bernal) has been in a deep crisis after the unsuccessful adoption of an orphan. With nothing to ground her emotionally, she sets out to get the boy back – whatever the cost. The same plot could serve as the basis for a post-watershed TV thriller, but Larraín refuses to come up with easy answers. The outcome is avant-garde in both form and content.

In an interview, the Chilean filmmaker has mentioned the existence of a first cut of the feature that his close circle found incomprehensible. The current version in broken down into three acts. This structure does not prevent Ema from flowing smoothly like as a stream of consciousness. The sensational colours captured by cinematographer Sergio Armstrong give the action a delirious tinge.

Here, the universe of dance, the landscapes of the coastal city Valparaíso and the energetic soundtrack by Nicolas Jaar reflect and amplify the protagonist’s uncontrollable desire for freedom. The script, penned by Larraín, Guillermo Calderón and Alejandro Moreno, anchors the story to an unstable character, difficult to root for.

Ema’s paradox is that she longs to be free almost as intensely as she wants to be a mother – and these two goals aren’t necessarily always compatible. Much of her maternal verve comes from the desire to transcend her emotional turmoil. Her instability drives her to constantly challenge constraints. She explores her body to the maximum through choreography, hooks up with different partners despite her marriage and indulges in sexual acts that are not bound by gender or number of participants.

Faced with Gastón’s infertility and a traumatic adoption process, she goes through increasingly selfish and Machiavellian schemes to get what she wants without any remorse. Symbolically, the protagonist’s inability to properly deal with life is manifested in her pyromania, which she even passes on to her then adopted son. For her, fire is a tool for escapism which obliterates the past.

It is evident that, outside the festival circuit, Ema will be more welcomed by the arthouse crowd. It’s a demanding watch and its elliptical twists and turns might put more mainstream audiences off. It’s their loss, since Larraín has bravely delivered one of his best works: a film as indomitable and indefinable as its protagonist.

Ema is on Mubi in May, and then on Amazon Prime.

Neruda

Posted on by victorfraga

Most biopics tend – or at least purport – to be as descriptive and accurate as possible. Exaggerations and deviations are normally frowned upon. Unless your subject is a subversive genius, in which case the poetic licence gives you the freedom to devise a loose interpretation of their life, thereby concocting events, characters and a highly inventive language and structure to your film. The French filmmaker Pierre-Henry Salfati did just that with the life of one of the most provocative and dirtiest musician of all times, in Gainsbourg by Gainsbourg: an Intimate Self Portrait (2012). The film is with flooded with strange images, allegories and interpretations of Serge Gainsbourg, and it often resembles a dream. Now the Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín has done something remarkably similar to the Chilean poet and politician Pablo Neruda. It’s a huge responsability, and fortunately both directors succeeded in their endeavour.

The scribe Guillerme Calderón blended real events from Neruda’s life with fictionalised characters, often questioning the role of the artist and his creation. The film takes place in 1948, when Pablo Neruda (Luis Gnecco) served a term as a Senator for the Chilean Communist Party. Due to mounting pressure from the US, president González Videla suddenly outlawed communism in Chile in 1948, and a warrant was issued for Neruda’s arrest. Friends hid him for months in the basement of a house in the port city of Valparaíso. Later, he escaped through a mountain pass in the Andes into Argentina with the help from locals. He was accompanied by his doting and admiring wife Delia (Mercedes Morán) throughout the journey, except for the final part of his track.

Peluchonneau narrates much of the story, and his mind is a fighting ring for emotions and desires. He both admires and loathes the famous and elusive fugitive. He boasts that his father was an important officer, while grappling with the fact that his mother was a prostitute. Most significantly, he is terrified of being a secondary character. As he gradually realises that he is merely a fictionalised persona, he desperatly tries to avoid his inescapable fate.

Neruda is a compelling poem about the inventive mind of the greatest poets of Latin America, and it’s a sharp turn away from the harsh and acrid tone of Larraín’s The Club. The director’s previous feature – which was released in the UK earlier this year – is a denunciation of the sexual crimes of Catholic priests in Chile. Click here for our review of the movie and here for our exclusive interview with the director.

Ultimately, this is not a film about Pablo Neruda, but instead about the work and the legacy of his late compatriot. No wonder Pablo Larraín described it as “Nerudian”, which would probably make a much better film title. This movie is much more akin to mercurial adjective than to a inflexible noun. The deft filmmaker understands that Neruda’s legacy – empowering the voiceless, invigorating the marginalised, perpetuating ideologies and encouraging self-discovery – is far more important than the man per se.

Neruda was of the BFI London Film Festival in October 2016, when this piece was originally written. It was out in cinemas in April, and it becomes available on Blu-ray, DVD, and iTunes on July 10th.