Venice: Pablo Larraín Explains His Haunting Pinochet Vampire Satire ‘El Conde’

Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet has been a looming offscreen presence within the Pablo Larraín filmography for years. However with the acclaimed director’s newest characteristic, El Conde (The Depend), a scathing Gothic satire shot in luminous black and white, the determine who haunted a lot of current Chilean historical past is lastly entrance and heart. 

Legendary Chilean actor Jaime Vadell stars as Pinochet, who’s reimagined right here as a 250-year-old vampire who faked his personal demise and absconded to a dilapidated property within the Patagonian countryside. Suspecting that he might lastly be dying, the fascist icon’s kids collect round him in hopes of studying the place he has stashed the various thousands and thousands he pilfered throughout his lengthy, brutal reign. In the meantime, his spouse is dishonest on him and the church has dispatched a nun disguised as an accountant to assassinate him. It’s not a straightforward time to be Pinochet, however vampires are recognized to be as endlessly artful as they’re eloquent. 

Produced by Netflix, the movie premiered on the Venice Movie Pageant Aug. 31. It is going to subsequent get a restricted theatrical launch within the U.S., U.Okay., Chile, Argentina and Mexico, earlier than launching worldwide on the streamer Sept. 15. 

The Hollywood Reporter related with Larraín on the Italian pageant to speak about El Conde’s inspirations, how he created the movie’s beautiful visible aesthetic and whether or not the U.S. may be haunted by an orange vampire of its personal. 

What have been the origins of this concept of portraying Pinochet as a vampire? How did it come to you and the way did it evolve over time?

I assume it’s that Pinochet has by no means been portrayed earlier than. It’s fairly unbelievable, I believe. By no means as soon as in a film or a TV present. He’s by no means been an object of fiction. So it was a troublesome determination to go and put a digicam proper in entrance of him and actually look into his eyes. 

The motivation additionally concerned Jaime Vadell, the actor who performs Pinochet. He’s a person that I’ve labored with earlier than and he’s an enormous grasp for me and somebody I felt was the proper actor to do it. And he’s 87, so I believed it will be good to do it sooner slightly than later. However on the similar time, I had the sensation that possibly the time was lastly proper — that possibly we have been able to movie him. That could be a very indirect reply. But when the query have been what number of years must move earlier than it’s correct to movie Pinochet, I believe with Dr. Strangelove, it was shot about 20 years after World Warfare II. That film was a really related reference for me — it’s such an eloquent masterpiece. However the chain of thought concerned the truth that Pinochet died in full freedom — and with probably the most vile and absurd impunity. And that impunity made him everlasting in a method — we nonetheless really feel damaged by his determine, as a result of he’s probably not useless in our tradition. In Argentina, for instance — and Santiago Mitre made a phenomenal movie about this final 12 months, Argentina, 1985 — they took these criminals and put them in jail. That in some way created a nationwide pact that this could by no means occur once more. We by no means had that in Chile, so his determine remained very vivid and alive. So, that concept took us to the determine of the vampire and that satire was the one solution to method him. 

You talked about Dr. Strangelove. Was that movie your reference level for the tone you needed to take with this movie, and the way you’d steadiness the darkish humor towards the real-life evils he perpetrated? 

One of many smartest issues Stanley Kubrick does in that movie is how the satire and farce may also help you face these characters with out creating empathy. When you might have a protagonist who’s performed by such a delicate, attention-grabbing human being like Jaime, the massive hazard is that you can find yourself feeling empathy for him. And that’s not acceptable. It could be fully immoral and harmful to do one thing like that. So, the satire, absurdism and filming in black and white allowed us to have the proper distance from these individuals. 

You’ve spent numerous your current profession re-examining world-historical figures, reminiscent of Jackie Kennedy (2016’s Jackie) and Princess Diana (Spencer in 2021). How was it totally different so that you can interact with a determine like Pinochet, who is way nearer to your property turf and private cultural reminiscence? 

Pinochet and the political figures who’re on the heart of the flicks I’ve made at house are nearer to my idiosyncrasy and nearer to my perceptions of politics and tradition. It’s a really intimate affection — in the way in which that I see the world and dwell my life in my house of Chile. Within the case of Jackie and Spencer, they’re extra common figures of current historical past. I ended up being very near them from the analysis and course of of creating the flicks. But it surely’s totally different, after all. I might say, the flicks I made at house might set off nightmares, and the opposite motion pictures — though generally uneasy — can set off all different kinds of goals. 

We even have to speak about your intentions with the cinematography and the visible aesthetic of the movie. It appears to be like magnificent. 

Ed Lachman is a grasp I met a few years in the past and have needed to work with ever since. It was not simple to seek out the proper event. He went to Chile to shoot with us, which was a really massive factor for this film. For 2 causes. One is the aesthetic facet, after all. Getting the photographs with the proper tone and emotion, and in some way creating this black-and-white fable that references different motion pictures, however is a stand-alone notion of that kind of darkness that flirts between the genres of the vampire story and the political film. 

The opposite facet, for me, after I’m filming, is that I do know that if I’ve somebody like Ed sitting behind the monitor, he’s seeing and photographing in a method that can make these photos very common. So I do know that with every bit of the movie, if he likes it and understands what’s happening, then numerous different individuals will have the ability to perceive, too, as a result of he’s going to carry a visible universality to the narrative I’m chasing. I need these motion pictures to journey and to be understood and loved — and, hopefully, to create a hint of reminiscence with them. 

I needed to additionally ask concerning the set design, as a result of the dilapidated, rural property the characters inhabit for a lot of the movie makes for such a selected however weirdly timeless setting. 

It was all constructed. There was the outside of the home after which we constructed 1,800 sq. meters [about 19,400 square feet of set space]. Our manufacturing designer was in a position to create this out-of-time actuality. We took out all screens and any fashionable parts. So although we all know it is a close to current, by selecting sure parts and eradicating a lot of all the pieces else, he was in a position to ship very atmospheric units for Ed to light up. 

This connects with one thing else that may very well be attention-grabbing … I normally don’t rehearse. I’ve completed it, but it surely’s not my factor. Generally I learn with the actors, however on this case, I by no means even learn with them. So for these actors that had by no means rehearsed, once they walked on these units, it was a really affecting and moody bodily place to be. So then, the primary indications have been simply to be within the current. And that creates a really attention-grabbing feeling of uncertainty and unsettledness. It created this slight oddness within the efficiency, which was very attention-grabbing. 

That’s fascinating, as a result of that tone completely fits the circumstances of the story and the themes. I additionally beloved how the vampires basically make blood and coronary heart smoothies with a blender. I discovered that to be recurrently hilarious all through the entire film. The place did that come from? 

Properly, it’s a joke. I don’t know … each time I am going to L.A., there are all these individuals making smoothies out of something and all the pieces. (Laughs.) And that grew to become a style in every single place — it unfold from California to in every single place. So, we thought that as an alternative of getting the vampires do the classical neck chunk and sucking the blood and all that, this smoothie factor could be a humorous concept and an attention-grabbing political remark, too — to open the chest of somebody and take out their coronary heart and put it right into a blender. You realize, the vampires are very eloquent and specific of their motivations. 

Are you able to discuss a bit of extra concerning the movies that you simply reference visually?

Yeah, properly, after all, [Carl Theodor] Dreyer. Not solely Vampyr, however any and each Dreyer film. That’s simply one thing that you simply carry. They’re unforgettable photos. The Ardour of Joan of Arc was a reference for the nun. Actually, Juan Luis Buñuel’s Leonor and even [Werner] Herzog, that kind of thread of vampire filmmaking Dr. Strangelove, however a pleasure within the absurdity and the humor of Barry Lyndon, too. These are references that might discuss tone and environment. 

However the narrative can’t be linked to a different movie. I believe it’s very distinctive as a result of it’s very Chilean. Pinochet has been alive for 250 years and lives in Patagonia on the very finish of the continent. He’s there together with his household and there may be not a single soul round them. They’re remoted and he’s damaged by his previous — and by the truth that he’s been known as a thief. And it’s narrated by this very sharp voiceover that comes out and in, which represents the way in which that many individuals on this planet see us. It’s a European, on this case, patronizing notion of this “little nation down there,” having their loopy wars — till we go there and put our toes on them. They take a look at us as these peasants attempting to assemble their id. One thing minor and absurd. So the voiceover creates these frictions which are distinctive. It’s additionally a mirrored image on time. It’s such a cliché, but it surely’s so necessary that we should repeat it: Fascism begins with a smile, strikes to worry, after which ends in violence. And that may be a type of politics that may be situated in numerous nations on this planet these days. It’s one thing that’s respiration and it’s an actual hazard. I’m not into lecturing, but it surely’s a shout on the display screen and hopefully, it leaves a bit of hint. 

Final query: Is Donald Trump a vampire? 

Properly, if Trump is a vampire, the excellent news for me is that he’s your vampire, not mine. (Laughs.) We’re already coping with ours.