El Conde: In Pablo Larrain’s Vampiric Gallows Satire, the Late Dictator Pinochet Literally Sucks
By Liam Lacey
Rating: A-minus
A chamber-sized display of cinematic razzle-dazzle, and convoluted political allegory filled with gallows humour and broad polemics, Pablo Larraín’s El Conde re-imagines the Chilean dictator
as the 250-year-old vampire star of a 1930s horror movie.
The director’s 10th film, which drops on Netflix this Friday, represents a return to a familiar subject matter after his behind-the-scenes films of feminine icons, Jackie (2016), and Spencer (2021). Previously, Larrain was known for a trilogy of films set during the dictatorship Tony Manero (2008), Post-Mortem (2010), and the Oscar-nominated No (2012), about the plebiscite that toppled Pinochet from power.
Shot in lusciously creepy black and white by American cinematographer Edward Lachman (a collaborator with Sofia Coppola, Steven Soderbergh and Todd Haynes among others), the film draws you in from the first pan shot, inside a decrepit mansion in remote Patagonia.
The manse is filled with books, toy soldiers and war memorabilia. A Strauss march crackles on a turntable, the first of the classical music pieces and original string-heavy compositions that accompany the film.
The camera finally rests on the old man, Pinochet (87-year-old Jaime Vadell), who lives there with his wife, Lucia (Gloria Münchmeyer) and his butler, Fyodor (Alfredo Castro). We learn, through an off-screen narration in a woman’s plummy British accent (we’ll meet the famous narrator later), that Pinochet has refused to bite his wife, (which would have made her immortal). He has bestowed that gift on his butler, the one-time chief torturer of his regime, which lasted from the military coup of 1973 until 1990.
The real-life Pinochet, died at 91 of heart failure in 2006. But in Larrain’s fictional history, we meet the old vampire at a point where he has decided to give up immortality at age 250.
A quick biographical sequence introduces him as an 18th-Century French orphan, who discovered his taste for blood in adulthood, served in the army and later switched sides to join the Revolution.
He was on hand to delicately lick the blood off the guillotine blade following the beheading of Marie Antoinette, later retrieving her royal head as a souvenir.
Faking his death from time to time, Pinochet continued through the centuries, in an ongoing war against anarchists and revolutionaries, ending up in Chile. There he led the 1973 coup against Salvador Allende and established his reign of torture and terror. The narrator informs us that many of his cruelest ideas came from his wife, Lucia Hiriart, a mortal, but even more perverse than her husband.
Now, Pinochet is finally read to truly die, humiliated that the Chilean people have turned against him. And to do so, he has sworn off drinking blood. His five greedy grown-up children, all mortal, convene at the mansion, hoping to inherit the contents of his hidden bank accounts and properties around the world.
But the old man appears to be lying: At night, dressed in his commander’s uniform and a long cape, El Conde (the Count), as he likes to be called, floats out over the city of Santiago in gorgeously dreamy scenes.
He descends to carve the beating hearts out of his victims, storing their organs in the basement, and later puts them in the blender for blood smoothies.
To his children’s annoyance, the old man does not appear to be anywhere near death, and the bank deposits are still a secret, so they decide to bring in a specialist: The interloper is a young nun, Carmencita (Paula Luchsinger).
Carmencita resembles cinematic depictions of Joan of Arc, but is, in fact, a double-threat exorcist and forensic accountant. Her job is to expel the evil spirit from his body, and uncover the documentation to all his secret bank accounts. Though the siblings think she’s working for them, her aim to is to give the money to the Church.
For a while the story drags somewhat, as Carmencita cross-examines the children, documenting the real life corruption of Pinochet’s regime, and strategies used to steal money for himself and his relatives.
She wields her exorcist kit (cross, stake, holy water) but fails to expunge the demon inside him. And, in one in a succession of corkscrew twists, she ends up flying herself. At this point, we have the intervention of an old friend from across the sea, who sticks up for Pinochet as an ally in the Falklands war.
El Conde is a project of narrow ambitions, unlikely to shed fresh light on the horrors of tyranny and tolerance for trans-national corruption. But it’s inventive, risk-taking filmmaking, designed to both discomfort and, perversely, delight.
El Conde. Directed by Pablo Larrain. Written by Pablo Larrain and Guillermo Calderón. With Jaimie Vadell, Gloria Münchmeyer, and Alfredo Castro. El Conde is available on Netflix from Sept. 15.