Japanese writer Haruki Murakami has a “Mouse Trilogy” cycle, which very obviously consists of four novels: Six years after the last “Sheep Hunt”, the series continued with the book “Dance, Dance, Dance”. but it remained as a “trilogy”. There is something similar in the filmography of the Chilean Pablo Larraín, who at the beginning of his career made an “inadvertent trilogy” about the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (“Tony Manero”, “Autopsy” and “No”), which lasted almost a decade. He then continued with “The Count”.
In “Tony Manero”, a maniac obsessed with John Travolta’s character in the movie “Saturday Night Fever”, played in Pinochet’s Santiago. Autopsy described the life and work of a pathologist assistant during the 1973 military coup. And the more life-affirming “No” spoke of an advertiser who was involved in a campaign of the same name on the eve of the 1988 referendum, which decided the issue of expanding Pinochet’s presidential powers (this is how his 17-year dictatorship ended).
Things take a supernatural turn with the Count. It turns out that Pinochet is actually a 250-year-old vampire (whose activities can be traced back to the Old Order) who is still alive and hiding in a secret estate. But now, it’s true, he still wants to die, otherwise life somehow turned out sadly: okay, they call him a murderer, but why is he a thief? Yes, it turns out he was stealing. But it happened. He was blackmailed. He was given no other option. He is actually a victim.
Of course, we need to go down in history, but of course it’s nice to enter. It would be nice to understand the documents: the devil will break his leg, otherwise you will not receive the stolen wealth. This requires professional help. Therefore, nun Carmencita comes to the mansion disguised as an accountant. (Paula Luchsinger) on a secret mission. The girl is greeted by the wife of vampire dictator Lucia Iriart (Gloria Munchmeier)butler (“a Cossack made of vodka and steel”) Fyodor Krasnov (Larrain regular Alfredo Castro) and adult children eager for inheritance.
Throughout his career, Larraín has repeatedly tackled historical figures – “Neruda” about Chilean poet and politician Pablo Neruda, “Jackie” about First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, “Spencer” about Princess Diana. But now, on the 50th anniversary of the Pinochet coup, the director has for the first time chosen anger over mercy. If previous biographies were filled with tenderness and compassion, then “The Count”, in which these historical figures are more than it seems at first glance, consists of completely understandable hatred (both for what he did and for what he did not suffer, in essence there is no punishment) and some regret that the wrong people always went under the guillotine hears. Apparently, the statement made ten years ago has not lost its validity: under Pinochet, Chileans did not have the opportunity to adequately express themselves in creativity for almost two decades, so now they are trying to take revenge. So the “trilogy” was “unintentional.”
By a funny coincidence, the film, which bears the name of a comedy by Charlie Chaplin (The Count from 1916) and continues in the traditions of another comedy, “The Great Dictator”, as if artistically surrounding Pinochet, stretches him in opposite directions: mythologizing him, supernaturalizing him. It elevates and ridicules him, reducing him to a simple and largely stereotypical old man played by Jaime Vadell, one of the most recognizable faces on the Chilean television and film screen. Along the way, Larraín discovers a humorous rhyme between “vampirism and fascism” (both characterized by an obsession with blood), and the result is a hearty smoothie of Wes Anderson, Armando Iannucci and Taika Waititi’s “True Ghouls” — a similarly clever Venice It was awarded the best script award at the Film Festival.
Well, it seems like a bonus that “The Count” is one of the most beautiful and stylish movies of the year: Renowned cinematographer Edward Lackman (who has worked with Todd Haynes, Sofia Coppola, Steven Soderbergh, Wim Wenders and Paul Schrader) shoots a man in a raincoat Figure-like Santiago flies above the night and cuts out hearts, then makes smoothies out of them. So all this is accompanied by Vivaldi’s music.