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.