Augusto Pinochet, the infamous Chilean dictator who died in 2006, is actually still alive (or more accurately, undead) today as a 250-year-old vampire with a continuous appetite for human blood. It's the outrageous pitch of El Conde, the new film by Pablo Larrain. Unfortunately, the Chilean director doesn't manage to squeeze enough genuine comedy or intrigue out of his intriguing premise and as a result, this surprisingly uninspired and dull satire never lives up to its potential.
I guess a film that employs the metaphor of Pinochet as a literal bloodsucker who continues to feed of the people of Chile was never going to be very subtle in its commentary, but the attempts at satire in this film felt broad, repetitive and just overall lazy. Because the characters are all presented as one-dimensional, grotesque monsters (some even literally), the one-note jokes at their expense quickly become tired. There's a lot of "look at these dumb, awful people talking so bluntly about the terrible things they've done", which didn't strike me as particularly piercing commentary in the first place and doesn't exactly become funnier when repeated ad nauseam. Ironically, it feels as if the satire in this particular vampire movie lacks bite (I should probably apologize for that lazy joke myself).
Consequently, I was feeling rather indifferent about the film up until the baffling third act, in which the film devolves into outright farce, as a particularly ridiculous reveal is made and the story builds to a completely over the top climax. Like I mentioned, the satire prior to that point hadn't exactly been subtle or sharp, but the hard left turn into pure ridiculousness felt jarring. At this point the film had completely lost me and I was just waiting for it to end.
One thing I did like about this film was the B&W cinematography. I'm not sure this stylistic choice was made for a particular reason, although I could imagine it to be in reference to the classic vampire (or other monster) films from the 1920' and 1930's. In any case, the film sure does look good, especially during some of the scenes when one of the vampires (it eventually turns out Pinochet is not the only undead predator) is flying over the country. Its visual splendor was therefore pretty much the only redeeming factor of this film for me.
However, I still have to conclude that overall, El Conde turned out to be a disappointment. I had high expectations for this film, based on its original premise, but the concept is executed in rather boring fashion and the satire is disappointingly bland and obvious. Furthermore, it was always going to be a difficult task to effectively balance the dark subject matter with fantasy/horror elements and outright comedy and unfortunately, Larrain fails to achieve that delicate balance here, before completely losing his grip on the material in a baffling final act.
I guess a film that employs the metaphor of Pinochet as a literal bloodsucker who continues to feed of the people of Chile was never going to be very subtle in its commentary, but the attempts at satire in this film felt broad, repetitive and just overall lazy. Because the characters are all presented as one-dimensional, grotesque monsters (some even literally), the one-note jokes at their expense quickly become tired. There's a lot of "look at these dumb, awful people talking so bluntly about the terrible things they've done", which didn't strike me as particularly piercing commentary in the first place and doesn't exactly become funnier when repeated ad nauseam. Ironically, it feels as if the satire in this particular vampire movie lacks bite (I should probably apologize for that lazy joke myself).
Consequently, I was feeling rather indifferent about the film up until the baffling third act, in which the film devolves into outright farce, as a particularly ridiculous reveal is made and the story builds to a completely over the top climax. Like I mentioned, the satire prior to that point hadn't exactly been subtle or sharp, but the hard left turn into pure ridiculousness felt jarring. At this point the film had completely lost me and I was just waiting for it to end.
One thing I did like about this film was the B&W cinematography. I'm not sure this stylistic choice was made for a particular reason, although I could imagine it to be in reference to the classic vampire (or other monster) films from the 1920' and 1930's. In any case, the film sure does look good, especially during some of the scenes when one of the vampires (it eventually turns out Pinochet is not the only undead predator) is flying over the country. Its visual splendor was therefore pretty much the only redeeming factor of this film for me.
However, I still have to conclude that overall, El Conde turned out to be a disappointment. I had high expectations for this film, based on its original premise, but the concept is executed in rather boring fashion and the satire is disappointingly bland and obvious. Furthermore, it was always going to be a difficult task to effectively balance the dark subject matter with fantasy/horror elements and outright comedy and unfortunately, Larrain fails to achieve that delicate balance here, before completely losing his grip on the material in a baffling final act.