Gael Garcia Bernal Luis Gnecco Mercedes Moran Michael Silva Alfredo Castro
Neruda
is not a bio-pic, but a satire that is inspired by his life in the mid-1940s
when a warrant was issued for his arrest for being a Communist by Chilean
President Gonzalez Videla, who had outlawed the political party. To avoid arrest, Neruda and his wife
went underground. Director Pablo
Larrain and his screenwriter Guillermo Calderon are most interested in Neruda’s
impact on his country and its art and
politics. The opening scenes of
the picture with Neruda and government officials arguing about politics in a
men’s restroom (lavishly decorated with works of art) introduces the
absurdities to follow.
Pablo Neruda was a Nobel Prize winning poet and
diplomat in Chile during the early part of the twentieth century. He also served as senator for the
Chilean Communist Party. With the
government on his tail, Neruda went into hiding and finally escaped to
Argentina. He later returned to
Chile at the request of socialist President Salvadore Allende to be his policy
advisor.
In the film, Neruda (Luis Gnecco) is portrayed
as an overweight, temperamental poet beloved by the people. He has grown up well cared for,
and when he goes on the run, he and his well-to-do wife Delia (Moran) are
forced to confront how ordinary people live, which is stressful for them. The fact that they are Communists gives
this an ironic twist.
In an extraordinary sleight of filmmaking, the
writer made Neruda’s pursuer to be a “vainglorious” police detective who
desperately wants it to be true that he is the descendant of the locally famous
chief of police, Oscar Peluchonneau.
His mother was a prostitute, but Oscar thinks he looks like the statue
of the older man, ergo… He (played
hilariously by gifted Bernal) is a fan of detective stories, so creates his
image from storybook characters, full of swagger, insouciance, and a keen nose
for clues. The narration calls him
“a phantom in a uniform.” In his
love of risk and penchant for thumbing his nose at authority, Neruda
periodically leaves behind a detective book for Oscar to discover, one that
Oscar just cannot resist reading. But
he remains confident that he will not be a supporting figure in this drama; he
will be the hero. It galls him to
think that it is actually Neruda creating him.
Political references and caricatures abound in
this highly entertaining story, such as “[the government and police] want to hunt for Neruda, but not to catch him”, for that would spark
rebellion in the people. Reality
and fiction, art and politics combine to get across the essence of Neruda’s
contribution and what he was about, as opposed to a collection of facts about
him. Right up through the
concluding scenes marked by the hunter and his prey slogging through waist-deep
snow in the Andes, intrigue, humor, and political commentary keep us engaged
and thoughtful, just as we are upon reading a brilliant, insightful poem.
Larrain’s stunning film may prompt
repeated viewings to grasp its import.
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