El Conde (15)

Dir: Pablo Larrain

Cast: Jaime Vadell, Gloria Munchmeyer, Alfredo Castro, Paula Luchsinger, Stella Gonet

Pablo Larrain follows up his haunting biopics of Jackie Kennedy and Princess Diana, with this darkly funny and eerily gothic alternate history horror

There are very few filmmakers that manage to divide critics quite like Chilean director, Pablo Larrain. After a string of successful releases in his native Chile, including the Oscar-nominated No in 2012, Larrain sought out worldwide recognition with the release of a couple of English language biopics.

His first attempt at breaking into Hollywood was with the Natalie Portman starring, Jackie Kennedy biopic, Jackie, in 2016. The excellently daring and intimate film honed in on Jackie Kennedy’s grief and sorrow, following on from her husband’s high profile assassination in 1963. This was a huge hit for Larrain, performing relatively well at the box office and earning three Academy Award nominations in the process, however, it was not without its detractors. The dark multi-layered insight into Jackie Kennedy’s psyche was deemed too much for modern audiences who were not willing to accept such a dreary and depressing characterisation of such a popular public figure. In 2021, Larrain would go on to divide audiences and critics even more with the release of the Princess Diana biopic, Spencer, starring Kristen Stewart. Larrain opted to go against the grain of a standard historical biopic, which usually glorifies its central subject and their life. Spencer instead plays out almost like a psychological horror. Pablo Larrain decided to focus on a more fictitious account of Diana during the Christmas of 1991 as she has a major existential crisis as she contemplates leaving Charles and the royal family. With ghostly apparitions of Anne Boleyn and depictions of potential suicide attempts, Spencer also proved too much for most audiences, who preferred to remember Diana in a more positive light than what was harrowingly depicted in the film.

Larrain’s latest film sees him return to his Chilean roots, with a satirical tale of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. The darkly comedic horror film portrays Pinochet as a 250 year old vampire who is seeking death after faking it in 2006. It is a ludicrously brilliant and original take on a biopic by Larrain and co-writer Guillermo Calderon, and while it will most likely deter a large amount of viewers once again, I was completely on board with it.

We are first introduced to a young, womanizing Augusto Pinochet during the events of the French Revolution in 1792. He is a soldier serving under King Louis XVI and upon witnessing the execution of Marie Antoinette, decides to use his immortality to overthrow any left-leaning movements in the future, not only to nourish his thirst for blood but also his partiality to fascism. After chronicling his escapades throughout history, we catch up with an older looking Pinochet (Jaime Vadell) as he fakes his death in 2006, by not drinking blood and stopping his heart to fool the medical experts. His “death” allows him to escape the constant harassment and criminal charges from his time as dictator in Chile. Pinochet now spends his time mostly bed ridden, on his isolated island farm, which acts as his vampiric lair.

With the whole world believing him to be dead, Pinochet’s only company is that of his power hungry wife (Gloria Munchmeyer) and his loyal servant Fyodor (Alfredo Castro). In a series of gruesomely regimented murders, we see a military caped vampire brutally remove the hearts of unsuspecting victims in Santiago and then blend the organ to a bloody pulp – to be chugged like a protein shake-esque elixir. The ever increasing number of victims starts to make headlines, alarming Pinochet’s greedy middle-aged children. The pack of publicly despised siblings make their way to their father’s island of solitude, not out of love for their father in what may me his final days, but to learn about his assets and financial plans for their futures. Frustrated that despite his ill-health, their immortal father will out live them all, resulting in them never receiving a penny from inheritance, they conspire with the church to have a nun exorcise their father, ridding him of his vampiric curse and finally allowing him to die.

What Larrain has managed to create with ‘El Conde‘ is a sharp-toothed satire. He reduces one of modern history’s real life monsters to a pathetic fictitious one, and despite his immortality and vampiric powers will always be shamed for his crimes, even years after his death. Even for those who will undoubtedly have issues with the film, purely based on the central figure at hand or the manner of which Larrain has showcased him on screen, there is no question of the sheer level of craft behind the film. With all the heavy satire stripped away, ‘El Conde’ is actually a very striking and inventive gothic fairy-tale. Thanks to Edward Lachman’s stark black-and-white cinematography, every frame brings an overwhelming sense of dread and the macabre, despite the film taking place predominantly in the present day.

As well as appealing to the bloodlust of any fan of vampire films, ‘the film ‘El Conde’ is also surprisingly funny. Most of the comedic lines come from the films mostly off-screen English narrator (Stella Gonet), as her unusually out of place English voiceover lovingly chronicles Pinochet’s life. The identity of the narrator herself is kept secret until they enter the narrative in the film’s final act in one hell of a reveal.

The film may lack in subtlety but there is more than an enough to chew on here, and even the biggest detractors of Larrain will be able to at least enjoy an outlandishly unique creature feature with household squabbles. It will no doubt turn away viewers and I can understand why – it is cinematic marmite.

This wickedly-funny and dark portrayal of a real life monster not only delivers razor-sharp satire but it is also an entertaining and blood-soaked gothic fairy-tale in its own right. It makes me wonder which historical figure Larrain will bring back to life on the big screen next.

El Conde is now available to stream on Netflix