Neruda
Neruda (2016) - IMDb
Saw this with my Spanish partner.
A few asides. My Spanish partner when she heard about this film said we had to see it. For someone from her background. A grandfather imprisoned by Franco. A family background which is still socialist. Like South America where which side you are on has consequences, Neruda is a towering figure.
I came to it knowing nothing about Neruda. He was a great poet and also a politician. In Spain and South America art and politics go together.
I would call this an "art film". It's not a straight forward bio of Neruda. It's quite a surreal film. It about a real event in Neruda's life when he ,as a leading member of the Chilean Communist Party, had to flee an oppressive right wing government in late 40s.
A policeman is give the task of hunting him down.
Nothing is quite what it seems. Is the cop a figment of Neruda's imagination? Are we watching not reality but a mixture of reality and imagination?
It's one of those films that makes one want to know more.
My first impression from seeing the film was that the cop was the internalised figure of the right wing oppressive state one is in dialogue with. The cop is not some kind of stereotypical fascist. (Pinochet makes a brief appearance in the film as the head of a prison camp for leftists. Historically accurate I read later). The tragedy of the film is that they never meet.
My Spanish partner wished more for a film showing him as a great man of the left. For people like her he is up there with heroes like Che. Neruda's connection with Spain is that he was a diplomat in Spain during the civil war and helped Spanish communists get asylum in Chile. It was his experience in Spain that led him to being a committed Communist.
Does it work as a film? Yes imo. I liked the way it was not a standard biographical film nor a realist one. This isn't Ken Loach. It's also not uncritical of Neruda.
I read a few interviews with the director afterwards. Here is most illuminating one.
Omnipresent Poet: How Pablo Larraín Captured the Essence of Neruda Without Simplifying His Humanity | Filmmaker Magazine
Here the director says he was influenced by the writing of Borges. I haven't read Borges. I have read Bolano ( his novel 2666). Which is a mixture of true life events and fictionalised characters. Done in a way that does not pretend to be a linear narrative. In the film there are moments when the illusion of reality is undercut when the cop has it explained to him that he is a figment of Neruda's imagination. Something he counters by thinking he can still create his own destiny.
The film is also about the illusion we create of our own lives. How we fit others to play a part in the drama we create.
I would recommend seeing it. It's not an easy film but one worth following up with further reading. And that's not a criticism.
