This is one film that I probably wouldn’t have watched if it weren’t for a friend’s recommendation and the fact that it’s easily available on Netflix. It has passable and it did get nominated for an Oscar for cinematography but its premise reads like a gimmicky B-movie. This turned out to be a fair assessment as it’s a beautifully shot comedy horror with a dumb plot, crammed with dark jokes of a political persuasion. I can even see why my friend liked it, as it has something of Wes Anderson’s surrealism except that it’s monochrome and is unrestrained when it comes to sex and gore. But it isn’t really the sort of thing I like.
A narrator recounts the true origins of the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet as a French soldier in the 18th century. Amidst the turmoil of the French Revolution, he is revealed to be a vampire. He fakes his death and flees but thereafter detests all revolutionaries and fights them for two centuries. In the 20th, he pops up as a Chilean soldier who rises to the rank of general and eventually overthrows the Socialist government. When he in turn steps down and is investigated for corruption and abuse of power, he is bitterly resentful against the ungrateful populace. He fakes his death again and retires to a remote farm. His wife and his children are human and are aware that he is a vampire but his faithful butler Fyodor is a vampire as well, having followed him from Russia. A spate of murders in Santiago with the hearts of the victims torn out causes the children to gather at the farm as they wonder why their father is killing again. Anxious about their inheritance, they hire an accountant, Carmen, to audit the family’s wealth. Carmen however is actually a nun and her mission is to investigate the family’s crimes and hidden wealth and ultimately destroy the vampire Pinochet.
It’s an absurd premise and later plot developments lead it in an even crazier direction. Silly as this seems to me, I can imagine how funny this might be to Chileans. For us it would be as if Mahathir were an immortal vampire who refuses to let go of power and go away, which is what he kind of is already. Material like showing why the vampire Pinochet has a deep-seated reverence for the French aristocracy, how he hates leftists all over the world, how entitled and stupid his children are and so on are only vaguely amusing to me but I can accept that director Pablo Larrain and his fellow Chileans find this hilarious. All this is mostly too on the nose, such as when Carmen questions the Pinochet children and they are so clueless about her motives. Similarly the virginal and young nun being seduced by the lusty old vampire isn’t original but I suppose there is still some salacious thrill in embracing the profane and graphically linking it to Pinochet. This is like fanfiction for leftists who see the infamous leaders of the right as being literal monsters and why not. They deserve to have their fun too.
The visuals do look fantastic and the imagery of the Count, as this version of Pinochet insists on being called, gliding above Santiago is unforgettably distinctive. So too is the scene of dancing through the air. It’s no wonder this was nominated for Best Cinematography. I’d argue however that these beautiful shots don’t seem to serve the film’s larger theme. The point should be to mock Pinochet and his ilk as being ridiculous and vain monsters, not to portray them as being cool. I also found the pacing awkward. There’s a huge infodump at the beginning to explain Pinochet’s origins, yet after that everything is set only in that isolated farm. The vampiric nature of Pinochet is treated as a joke and explains why he’s immortal but otherwise doesn’t really matter. His children talk about how he has lost the will to live but that seems more like wishful thinking on their part. His wanting to be acknowledged as a great leader by the people is just silly and not taken seriously by anyone else.
As far I’m concerned, this a film has just one good gimmick going for it and milks it for all that is worth. It looks great sure, and inserts some darkly political jokes here and there, but it’s pretty shallow and one dimensional. I’m particularly disappointed that they spend so much time developing the character Carmen and yet in the end she’s nothing special at all. Then a new surprise character pops up to steal the focus. Kudos to the Chileans for making it but it’s not to my tastes.