Post Mortem (Friday, April 13, 2012) (38)

The final sequence in Pablo Larrain's Post Mortem is one of the most interesting, evocative and incisive images I can remember in any film in a long time. After watching the main character Mario (Alfredo Castro) deal with his uneventful and lonely life for 90 minutes, he finally cracks and starts acting out the psychological difficulty that's inside him. Out of emotional desperation he has become friends with his neighbor, a stripper and cabaret star, Nancy (Antonia Zegers). Theirs is really not an emotional friendship, nor really much of a friendship at all. They both function as some external power forcing the other to connect with something else in the world.

They both are struggling to deal with the events of the moment, namely the Pinochet coup d'etat over Allende in 1973 Chile. Mario works in the morgue and is involved in the autopsy of Allende himself, after his assassination. This act, and the coldness and passivity of his job shakes him to his core. He is rather incapable of connecting to people on an emotional level and his very gray life seems to be filled with nothing but difficulty. In one magnificent scene, Mario and Nancy sit at opposite ends of his small kitchen table and quietly begin to weep, for no particular reason, though we know it has to do with the overwhelming pain and struggle of their respective lives.

Back to the last scene of the film, through a series of events, Mario gets involved in helping Nancy's family who are leftist radicals. He hides her brother in the shed in his back yard and after finally cracking, starts to pile stuff and junk in front of the door. Tables, chairs, coffee tables, small things, big things. He's literally trying to keep his feelings inside, lest they get out and overwhelm his life.

This might seem like a bit obvious (the tightly wound man breaks down and seems to go crazy with a physical action that represents his internal turmoil), but it's performed and produced beautifully and deeply emotionally. What's more is that it's not a simple act, but a long and drawn-out one that seems to go on past the point of normal limits, past the point of our comprehension. It moves from a simple, superficial psych tick to an important symbolic action, to an extreme cry for help, unlike what you find in typical storytelling.

Meanwhile, as is typical of the New Chilean Cinema style, this scene, and the whole film, has a rigorous naturalistic, neorealist tone. Everything is washed-out gray-brown-yellow, shabby and bleak. People are more interested in simply fucking their co-worker (not Mario, but people he works with) than making any real connections. The inner turmoil every character suffers is internal and poorly expressed because they're all broken people.

Larrain does a wonderful job with this very small story and makes it much more powerful than it might seem on the page. The film runs on an internal inertia that seems contained mostly in the gaps between actions. It's not the Allende autopsy that throws Mario, per se, but the constant pushing of his workaday life and the difficulty he has making connections. There is a lot of silence in the film and that becomes very powerful. Castro's performance, in particular, really leads this film and moves it along. He always seems on the edge of a cliff, about to jump off, but terrified of making any action. Larrain uses this dual tension brilliantly to create an eerie but relateable tone.

Stars: 3.5 of 4

The Maid (Saturdy, October 31, 2009) (155)

The Maid is a small Chilean film about a house maid, Raquel, who works in an upper-middle class house in a fancy neighborhood in Santiago. She's in her late 30s and has spent 20-some years with the family helping to raise the four children. As she goes about her mundane day-to-day routine of vacuuming, washing clothes, cooking and minding the kids, she slips into a deep funk where she feels more and more unloved and disrespected by the household. She is somewhat hampered by migraines, so the family hires a series of assistants to help her with her tasks. Upset and insulted that she might need help, she marks her territory and works to make their lives impossible so they quit.

By far the best single element in the film is the lead performance by Catalina Saavedra. She is lovable, but somewhat pitiful; she's a proud woman who also behaves childishly; She's vulnerable and vindictive at the same time. The snapshot of her that is used in the poster for this film sums up the character and her performance perfectly. She's beaten down, but still lives to fight another day - and does so somewhat devilishly. I hope she gets attention from the various award-givers later this year and next. So far, I think hers is the best performance by a woman this year.

The tag-line of the film, "She's more or less family" encapsulates the heart of the story. Director Sebastian Silva does a wonderful job of showing how despite being so deeply rooted in this bourgeois family, Raquel will never be one of them. In the first scene, when it is her birthday and the family is trying to celebrate with her, we think it is strange that she does not want to join them. But soon we see that she is treated somewhat unkindly by them - especially by the father. He can barely get out the words to wish her a happy birthday before rushing off to his study to 'work' on his model ship building. Later, he asks that the children close the kitchen door in Raquel's face so they can eat supper together.

There is a feeling of guilt that pervades the relationship between the lady of the house, Pilar, and Raquel. Pilar does not want to step on Raquel's toes and, despite the fact that she knows the relationship is not going well and that Raquel is not happy, she cannot fire her or even give her a stern warning. At one point when Raquel has a physical fight with one of the assistants, Pilar covers for her in front of her husband. Pilar is somewhat trapped knowing Raquel's happiness is somewhat a reflection on the life that has been created for her by the family - but also that a bad attitude has an overall negative effect on the household.

This film is very reminiscent of the 2007 Argentine film Live-In Maid, which dealt with many of the same issues of class and the end of the bourgeoisie in South America. In that, there is a sense that the rich woman cannot figure out her life without the maid, who has also become her best friend. There is a sense that the monetary relationship between the two affects the personal relationship. That financial element is here too. It it hard not to wonder whether Raquel would be so well loved by the family if she did not work for them - or if their love for her is contingent on the fact that they also pay her a salary.

For a somewhat simple-looking movie, I think there is a lot of interesting sociopolitical stuff here - and the style is very intimate and immediate-feeling. Again, Saavedra's performance alone is worth the price of the ticket.

Stars: 3 of 4