Letras Hispanas Volume 12, 2016

Special Section: Intimidad y política en la literatura y el cine latinoamericanos contemporáneos Title: Political Trauma, Intimacy, and Off-Screen Space in Pablo Larraín’s Tony Manero Author: Mariana Johnson E-mail: [email protected] Affiliation: University of North Carolina-Wilmington; King Hall 102A; 601 S. College Road; Wilmington, NC, USA 28403 Abstract: Pablo Larraín’s films Tony Manero (2008), Post Mortem (2010), and No! (2012) con- stitute what he has called an “unintentional” dictatorship trilogy. This paper analyzes style and form in Tony Manero to show the ways in which the director infuses his mise-en-scène with history and memory that exceed the diegetic world of his films. Specifically, I focus on his use of off-screen space and off-screen sound and argue that Larraín inscribes the political at the margins of his stories in order to invoke horror in the everyday. His intimate character studies become steeped, by means of this aesthetic, in a political violence that is felt as much as seen. Such an affective rendering portrays Pinochet’s dictatorship as a kind of peripheral specter, one that connects even the most minimalistic and mundane of actions to large-scale historical forces. While Larraín’s “unintentional” trilogy clearly differs from the more direct, urgent and transparently “intentional” political cinema for which Latin America is historically well-known, it does encourage viewers to identify with the terror and trauma of Chile’s past in a manner that is haunting and highly deliberate. Keywords: Political Cinema, Chile, Intimacy, Off-screen Space, Horror Resumen: Los filmes Tony Manero (2008), Post Mortem (2010) y No (2012) constituyen lo que el director Pablo Larraín ha llamado “una trilogía no intencional” sobre la dictadura chilena. Este ensayo analiza el estilo y la forma en el primer film de esta trilogía, Tony Manero, para mostrar cómo el director infunde su mise-en-scène con una historia y una memoria que superan el mundo diegético representado. Me concentro en su uso del espacio y del sonido en off para argüir que el film inscribe lo político en sus márgenes con tal de invocar el hor- ror cotidiano. Su particular estética hace que los retratos íntimos de los personajes sean impregnados de un una violencia política que se siente más que se ve. Tal representación evoca la dictadura de Pinochet como un espectro, que conecta las acciones más minimalis- tas con fuerzas históricas a gran escala. Si bien la trilogía “no intencional” de Larraín se diferencia del cine intencional y directamente político de los años 1960 en América Latina, logra suscitar la identificación del espectador con el terror y el trauma del pasado chileno de una manera tan agobiante como deliberada. Palabras clave: cine político, Chile, intimidad, espacio fuera de campo, horror Biography:Mariana Johnson is an Associate Professor in the Film Studies Department at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, where she teaches courses in Latin American cinema and the history of documentary. A former Fulbright scholar and Film Society of Lincoln Center Fellowship recipient, she has published in numerous film journals and is currently completing a project about pre-Revolutionary film culture in Havana, Cuba.

ISSN: 1548-5633 200 Letras Hispanas Volume 12, 2016

Political Trauma, Intimacy, and Off-Screen Space in Pablo Larraín’s Tony Manero

Mariana Johnson, University of North Carolina-Wilmington

Pablo Larraín’s films Tony Manero (2008), his mise-en-scène with history and memory, Post Mortem (2010), and No (2012) constitute creating a text that exceeds the diegetic world what the director has called an “unintentional of his films. Specifically, I concentrate on his trilogy” about the Chilean dictatorship. Lar- use of off-screen space and off-screen sound raín did not, he says, set out to make three to argue that Larraín inscribes the political at films about Augusto Pinochet’s coup and 17- the margins of his stories in order to invoke year rule: “It just happened to me” (Rohter). horror in the everyday. His intimate character The characters in Larraín’s films are likewise studies become steeped, by means of this aes- people to whom things just happen. They live thetic, in a political violence that is intuited in and move through one of the most brutal as much as seen. Such an affective rendering periods in Chile’s history, yet they often affect portrays Pinochet’s dictatorship as a kind of a kind of matter-of-factness, one that verges specter, one whose power connects even the at times on blankness (this is less true in the most minimalistic and mundane actions to third film, No, where the scenario has to do large-scale historical forces. While Larraín’s explicitly with a political campaign, although “unintentional” film clearly differs from the there too one can find surprising continu- more direct, urgent, and transparently “in- ities). Large-scale political events are things tentional” political cinema for which Latin that happen around and behind these char- America is historically well-known, it does acters, in the periphery of our vision. Larraín encourage viewers to identify with the terror chooses to focus instead on their idiosyncra- and trauma of Chile’s past in a manner that is sies, with an unrelentingly naturalistic gaze haunting and highly deliberate. that follows their movements through inti- Tony Manero, the first installment in mate spaces—the backroom of a dancehall in what would become Larraín’s acclaimed trilo- Tony Manero, a dimly lit morgue in Post Mor- gy, was the director’s second feature film. Born tem, or the cluttered apartment where René in Santiago de Chile in 1976, Larraín studied lives with his son in No. The cinematography audiovisual communication at the Universi- and sound design that Larraín uses to portray dad de las Artes, Ciencias, y Comunicaciones these private interiors create what is, at many and founded the production company, Fábu- moments, a horrifying atmosphere, whereby la, with his brother, Juan de Dios Larraín, in political forces operating off-screen can be 2003. His directorial debut, Fuga (2006), a co- seen to traumatize characters, whether or not production with Argentina, follows an obses- they realize it. sive and mentally traumatized composer who This paper analyzes style and form in believes that his music caused the death of his the first film of Larraín’s trilogy, Tony Manero, sister and love interest. Although not a politi- to show the ways in which the director infuses cal or even nationally-specific film, Fuga does Mariana Johnson 201

exhibit some of the stylistic characteristics that Toronto, and New York, and won an award recur in Larraín’s subsequent work—intense for best film at the Turin Film Festival, as well proximity to an obsessive male protagonist, as top prizes for direction and acting from rendered through extensive use of close-up; FIPRESCI. Despite some controversy within dimly lit, claustrophobic interiors; unusual Chile, spurred by the film’s bleak representa- framings that often involve showing figures tion of the country’s recent past, Chile sub- from behind; and shots that emphasize char- mitted Tony Manero for consideration in the acters’ voyeurism and acts of looking. These Best Foreign Language category for the Acad- characters rarely, if ever, derive pleasure from emy Awards, and the film gained a U.S. dis- looking, but they look nonetheless. Fuga also tributor through the then newly established includes a supporting performance by Alfredo Lorber Films. At the time, CEO Richard Castro, an accomplished and incomparable Lorber, an art-house and independent-cine- Chilean actor who was Larraín’s former drama ma stalwart, quipped that not all the films on teacher. Castro has a significant part in every their list “will be a nightmarish, political al- film that Larraín has made and plays the lead- legory” (quoted in Hernandez). Tony Manero ing role in both Tony Manero and Post Mor- is indeed a kind of political horror film with tem. black comedic undertones, but generic la- Fuga, as Larraín himself attests, was bels are not adequate or complete in convey- made with an eye toward the international ing the trauma and dread that permeate the market. “Fuga está pensada como una historia film, nor the degree of Larraín’s narrative universal, que pasa en Chile, pero no es local” and aesthetic experimentation. Through its (Campino n. pág.).1 Ironically, Fuga fared far intimate depiction of a charmless sociopath, worse in terms of critical response and gross with whom viewers are nonetheless encour- receipts than the atmospheric and decidedly aged to identify, and its oblique yet powerful local Tony Manero. Set in Santiago in 1978, entanglement with North American pop cul- during some of the most repressive days of ture and Chilean history, Tony Manero repre- Pinochet’s dictatorship, the film follows Raúl sents a new kind of political cinema in Latin Peralta (Alfredo Castro), a 52-year-old so- America. ciopathic dancer who is obsessed with Satur- Stylistically the film favors handheld day Night Fever (1977). The idea for the film camerawork and jump cuts and strives for started with a black and white photograph the effect of authenticity that can come from that Larraín saw in a book while traveling a deliberately imperfect style. It begins, af- through Spain. It showed a middle-aged man ter the credit sequence, with a dimly lit long sitting in a chair in his underwear, with his take fixed on the back of Raúl, who is walk- shoes on, looking out a window with a gun ing away from the camera, snaking past set in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Lar- decorators, some of whom carry enormous raín brought the image back home and shared chess pieces, on the backstage of a produc- it with Castro, asking him what he saw in the tion studio where a popular game show, picture. “A killer. And I don’t know why, but I “The One-O’clock Festival,” is taking place. see a dancer,” and they began writing the story The show is a celebrity look-alike contest in from there. As the script evolved, they seized which contestants impersonate iconic pop on the year 1978, which was when Saturday cultural figures, typically American ones, Night Fever was released in Chile, and realized and a live audience determines the winner they had an opportunity to set this disturbing through applause. Raúl is there with his white character portrait against the context of Pino- suit, ready to dance like John Travolta, but he chet’s institutionalized terror (Guillén). has the wrong day. “Saturday Night Fever” is Tony Manero was well-received at in- next week, and today’s contest is Chuck Nor- ternational festivals, screening at Cannes, ris. Larraín downplays the easy humor of the 202 Letras Hispanas Volume 12, 2016 scenario by focusing on the intensity and supply complete information about seriousness of the worn-faced Raúl. There is the sound’s nature and the events tak- barely any dialogue, and Raúl stalks intently ing place. (72) through the studio, studying it as if he were in a police procedural. Larraín has stated in an Although Tony Manero features a good interview that his intention in directing Raúl deal of noisy ambient off-screen sound, which was always “to play it straight,” not for laughs promotes the film’s naturalistic style, there are or heavy political symbolism (Guillén). There also sounds beyond the frame that create ten- is certainly nothing didactic or clumsy about sion and paranoia in the manner Chion de- Larraín’s depiction of life under Pinochet. scribes. Take, for example, the frequency with If the films are political allegories—and they which sirens are heard but not shown, and then must be understood as such—Alfredo Castro’s never seen to intersect with the plot in any way; performances seem masterfully unaware of it. or the many dogs barking off-screen; or human The unspoken horror and collective trauma of whistling that is never embodied or identified. Chile’s past press in around the edges, but at This kind of acousmatic sound, when added to the center there is an unnerving calm. darkly lit images of Raúl fervently looking off- Larraín achieves this feeling of im- screen in all directions, toward things that are minent threat in part through his use of off- themselves often withheld from the audience, screen sound and off-screen space. The open- helps create a deeply unsettling atmosphere. ing sequence is darkly voyeuristic, initiating There is a furthermore a kind of visual com- a dreadful tone that will intensify as the nar- plement to Chion’s ideas about acousmêtre in rative progresses. Unlike more conventional Tony Manero, namely that there are few eye- sound design that omits or filters out extra- line matches. The camera regularly shows Raúl neous noise, Larraín emphasizes noisy un- looking toward off-screen space at something pleasantness throughout. The first cut after beyond the frame. A conventional editing style the title card harshly drops the audience into would provide the match shot, to show what a soundscape of loud hammering in a back- the character is looking at, but this film, more stage warehouse of metal walls. Miguel Hor- often that not, withholds that image. We spend mazábal, the sound designer who regularly much more time watching Raúl look. So what works with Larraín, adds the voices of people is Raúl looking at so intensely, and why is he so arguing and eventually the sounds of the game often shown looking? This furtiveness creates show itself. There is nothing inherently scary, a desire to know on the part of the audience. in any traditional sense, about this initial use It gives us impetus to watch more closely, in of off-screen sound, but Larraín establishes the hopes that something will be revealed. But what will become a pattern: the presence of it also signals very clearly that the film—as we sounds whose sources are obscured or rarely experience it visually—has much to do, and shown on screen. The functions and effects of directly to do, with events taking place imme- off-screen sound have been extensively written diately off-screen. about by cinema theorist Michel Chion, who The audience gets at least one answer differentiates between the reassuring role of to the question of what Raúl looks at toward visualized sound, which occurs when an off- the end of the opening sequence. A close-up screen sound’s corresponding source is shown profile shot focuses on Raúl’s eyes as they gaze, at some point, and the anxiogenic effects of slowly from left to right. He gradually turns his acousmatic sound, which: head away from the camera, and during the last seconds of the shot, the backs of three women creates a mystery of the nature of its dressed in French-cut, purple-and-aquamarine source, its properties and its powers, leotards move through the background. There given that causal listening cannot is a slight shift in Castro’s performance as he Mariana Johnson 203 moves from furtiveness to steely concentra- Larraín stimulates particularly strong tion, and it’s hard to tell whether his stare is sympathy for Raúl during an early scene in amorous or violent. Regardless, its fixedness which Raúl goes to the movie theater to re- suggests something predatory, which we would watch Saturday Night Fever. Again in close-up, not immediately expect from the slight, seem- the camera finds Raúl gazing upward toward a ingly timid man. At this moment a game show gigantic movie screen, his eyes seemingly on production assistant asks Raúl for his name, the verge of tears, as he watches Travolta’s char- and he responds, “Tony Manero.” Raúl shows acter ask Stephanie, his love interest, out on a no irony toward his over-identification with date. Raúl, alone in the theater, repeats each John Travolta’s character. In fact, when asked word aloud, mimicking the English lines in his by the game show crew to name his profession, heavily accented Spanish. The high contrast which happens twice in the film (once in the lighting here draws attention to each wrinkle beginning and again at a final performance), on Castro’s rugged face as he follows Travolta’s Raúl impassively states, “This [...] show busi- lines, “You’re a very good dancer. I would like ness.” to meet you.” He then continues with Stepha- With this, the film officially introduces nie’s response after she rejects Tony, repeating us to the menacing anti-hero with whom her words, “Don’t be hurt.” As Castro slowly viewers will remain intimately tied for the speaks these last lines, a broader irony can remainder of the film. There is not a single be felt. With his dejected aspect and hangdog scene in Tony Manero in which Castro does face, Raúl seems completely vulnerable and not appear. Larraín’s camera stays in close diminutive before this larger-than-life image proximity to Raúl throughout, watching his that may be giving him a false sense of hope. every action, however inscrutable in its moti- It feels as if these lines, “Don’t be hurt,” were vation or meaning, forcing the audience into meant for him, with Larraín using Saturday intimacy with his character, often against our Night Fever as a mise en abyme to comment better judgment. By spending so much time on Raúl’s circumstances and fate. with Raúl—and perhaps more importantly, The camera immerses us in an intense Raúl’s face—the film engenders or at least re- closeness with this reserved anti-hero, with quests sympathy for this man who is so pitiful whom after all we spend so much time. Yet, and delusional, but also dictatorial and socio- only minutes after this scene, Raúl coldly de- pathic. Viewers become deeply familiar with ceives and murders an old woman, without his habits, watching him when he is alone, in any rational motive other than convenience. the shadowy spaces of his bedroom, where Posing as a good samaritan after seeing the he practices his dance moves, or when he is woman being robbed on the street, Raúl en- walking down the street, on another errand ters her small apartment, pets her cat, watch- to procure some prop that will perfect his act. es her color television, and then suddenly The narrative clearly establishes our protago- bludgeons her to death. His actions come as nist’s goal and unfolds somewhat convention- a complete surprise, and the notion that this ally, with Raúl facing various obstacles in his sociopathic killer could ever “be hurt” seems quest to be recognized as the best Saturday almost absurd. Night Fever dancer and Manero imperson- Like many unspeakable things in Tony ator. Viewers align with Raúl as he attempts Manero, this act of violence takes place off- to secure the necessary high-density glass screen. The camera’s central focus stays on tiles for his disco dance floor, and we flinch for Raúl’s profile as his arms repeatedly strike the him when he falls during an important num- old woman’s head, which stays outside the ber at his homemade dancehall bar, where he frame. The editing further emphasizes the dif- lives and performs with an incestuous group ference between onscreen and off-screen space of malcontents. in the subsequent cuts after her murder. Raúl 204 Letras Hispanas Volume 12, 2016 stays in the woman’s claustrophobic home for Raúl Peralta “a small-scale replica of Pinochet” a while, smoking and watching television in (Costa, Mandelbaum). Certainly, there is an the dimly yellow and washed-out room. Occa- allegorical dimension to Tony Manero. De- sionally he glances over to where the woman spite his weak stature, Raúl is a kind of des- presumably lies dead in her armchair, but pot within his household and dance troupe, once again, Larraín offers the eyeline without especially in relation to the women. Cony, the match shot. The camera never shows the his girlfriend, played by Amparo Noguera, woman’s body. The effect is one that infuses constantly attempts to please Raúl, feeding this intimate and mundane domestic space, and bathing him, and trying, but typically where a television has been playing the entire failing, to arouse him sexually. She is almost time, with horrific remorselessness. pathological in her allegiance. Cony’s young That Larraín seeks to tie these elements adult daughter, Pauli (Paola Lattus), whose of intimacy and horror to the political con- communist-sympathizing boyfriend, Goyo text of Pinochet is made transparent through (Héctor Morales), is the other male member the sound design. One of the main tracks of of the dance group, also kowtows to Raúl. sound during this sequence comes from the After one of their performances, she lets him television, from which a newscaster announc- grope her and almost has sex with him, but es, “The President of the Republic is about to they are both too drunk, and she masturbates sign the decree giving la cueca the status of instead. Cony is furious about the incident, national dance.” Such a detail not only plung- but instead of directing his anger at Tony, he es viewers into a highly specific national and points it at his girlfriend. historical context, it also serves as a kind of Everyone in the house fears Raúl and counterpoint and affront to Raúl’s obsession his irrational outbursts, such as when he with an arguably imperialistic North Ameri- smashes a hole in the dance stage because he can pop-cultural phenomenon. Also, the last has tripped on a loose board, but they also words the woman speaks before Raúl begins respect him and submit to his exacting direc- beating her, which are the majority of the tions. It is easy to see here how this sociopath- scene’s spoken dialogue, are about Pinochet’s ic representation corresponds to the totali- eyes, “Did you know that General Pinochet tarianism of Pinochet, propped up by North has blue eyes? Strange [...]. With so many Ma- American imperialist interests, but Larraín puche Indians. It’s strange.” Via the television, complicates things by forcing viewers into a Pinochet functions as a kind of pseudo-pres- state of semi-complicity, because ultimately, ence to the horrific action that transpires, and we do want Raúl to win that dance contest. then the television itself, the late twentieth- The real political nature of Tony Manero, I ar- century hearth and site of domestic intimacy, gue, reveals itself through an understanding becomes the mechanism through which Raúl of Raúl as both sinister perpetrator and vic- disassociates from his own violence. tim, misguidedly trying to advance himself One can readily relate Raúl’s capricious during an era marred by systemic violence violence, which is so monstrous in its petti- and trauma. ness, to the institutional violence carried out Specifically, Raúl’s cruelty is an expres- during Pinochet’s regime, which lasted from sion not of power but of his own impotence. 1973-1990. Some scholars have analyzed the His acts of violence occur suddenly, as the film as allegory and as social criticism, high- outbursts of a sociopathic child, and they are lighting Larraín’s critique of masculinity and accompanied by heavily punctuated silences. power, and a French film critic writing for Le His murder victims never make a sound when Monde went so far as to call the character of they are attacked and dying, nor do they ever Mariana Johnson 205 try to fight back. When Raúl first strikes the The juxtaposition between the sounds old woman in her apartment, for example, of physical violence and the silence of the vic- there is a long pause during which time she tims, who are unable or unwilling to defend is alive but completely quiet. Likewise, during themselves or cry out, may also correspond to the brutal head bashing of the projectionist, the culture of torture and everyday silence as- whom Raúl kills because he has dared show sociated with life under Pinochet. Overall the the filmGrease (1978) instead of Saturday dictatorship was responsible for killing over Night Fever, not only does the victim fail to 3,000 people for political reasons and tortur- cry out, but his wife witnesses the attack and ing 30,000 others, questioning and terrorizing stands dumbfounded, quietly holding a cup suspected dissidents and their families, and in- of tea. The camera does not even reveal her stilling widespread fear of retaliation that en- presence until after the beating, but she’s been couraged silence and obedience. The Chilean hovering off-screen the entire time. The film National Commission on Truth and Recon- then cuts away from her, and presumably she ciliation reports that officials working beneath gets killed, too, but that remains ambiguous. Pinochet who refused his commands were ex- Finally, Raúl bludgeons a glass seller as he ecuted by firing squads, and: lies sleeping on his bed in front of a staticky television. In this particular shot, the frame people readily accepted the prevailing shows only the glass seller’s legs stretched current of opinion, or they acquiesced across the bed, while Raúl, in the foreground, to a poorly understood principle of due obedience, or they believed it was raises his arm to deliver a single blunt blow to necessary to maintain silence about his victim’s head. This viewers hear but do not what was happening. (606) see. Again, the results of his violence and the horror of a beaten body remain off-screen. in order to protect their lives. The character In each of these scenes, the victims’ of Cony, for instance, repeatedly warns her silence, rather than signifying absence, be- daughter to disassociate from any anti-Pino- comes an expressive site of meaning. “Si- chet activities and “stay out of that shit,” and lence,” as Chion asserts, “is never a neutral the host of “The One-O’clock Festival” always emptiness. It is the negative of a sound we’ve tells his contestants, “No political talk,” before heard beforehand or imagined; it is the prod- going on the air. This culture of silence has uct of a contrast” (57). The lack of screams enraged many Chileans who seek to confront heightens viewers’ visceral experience of the and expose Pinochet’s legacy, so as to recu- brutal acts themselves and underscores their perate historical memories suppressed by col- chilling and banality. They also, I think, come lective trauma, as echoed in the statement of to signify Raul’s unaccountability. As Larraín Larraín’s quoted above. himself has stated in an interview, almost all In Tony Manero, mise-en-scène and cin- of his films deal with the evasion of justice: ematography work to re-create an atmosphere of fear, compliance, and denial. Larraín does The connection between [my films] represent Pinochet’s secret police at two differ- is impunity. With the dictatorship as ent moments, but their presence is at best an- well, justice never came. Without that, wounds cannot heal. Pinochet died cillary to the plot. In one scene, Raúl follows a free, you know? Acknowledgment disheveled associate of Goyo and prepares to changes things. But when it doesn’t hit him with a rock when the police drive up happen, they just get worse. (quoted and start following the “dissident” from the in Leigh) other direction. Although the film does some 206 Letras Hispanas Volume 12, 2016 quick cross-cutting between Pinochet’s men, at the center of it something which who eventually shoot their suspect in cold is given as in principle unknowable— blood, and Raúl, who hides among the rocks something which, ex hypothesi, can- and tall grasses, the majority of the action not, given the structure of our con- ceptual scheme, exist and that cannot that transpires is heard and not seen. Lar- have the properties it has. This is why, raín presents instead a series of jump cuts that so often, the real drama in a horror show Raúl running away from the camera. story resides in establishing the exis- Just as Raúl enacts his inscrutable terror with tence of the monster and in disclosing dispassion and almost boredom, Larraín’s its horrific properties. (35) style keeps the political climate of Pinochet at the margins of the diegesis. In this way, one Larraín’s narrative frequently incites our de- perceives the systemic nature of institutional- sire to know and our desire to look, and his ized terror, even while it’s of little to no con- style employs some conventional horror-film sequence within the plot. techniques. The scene described above, for Take, for example, the handheld track- example, feels entirely voyeuristic and stimu- ing shots that follow Raúl after he leaves the lates our curiosity in the manner Carroll de- game-show studio, when he sprints down scribes. The use of handheld camera coupled the sidewalk for no apparent reason, with his with Raúl’s performance—sprinting as if he’s white suit hanging over his shoulder. Why in pursuit, nervously darting his eyes—as is he running so fast? Who is he running well as acousmatic sounds whose sources are from? The soundtrack emphasizes his breath- not shown, convey paranoia and the feeling ing and the sounds of his dress shoes hitting that someone outside the frame is watch- the concrete until off-screen police sirens ing. Such effects incite not only our interest overtake the design, and somewhat counter- but an anxiety about whether or not we can intuitively, Raúl stops in his tracks and stares trust our own vision and hearing, causing us vacantly off-screen for several unusually long to look and listen more intently. The cinema- beats. His face registers apprehension and tographer and set designers meanwhile make deep thought, but viewers are not privy to its regular use of low lighting, darkness, and ex- meaning, nor does a police car ever appear, or pressionistic red gels, as in the movie-theater anything else that would have motivated his scenes and the scene in the butcher shop, running or his fear. Once the siren dies down, where the camera shoots through meat hang- Raúl settles into a walk, again shown in track- ing in the foreground. ing handheld. Then another off-screen sound Yet while Tony Manero does exhibit is heard, this time some kind of beckoning some of the stylistic conventions that we as- human whistle. The source is never revealed, sociate with horror films, it lacks the kind of but Raúl hears it and stops in his tracks again satisfying revelation upon which the genre before the film cuts to another scene. depends. For Carroll, a true horror film must Writing about the fundamental char- eventually reveal the monster and prove its ex- acteristics and pleasures of the horror genre, istence. This is the payoff that provides exhil- Noël Carroll argues that “the horror story is aration and pleasure. Tony Manero definitely driven explicitly by curiosity [...].” does not offer this kind of pleasure. While it may be tempting to refer to Raúl himself as All narratives might be thought to in- the monster—he does after all defecate on a volve the desire to know—the desire to know at least the outcome of the in- rival Tony Manero’s pristine white suit—he teraction of the forces made salient in is more like a walking affect of a monstrous the plot. However, the horror fiction environment, where brutality and horror are is a special variation on this general predicated and justified by imaginary forces narrative motivation, because it has that never materialize. Raúl is ultimately an Mariana Johnson 207 extreme symptom of a rotten political system como una historia universal, que pasa that suffuses the film’s atmosphere. en Chile, pero no es local y puede gus- Larraín for his part provides an impor- tarle a cualquier tipo de público. tant clue as to his own interpretation of Raúl [...] Pablo Larraín: Fuga es una película pen- through a movie poster shown in the small sada para explotarla. (Campino n. pag.) office of the bludgeoned projectionist. The poster is of Werner Herzog’s 1972 film, Agu- irre: the Wrath of God, another unflinching Works Cited portrait of a sociopathic despot with incestu- ous tendencies. Aguirre leans heavily on the Benson-Allott, Caetlin. “An Illusion Appropriate expressive face and masterful performance of to the Conditions No.” Film Quarterly 66.3 its lead actor, Klaus Kinski, just as Tony Mane- (Spring 2013): 61-63. Print. Campino, Max. “Pablo Larraín: Fuga es una película ro does with Alfredo Castro. Moreover, both pensada para explotarla.” Cosas. 5 June 2007. films preoccupy themselves with the madness Web. 15 Apr. 2016. that is bred from imperialism and the pur- Carroll, Noel. The Philosophy of Horror: Or, Para- suit of total power. Both Aguirre and Tony doxes of the Heart. New York: Routledge: 1990. are single-mindedly driven, and audiences Print. are forced, against their better judgment, to Chilean National Commission on Truth and Rec- identify with them, and even to root for their onciliation. Report of the Chilean National success. The famous concluding shots of Agu- Commission on Truth and Reconciliation. 4 irre, in which the camera encircles Kinski and Oct. 2002. Web. 1 Jun. 2016. Chion, Michel. Audio-Vision. New York: Columbia his dying men on their raft, as if it’s waiting University Press, 1994. Print. to pounce and devour them alive, has much in Costa de Moraes, Wesley. “Tony Manero, Post Mor- common with the seemingly subjective camera tem y No: la estética de lo masculino en la work and sound design that haunt Raúl from trilogía de Pablo Larraín.” Letras Hispanas 11 somewhere off-screen. Ultimately both Agu- (2015): 120-32. Web. 1 Jun. 2016. irre and Raúl are tyrannical characters, but they Guillén, Michael. “Tony Manero-Interview with are also victims of systemic malice that colors Pablo Larraín.” Screen Anarchy. 17 Dec. 2008. the film but hovers beyond the edges of the Web. 1 Jun. 2017. screen, in history. Hernandez, Eugene. “Lorber Films: Aiming to ‘build the classics of tomorrow.’” Indiewire. com. 22 Jul. 2019. Web. 12 Jun. 2016. Notes Leigh, Danny. “Dark side of Chile: The Director Who Went on the Trail of Paedophile Priests.” 1 The Guardian. 17 Mar. 2017. Web. 1 Mar. 2016. Chile es un país que tiene un mercado Mandelbaum, Jacques. “‘Tony Manero:’ un fou de muy pequeño. El chileno es un cine John Travolta dans le Chili de Pinochet.” Le pobre. Por eso, ésta es una película Monde. 15 Feb. 2011. Web. 19 May 2016. pensada para exportarla. Si tú haces Rohter, Larry. “The Dictator and the Disco King.” una producción exclusivamente para el New York Times. 5 Jul. 2009. Web. 15 may 2016. mercado nacional que no sea ‘Sexo con —. “Pablo Larraín and His Unintentional Trilogy.” Amor,’ estás fregado. ‘Fuga’ está pensada New York Times. 8 Jan. 2013. Web. 5 Jun. 2016.