Closing the opening night of WOW 2017, Pablo Larraín’s fantastical biopic of Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, is a strange little cinematic oddity that I couldn’t help but fall in love with. Whereas most biographical pictures can be quite ordinary and often get bogged down in the truth of the subject, this embraces the poetry and imagination of Neruda with beguiling effect.
Nominated at this year’s Golden Globes for Best Foreign Language film, Lerraín takes the true story of the poet’s exile in the late 1940’s, after being threatened with arrest for his communist views, and turns it into something that’s altogether strange and offbeat. Imagine if Wes Anderson were to direct a biopic and you’ll begin to get an idea as to what expect with this; a unique and cineliterate film that feels very much of the time in which the story is set.
At first, the tone is difficult to gauge and it’s hard to settle into the drama. The overall look of the piece has this soft focus filter, with images of lush Chilean interiors and landscapes which, when accompanied with Federico Jusid’s melodramatic score, feel like something a commercial for posh beer would try and replicate.
Another visual flourish from the director comes with the use of shooting car and motorbike scenes on a stage with a moving background, exactly as would have been done in the 1940’s, which ends up becoming a recurring source of humour within the film.
Once you sit back and realise that Neruda isn’t going to be the run of the mill biopic and if you can let go of any preconceived expectations you may have had, however, it actually turns out to be a really odd but quite enchanting piece of work.
It has a playful and wry sense of humour, never taking it itself too seriously in scenes where Neruda invades capture by dressing as a woman or pretending to be a portrait. But at the same time, it manages to ask some intriguing questions about the poet and his political beliefs, representing him as a communist for the working people, who lives a life of luxury nevertheless.
When you put all of the above together with some incredible performances from Luis Gnecco and Gael García Bernal (who steals the show as the hapless officer charged with hunting down Neruda) it is accomplished filmmaking that deserves to be seen by as many people as possible. And considering it begins as a film noir and ends as a western, whether you go with it or not, Neruda will certainly be unlike anything else you’ve seen in a long time.
WOW Film Festival opens at Chapter cinema in Cardiff on Friday 17 March before heading to Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Small World Theatre Cardigan, Taliesin Arts Centre in Swansea, and Theatr Clwyd in Mold. See www.wowfilmfestival.com for full details.
words JOE RICHARDS