On September 18, 1973, General Augusto Pinochet stepped into the world’s view during his first Te Deum. He stood with folded arms, a stern gaze, and glasses that deepened the air of mystery and menace. Behind him, another soldier exuded an even darker presence. Dutch photographer Chas Gerretsen captured the moment, a record he still recalls with clarity at eighty-nine. That image came to symbolize the Chilean dictatorship and the fear it cast over a nation. It lingered in the memories of many, including the filmmaker Pablo Larraín, who drew on that sense of dread as he revisited the episode decades later.
The filmmaker was born three years after the coup. Themes of dictatorship surface in several of his works, including NO, Post Mortem, and Tony Manero. In his latest effort, Larraín expands the iconic photograph into a broader meditation on power and blood. The film, To Count Pinochet, which Chileans will see in theaters and on streaming, frames the former commander as a vampire figure—an embodiment of tyranny that survives through time. The monster remains, half a century after the overthrow of Salvador Allende, even as society debates how to judge that era.
To Count shows on-screen transformations that blend dark humor with stark reminders of history. The story opens with the narrator tracing the life of a boy named Claude Pinoche, who grows up in a French orphanage in the 18th century, rises to officer rank under King Louis XVI, and then abandons the monarchy during the Bastille’s storm. A chilling drive animates him: Pinoche has no soul, and he sustains himself by feeding on the lifeblood of others. Time bends as he traverses continents, confronting revolutions from Haiti to Russia to Chile. A new, truncated name appears—he adds a single letter and becomes General Pinochet. He haunts Santiago and wields power through a weaponized blend of fear and technology, prioritizing the young blood of youth.
The film shifts through moments in time. A younger Pinochet, portrayed by Jaime Vadell, appears with a servant named Fyodor, a Russian figure who fought against communism by violence in Chile. Like his master, Fyodor is cast as a vampire, while Lucia Hiriart, the former dictator’s wife, is shown as a moral figure who dodges the bite. Pinochet moves with a cane, insisting he is merely compromised by memory and not by law. He tries to explain away reports of secret overseas accounts as clerical errors. The accumulation of wealth becomes, in the narrative, a practical concern of keeping the regime’s bloodlust alive.
Pinochet’s metamorphosis into a Dracula-like figure recasts the broader questions about Chile’s democratic transition. The fiftieth anniversary of the event coincides with renewed convictions about accountability for those who shaped that era. As with Víctor Jara’s legacy, the film highlights the persistence of impunity, a recurring theme in six sharp satires. Larraín has described imagining Pinochet as a perpetual wanderer of history—an icon of fear that survives in collective memory. The director’s approach reshapes the former dictator’s place in history, while critics like José Rodríguez Elizondo observe that the polarization of people who did not live through the conflict still colors opinions about the transition.
disclose documents
The satire does not erase the hunger for historical truth. Sherry Allende’s thousand days adapts from the book of the same name by Miguel González and Arturo Fontain, and the film aims to confront a half-century of trauma on the screen next week. In response, CIPER, a journalism research center, published personal documents from General Sergio Nuño, a figure linked to the attack on the Palacio de La Moneda on September 11, 1973. The publication signals a candid attempt to acknowledge the human rights violations of the Pinochet era, even as resistance to judgment remains a theme in public discourse.
Journalists Juan Cristóbal Peña and Francisca Skoknic have also released classified materials. Alvaro Puga Cappa, a civilian closely connected to Pinochet’s speechwriters and the head of psychological operations, emerges as a figure who sought influence and voice through the archives. Researchers note that Puga saw himself as a key insider, a kind of fifth member of the Governing Body who helped steer the coup, a role visually symbolized by an insatiable vampire.