OIFF Film Review:  Neruda

— by Paula Treneer —

One of the highlights of the 2016 Orcas Film Festival for this reviewer was “Neruda,” one of two Festival Films celebrating poets and poetry. Loosely based on a period during the life of Chilean poet-politician Pablo Neruda when he was fleeing an arrest warrant issued by the Chilean government, the film is perhaps best described by its director Pablo Larraín in his recent red-carpet interview at the New York Film Festival: “a mix of noir cinema with cat-and-mouse, road move, black comedy” (10 October 2016 interview with the director by Paula Schwartz, reelifewithjane.com).

Pablo Neruda was the pen name of the poet, diplomat and one-term Communist Senator Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, for whom a warrant was issued after Neruda denounced then-President Videla in a 1948 speech on the Senate floor. Neruda went “underground” for a little over a year, was hidden by a succession of friends and ultimately smuggled out of the country over the Andes’ Lipela Pass in 1949. The film is set during this period of Neruda’s life. Gael García Bernal, now more mature than in his breakout film “Y Tu Mama Tambíen” but no less charismatic, plays the dapper detective Peluchonneau in pursuit of Neruda (Luis Gnecco).

The film’s dark political context, set during the early rise of Chilean fascism (Pinochet is a rising military star, whose cameo appearance alludes to his brutality within the desert prison camps) is leavened with Neruda’s playfulness as he leaves copies of his books with handwritten notes on his trail for his pursuers. The singleminded Oscar Peluchonneau pursues Neruda relentlessly, but is thwarted at key turns which provide comic relief, such as Neruda’s visit to a brothel disguised as a priest. An additional undercurrent contrasts the luxury lifestyle afforded Neruda and his aristocratic Argentine wife with the austerity of their communist comrades, especially highlighted in the opening scene featuring a bacchanal hosted by the Nerudas in extravagant costumes reminiscent of late Roman decadence, accompanied by Neruda’s reciting of love poetry in the poetic voice which won Neruda so many fans.

More than a political thriller, the film strays into the magical realism associated with some of Neruda’s real-life biggest fans such as García Márquez. For readers familiar with the oeuvre of Latin American fabulistes such as Argentinian Julío Cortazar, the mystical lyricism of the detective’s demise will seem quite natural. The film’s final Parisian scenes provide a Bacchanialian bookend to its beginning.