Pablo Larraín’s Neruda gets a magical new trailer | Little White Lies

Trailers

Pablo Larraín’s Neru­da gets a mag­i­cal new trailer

23 Jan 2017

Words by Dan Einav

The Jack­ie direc­tor returns to his cul­tur­al roots with a biog­ra­phy of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda.

Pablo Larraín’s Jack­ie may have only just opened in UK cin­e­mas, but we’re already look­ing ahead to the director’s next biopic, Neru­da, thanks to this time­ly trail­er. Here the Chilean film­mak­er behind the award-win­ning No brings us anoth­er tale of his homeland’s fas­cist past with this part­ly fan­tas­ti­cal account of the epony­mous Nobel Prize-win­ning poet’s years on the run from the state police as, the world’s most impor­tant communist”.

The sto­ry fol­lows Pablo Neru­da as he’s forced to become a fugi­tive in his own coun­try fol­low­ing calls for his arrest for being the most influ­en­tial mem­ber of the resis­tance against the Chilean gov­ern­ment. What fol­lows is a game of cat and mouse, as Neru­da is chased across the coun­try by chief of police Óscar Pelu­chon­neau (Gael Gar­cía Bernal). Think Catch Me If You Can with a whole lot more at stake.

But for all its back­drop of oppres­sion and the war on free speech, the above trail­er pitch­es Neru­da as a film that tack­les grave issues with­out negat­ing the inher­ent thrill in a chase nar­ra­tive. This has to become a wild hunt”, the poet tells his com­rades at one point, sug­gest­ing that Lar­raín has tak­en great care to cap­ture his subject’s sense of adven­ture with­in his film.

One of the things that most impressed us about the film when it pre­miered at last year’s Cannes Film Fes­ti­val was the director’s bold sto­ry­telling style, and if any­thing this teas­er per­haps under­plays the dreamy oth­er­world­li­ness and mag­ic real­ism which sets the film apart from your aver­age biopic. A fit­ting­ly poet­ic trib­ute, rather than a film pri­mar­i­ly con­cerned with his­tor­i­cal accuracy.

Neru­da is released in UK cin­e­mas 7 April.

Two illustrated book covers depicting a smiling Black man wearing a hat and tie, with a city skyline in the background

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