El Conde

It is a strange film which is hard to fit any label or classification. It has great merits, but still disappointed my expectations. It also travels through multiple genres not fitting well any of them, for better or worse: gore horror, dark humour comedy, political satire, and even political thriller. Visually, the movie is very nice and Pinochet's portrayal is astonishing (how similar with the military devil makeup turned Jaime Vadell!). I loved all the vampire origin stories in Ancien Régime. It was also quite good to have a timeline drawn through Haiti, Cuba, Russia (Pinoche always against the revolutionaires)... it would be great if it were more explored indeed. The bad character of all members of the family and of the torturer butler was well depicted. However, the film also has serious drawbacks. The script is unbalanced and should have been tighter. Pace is irregular, alternating awesome moments with quite sluggish parts. The behaviour of the characters seemed too inconsistent too, being hard to understand their motivations, and not because they were deceiving them. The interviews by the exorcist nun were slightlty unconvincing as sonething to actually happen, but they did allow the script to mock and denounce a lot the multiple crimes (from corruption to murder) of Pinochet's family and their impunity.

Beautifully shot in 99.9% B&W from a very leftist perspective about the eternal legacy of power, corruption, greed and wealth using vampirism as a metaphor. Here the church in the embodiment of a condescending nun, who though in nature should be the liberator of vampire souls, is in reality secretly in pursuit of the same forces through lust. It's really quite bizzare, surreal, expressionistic, kind of incomprehensible and black as black comedy can be. The humor can suddenly jump at you and make you laugh and it has some famous political figures in it to set its political stance. Watch it if you want to experience something mesmerizing but weird from the other dimension.

I picked this movie on a whim, and I certainly wasn't disappointed. It takes a while, but the movie certainly hits you over the head with its metaphor. That those in power, especially neoliberals like Margaret Thatcher, and dictators like Pinochet are vampires. It's certainly not subtle in its critique of power. The plot itself is silly and over the top. The film itself is also silly and over the top. But it's well written, well acted and well directed. I think if you don't know anything about this film before you go into it, it's probably better, but you've read this review, so it's probably too late, and I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Very good movie. Probably one of the best "vampire" movies I have seen. Don't expect your normal hack and slash vampire stuff. Quite more sophisticated plot than that. You never know where the movie is headed. Thumbs up.

The black and white cinematography is excellent. The classical music score is excellent. Acting is top notch.

The plot keeps delivering new angles on a politically driven baseline. Key historical figures enter into the plot. I can be certain I didn't get all of the Chilean political references which are buried here.

The humor is very dry and subtle throughout. Just another ingredient that keeps things interesting.

The B/W cinematography is one of the best elements of the movie whilst the nun character is pretty useless because everything just could have unfolded in the same way without it.

Regardless the latter, the performances are great, but I think Chilean audiences should understand in a better way the jokes, allusions to Pinochet family and his actual political history than any other. I think that's not very efficiently worked in the script.

In the other hand what the script does work smartly enough is the relationship between him and his wife Lucia showing clearly who was in charge of everything.

A weird, not fully accomplished but in a way entertaining movie.