El húsar de la muerte

"El húsar de la Muerte" is quite one of the best Chilean movies. It depicts in a clear and nice way all the struggle of Manuel Rodríguez for Chile's independence. Depicts, too, all the honour and courage of that romantic period (aprox. 1812). Very low budget, but very high quality. Huacho Pelao is very good in his supporting role.

I saw this maybe a decade ago, in a program dedicated to silent films from Latin America in the Buenos Aires cinematheque, so I don't recall all the details of the movie. But I remember being quite impressed with this movie about the Chilean independence movement (which happened in the 1810s). The direction seemed impressive and assured, the tone was light, it was pretty fast paced and entertaining, it had humor, and what impressed me most, its look at the country's independence leaders was less than solemn. It's important that silent movies are not lost, a problem especially acute in countries that are not central in the world stage. Seeing movies like this allows us to go into a time tunnel, and see the world as previous generations saw it, and this seems to me to be enough justification for rescuing films like this.

I saw 'Hussar of the Dead' at the 2006 Cinema Muto silent-film festival in Sacile, Italy, where it was definitely one of the high points of the excellent festival. This Chilean silent movie was at least the third film version (and the second by actor-director-author Pedro Sienna) depicting the life of Chilean hero Manuel Rodriguez, who fought for Chile's independence from Spain and was assassinated in 1818.

The print I viewed had some missing sequences, and new titles added to bridge the gaps. The original intertitles (in Spanish) appear directly on the film, superimposed (in white) over the actors. This device never works very well, because the portions of the letters appearing over a white image are illegible. I'm fluent in Spanish, yet I had trouble reading all the titles because of this device. At one point, a title flips over on its vertical axis to reveal a second title. I've seen this visual device (not really a very expensive one) in several Hollywood silents and a few British ones, but never before in any other nation's films.

Pedro Sienna cast himself in the title role of this movie, but that's no vanity casting. He gives a fine performance: lithe, virile, and reasonably handsome without the supernaturally good looks of a Tyrone Power. There's also an astonishingly good performance by an amateur child actor, Guillermo Barrientos, as a boy who hero-worships Rodriguez.

I know almost nothing about Chilean history, so I can't vouch for this film's accuracy. I was mildly annoyed that -- as depicted here -- Rodriguez seemingly possessed the supernatural ability always to pop up in just the right place at the right time, no matter how many guards he must get past. In this respect, he seemed more like the (fictional) Scarlet Pimpernel than an historical figure. But I laughed at a montage sequence -- an intentionally funny one -- in which a series of dissolves show Rodriguez in several different disguises.

The misleading title 'Hussar of the Dead' refers to the fact that Rodriguez had a price on his head and was technically a dead man walking, or rather riding. How come Hollywood hasn't made a movie about this man yet? If ever they do, bet on them to change all the facts. I'll rate this entertaining movie 8 out of 10, and I'd like to know just how accurate it truly is.