Neruda (2016)

"You are a work of fiction." The words of femme fatale Delia del Carril (Moran) hits us with head-cocking absurdity. The noble wife says what she says matter of factly; as if observing the glorious excesses of a dime novel or glancing at a Grecian urn. Her criticism is pointed at Oscar Peluchonneau (Bernal), a Prefect tasked with bringing the Chilean Communist poet Pablo Neruda (Gnecco) to justice. The crime in his eyes - treason. The crime in the eyes of the average Chilean - doing to his readers what the spring does to cherry blossoms.

The iconoclastic life of Pablo Neruda is seen through the bile- filled gaze of Investigator Peluchonneau, whose hatred for communists is eclipsed only by a fear of being a supporting character in his own story. Upon President Videla's (Castro) orders, Peluchonneau is to find and arrest Neruda. Yet as a .22 caliber mind in a .357 magnum world, Peluchonneau finds the poet always at arm's length. Despite being a wanted criminal, Neruda walks about in relative safety through the streets of Santiago and Valparaiso, connecting with all those he meets with uncommon sincerity. Pelunchonneau envies him, he hates him, though he's fascinated by him too.

The world of Neruda is a manufactured but playful one. It's a formal mix of noir, surrealism and melodrama connected to its fiery political center like a figure clinging to its ominous shadow. Peluchonneau's dogged pursuit of the libertine poet is punctuated by steely-eyed rides through the Andes, leaning, mate drinking poses in the dusk and Pink Panther (1963) levels of happenstance and near misses. It sometimes feels like he's even in on the ruse, always finding time to give the camera a rube-like smirk. As if to taunt him, Neruda leaves behind detective novels for the indentured gumshoe which he reads not to find clues but for leisure.

Neruda isn't just satisfied with giving its audience genre thrills and a neo-classicalist milieu however. Ancillary plot details pop out of the celluloid like thickets of antimetabole. The elliptical editing and change of viewpoint coaxes the audience to really look at the screen and analyze what they're seeing. Are we watching reality or are we watching someone's supposed ideal of reality? And whose ideal are we really seeing? Add to that emotional crescendos in a brothel and haughty political demagoguery in a vast senate bathroom and you got yourself a movie stitched and laced with absurdity.

Yet Neruda, for all its high-minded fun isn't a perfect film. The coarse tonal shifts feel purposeful a lot of the time though I doubt they all managed to hit their targets. Two thirds of the way through, a Communist laundress asks in a stupor if "when the revolution comes, will we all be like you, or will we all be like me?" Veiled in Neruda's answer is sharp social commentary that collides uncomfortably with the intention of the film like an uncalled for Augusto Pinochet cameo. Additionally, while Neruda is far more cerebral than the similar Il Postino (1994), it doesn't quite register on an emotional level. A large oversight considering this is a film about a poet.

Overall Neruda is a handsome, literate and crafty film that is unafraid to take bold risks with its real-life subject. It has an uncommon clarity of thought that shines through its intimate tale and while it may be accused by some as stuffy, the story and direction by Pablo Larrain can't help but give it color.

Fmovies: Like the poetry of Neruda, Pablo Larrain's film tells the story of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda during his years underground before he made his way to Argentina then to Paris. The narrative has a variety of styles: surreal, a political manifesto, autobiography and passionate love poems. Neruda embraced Communism, marked as he was by the Spanish Civil War that only the Soviet Union supported the democratic Republic that Franco and his generals overthrow during three years of violence. The film opens in 1948: Neruda is a senator and the Communist Party has strength among workers and peasants, intellectual and students, allies among the bourgois as well. And it hopes that soon it would be the government. Cut to 1948, the year of the beginning of the Cold War. The CPs in Italy and France met defeat at the voting booth. A 'coup' in Czechoslovakia brought the communists to power. Greece is in Civil War, and the fear of triumphant Soviet Communism has sent a shiver up and down the spine of North, Central and South America. Gonzales Videla outlawed the CP of Chile. Those like Neruda went underground; the less fortunate were rounded up, sent to prison, one governed by Pinochet and camps; still other were tortured, assassinated and became 'non-citizens', depriving them of a livelihood. And it is in this watershed of Chilean history, Larrain situates his film. We see Neruda, wonderfully embodied by Luis Gnecco, physically and magically in the way he uses language. as a devotee of luxury and sensual vices; he finds pleasure in bordellos, where fancy imagines a transgendered man sings his poems. And in the fleshpots, awash in champagne, you see the magnetic personality of Neruda. He finds a common thread of humanity and offers a message of class and human equality that is a fundamental truth of communism. The full measure of Neruda as a beacon of the masses is the oblique reference to the power of the Word; Neruda read in 1945 to 100.000 in Brazil his poetry that entranced the audience. In Chile, he addressed 10.000s and his poetry was read and sung by workers, by the common people. Of course his poetry speaks to them, but furthermore, he spoke to them of their condition, hopes and dreams and a common humanity that made Neruda dangerous to the government. An inspector played with understate by Gael Garcia Bernal. He is Oscar Peluchonneau, the illegitimate son of the creator of the national police. A child of the whore house, born with a venereal disease, says he. He is a personage who practices self-denial and austerities; he denies worldly pleasures and comforts. Tracking Neruda, he is like the Hound in Francis Thompson's poem. He has a talent for pursuing Neruda; he's intuitively keen, but he is no match for Neruda, who, contrary to Party disciple, roams the streets, visits prostitutes, to the existential pain of his minders. And as Neruda goes from hidden houses, he leaves a book of poetry for Peluchonneu, who diligently reads the poems. They don't chame him, only strengthens his resolve to capture Neruda; the capture of the poet would wash him of his low birth and to him worthy of a father who never really knew of his son. The camera takes us from cities to the Andes; it is well controlled and wonderfully filmed. We may be bewitched by Neruda the poet, and if we know something of Chilean history, a indebted morally or ethically by his politics. (With the rise of Trump, the film may also speak to what an authoritarian would do to those who don't hold his orthodox radical views.)

Neruda is a fabulous retelling of the poet Pablo Neruda's 1948 flight from Chile's fascist government. Playing fast and loose with historical event & cinematic tropes and conventions, director Pablo Larraín ("Jackie") invents an adversary for Neruda in the shape of the policeman leading the manhunt against him. Demanding the audience play detective too, the film blurs the line between real and imagined as both men seek to validate their own political position through their fantasies about the other. Playful and gorgeous to behold, it features 5 star performances from the three leads - including a brilliant comic turn from the ever-beautiful Gael García Bernal - and does not sentimentalise Neruda. But the truly revolutionary impact of his work is movingly articulated by an unexpected source - a transvestite singer in a brothel - as words are shown to have more power than force in this timely portrait of the most influential poet of the 20th century.

Neruda fmovies. Greetings again from the darkness. There is little offered by the history of the country of Chile that would lead you to believe that some laughs, giggles and chuckles are in store if you watch director Pablo Larrain's film about Pablo Neruda. But that's exactly what happens as we watch a police inspector hunt down the Nobel Prize winning Chilean poet and Senator. While you would probably not describe it as an outright comedy, it's a serio-comedy that will educate (a little) and entertain (a lot).

The opening scene takes place in the men's room as a most serious Senate debate has flowed into an inappropriate locale. Apparently there is no relief during this time of relieving. It's here that Neruda's spoken words are as important as those he writes, and those spoken words lead directly to his need to go on the run. The poet/senator and his artist wife Delia del Carril become fugitives in their own country, and most of the film has them negotiating the Chilean underground. Set in 1948, three years after the end of WWII, a fascinating game of cat and mouse between hunter and hunted evolves. Director Larrain and writer Guillermo Calderon employ a generously creative license, and play quite fast and loose with facts resulting in a delightfully complex quasi-detective story.

Luis Gnecco plays Pablo Neruda, and actually looks very much like the Chilean icon who was influential, but also a bit prickly and burdened with his own sense of entitlement. Gael Garcia Bernal plays Inspector Peluchonneau, who is charged by the President to hunt down and capture the now enemy of the state. It's a wild chase that involves up to 300 policemen in support of the Inspector who romanticizes the chase. The filmmakers have more fun with traditional story structure as the Inspector's internal dialogue questions whether he is the lead character Â… an idea that would never be considered by the man he is chasing.

The film has a retro look and feel, and borders on farcical at times – the shots inside a moving car appear right out of the old 1940's detective movies. But the harsh realities of the times are never far removed. It could be a Picasso speech or a concentration camp director named Pinochet (soon to play a more important role in Chile). Neither the Inspector nor the fugitive make for a trustworthy narrator, but their different perspectives constantly provide us with more bits to consider.

Luis Gnecco, Gael Garcia Bernal and Mercedes Moran (as Delia del Carril) are all excellent in their roles, and the use of music is spot on … especially the score from Federico Justid (whose work I noted in Magallanes and The Secret in Their Eyes). Director Larrain also released the high profile Jackie (with Natalie Portman) over the holidays, and deserves to be discussed as one of the more creative filmmakers working today. It's pretty tough to name another contemporary film that blends an oddball inspector, a tough woman losing touch, and a narcissistic fugitive – all with bases in reality, while never settling for something as mundane as the truth.

Neruda is an ambitious and out-of-the-box kind of film that in a poetic way tries to combine fiction with nonfiction, saluting the work and wit of Neruda and other artists of his time. However, in my opinion the film does not quite move the way it is supposed to. Cinematographically, it is very well done, with a lot of care for the use of light and surrounding elements. The underscore engulfs the scenes with a sense of drama and vibrant energy, but this is also where it goes wrong: the scenes themselves, do not bring the kind of energy and drama to the screen one might expect from this kind of tale. The minimalism and introvert approach to the acting in Neruda is perhaps somewhat too subtle, reversing the characters to almost two-dimensional beings that lack the personality or warmth that is needed to draw the viewer in. The script and the way some dialogues are cut and played out in different rooms confirm that ultimately Neruda's attempt to escape is a long poem on its own. Only, unfortunately, it is a bit too long and too cold to truly sink in.

about art , politic, joy of life, Neruda and his universe, a hunt remembering the obsession of Javert, music of freedom and the Communism in Chilian version. a short sketch of Pinochet. admirable performances - especially Luis Gnecco - and a surprising Gael Garcia Bernal who knows use in the best manner the pieces of sketch defining his character. it is a poem not because it reflects, in subtle, seductive , eccentric, courageous manner a slice from Neruda life but because the significant result after the final credits is a special state. it could be emotion or impact with the new perspective about well known things, the state after a splendid show or the work with the pieces of a large puzzle. because the film is not exactly a biographic one. but a reflection about great, large universal themes in seductive manner.