Post Mortem

After the excel­lent Tony Manero, Chilean direc­tor Pablo Lar­raín moves into slight­ly more sur­re­al ter­ri­to­ry as he takes a sto­ry that exam­ines the Chilean mil­i­tary coup of 1973 seen through the prism of an unlike­ly love story.

Mario Corne­jo (Cas­tro) works in a morgue whilst begin­ning a ten­ta­tive rela­tion­ship with cabaret dancer Nan­cy (Zegers). How­ev­er the rev­o­lu­tion­ary events of the out­side world throw both their lives into chaos. The morgue becomes inun­dat­ed with numer­ous bod­ies, name­less vic­tims of a bat­tle for which the prize may not be worth win­ning, whilst Nan­cy finds her­self in the thrall of some of those fight­ing for a new régime.

This is an evoca­tive work that strips back the noble ideals of rev­o­lu­tion to show the ter­ri­ble price by those caught in the cross­fire. Lar­raín imbues pro­ceed­ings with a dream­like air going from one sur­re­al set-piece to anoth­er. Scenes such as ones set in the morgue, where piles of bod­ies form a grotesque tableau or the doc­tors are forced to con­duct the autop­sy of one of the Chilean gov­ern­ment, man­age to dis­turb as they seem both res­olute­ly real­is­tic yet strange­ly removed from the every­day. It’s this off-kil­ter con­nec­tion between fan­ta­sy and authen­tic­i­ty that makes the film both dis­turb­ing and absorbing.

Cas­tro – whose slight­ly odd looks com­ple­ment the gen­er­al ambiance of the film – is both excel­lent and mea­sured as a lon­er who strug­gles to com­pre­hend his rela­tion­ships with oth­er peo­ple. His chem­istry and inter­ac­tion with Zegers – who also man­ages to put on a feisty per­for­mance – is com­pelling­ly twist­ed. Their rela­tion­ship works as a metaphor for the rev­o­lu­tion itself – it may have occurred with the best of inten­tions but the sheer impos­si­bil­i­ty of it work­ing out will mean that peo­ple are hurt along the way.