Tony Manero
Tony Manero (2009), which opened at Cinema Village this month, is a disturbing and important film set in Pinochet's Santiago, circa 1978, when the cold reality of the United States-backed coup, thousands of political executions, constant surveillance by secret police, a steady stream of exiles, and forced free-market economics were converging into a feel of permanence over Chile. Under military dictatorship, political repression becomes paralleled by personal detachment; silence rules over discussion; life becomes cheap. 
Directed by Pablo Larrain, the film starred Alfredo Castro (who was also co-writer with Larrain and Mateo Iribarren) as Raul/Tony Manero, a loser in his mid-50s caught between Pinochet and Travolta. On surface level, the film is a dark comedy about a Saturday Night Fever-impersonator who will kill, literally, for his art. But the film is pure tragedy, and Tony's cold-blooded obsession was not played with a wink to the audience ala American movies. Castro's performance was matched in empty ruthlessness (glass) brick by brick by that of the film's co-stars (and Tony's co-stars in their Saturday Night Fever act performed at a local cafe): 
Amparo Noguera (as Cony, his lover), Paola Lattus (as Pauli, Cony's daughter), Héctor Morales (as Goyo, Pauli's socialist boyfriend) and Elsa Poblete (as Wilma-the cafe owner). The women were the true emotional touchstones of the film, strange combinations of resilience, resignation, and desperation who (each) cling to Tony in spite of his impotence, emptiness, and distraction (perhaps the common man under Pinochet). Strange, disturbing, and ugly, the film presents a narrative of modern South America that is far removed from the poetry of Garcia Marquez or Borges or the Chile of Bolano or Jodorowsky. The sometimes blurry, hand-held scenes, filmed by Sergio Armstrong and edited by Andrea Chignoli, add to the movie's overall feeling of dislocation and detachment. Tony Manero (the film and character) does not simply take 
Saturday Night Fever as a starting point, instead enmeshing itself into the social tensions of Bay Ridge, the desperation of youth, the whiteness of Tony's suit/dreams (perfectly replicated by Raul/Tony and other contestants in the Saturday afternoon Chilean variety show to which the film builds its arc), and the exaltation of dance explored in the film by John Badham (Blue Thunder, War Games). With deadpan brutality diffused everywhere, leaking out of rusted pipes, shining beneath the dance floor, hiding in the hall closet, crawling through the dead grass, the film's horrors get more frightening the farther away from the picture you get. But is the story of a Chilean loser obsessed with New York disco supposed to have a Hollywood ending?
Tony Manero (2009), which opened at Cinema Village this month, is a disturbing and important film set in Pinochet's Santiago,
Directed by Pablo Larrain, the film starred Alfredo Castro (who was also co-writer with Larrain and Mateo Iribarren) as Raul/Tony Manero, a loser in his mid-50s caught between Pinochet and Travolta. On surface level, the film is a dark comedy about a Saturday Night Fever-impersonator who will kill, literally, for his art. But the film is pure tragedy, and Tony's cold-blooded obsession was not played with a wink to the audience ala American movies. Castro's performance was matched in empty ruthlessness (glass) brick by brick by that of the film's co-stars (and Tony's co-stars in their Saturday Night Fever act performed at a local cafe): 
Amparo Noguera (as Cony, his lover), Paola Lattus (as Pauli, Cony's daughter), Héctor Morales (as Goyo, Pauli's socialist boyfriend) and Elsa Poblete (as Wilma-the cafe owner). The women were the true emotional touchstones of the film, strange combinations of resilience, resignation, and desperation who (each) cling to Tony in spite of his impotence, emptiness, and distraction (perhaps the common man under Pinochet). Strange, disturbing, and ugly, the film presents a narrative of modern South America that is far removed from the poetry of Garcia Marquez or Borges or the Chile of Bolano or Jodorowsky. The sometimes blurry, hand-held scenes, filmed by Sergio Armstrong and edited by Andrea Chignoli, add to the movie's overall feeling of dislocation and detachment. Tony Manero (the film and character) does not simply take 
Saturday Night Fever as a starting point, instead enmeshing itself into the social tensions of Bay Ridge, the desperation of youth, the whiteness of Tony's suit/dreams (perfectly replicated by Raul/Tony and other contestants in the Saturday afternoon Chilean variety show to which the film builds its arc), and the exaltation of dance explored in the film by John Badham (Blue Thunder, War Games). With deadpan brutality diffused everywhere, leaking out of rusted pipes, shining beneath the dance floor, hiding in the hall closet, crawling through the dead grass, the film's horrors get more frightening the farther away from the picture you get. But is the story of a Chilean loser obsessed with New York disco supposed to have a Hollywood ending?
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