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Pablo Larra\u00edn\u2019s black-and-white horror spoof \u201cEl Conde\u201d is founded on a ferocious sight gag: the former dictator Augusto Pinochet soaring into the night on a quest for human blood. Military cape flapping about his thighs, Pinochet flies with his back as straight as an early Superman serial \u2014 a tip-off that Larra\u00edn (\u201cJackie,\u201d \u201cSpencer\u201d) needs the audience to play along with his cheeky reimagining of the despot as a 250-year-old vampire.<\/p>\n
This Pinochet, played with imperious cruelty by Jaime Vadell, was once a rebel-eating French royalist who sailed to South America in search of fresh meat. It\u2019s a comic premise \u2014 what, is this part of the \u201cAbraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter\u201d extended universe? \u2014 except Larra\u00edn is only half-laughing. History\u2019s Pinochet oversaw the execution or disappearance of thousands of Chileans<\/a>. Larra\u00edn\u2019s version of the man did that, too, with just one tweak: He blends his victims into a smoothie.<\/p>\n The director has been sharpening his tools for this confrontation. Born in Santiago three years after Pinochet seized power in 1973, Larra\u00edn earned early acclaim from the period pieces \u201cTony Manero<\/a>\u201d (2009), \u201cPost Mortem<\/a>\u201d (2012) and the Oscar-nominated \u201cNo<\/a>\u201d (2013), a trilogy of satires that used Pinochet as an unseen boogeyman. The director shifted his attention beyond Chile with two psychodramas that punctured the iconography of Jacqueline Kennedy and Princess Diana and turned political celebrity into a waking nightmare. He\u2019s circled home, he has said in interviews, because he believes his country remains divided<\/a> \u2014 and haunted \u2014 by not just Pinochet\u2019s crimes but also his impunity. The ex-president successfully dodged trial until his death in 2006. And Larra\u00edn has resurrected him to drag him into the light.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Our setting is the present where we find Pinochet hiding out in Patagonia, a shivery excuse for exaggerated mists and cruel winds that howl under every scene. (Ed Lachman\u2019s gothic cinematography pairs well with Juan Pablo \u00c1valo and Marisol Garc\u00eda\u2019s violent strings.) The film begins as a series of dialogue-light flashbacks: Pinochet licks Marie Antoinette\u2019s blood from a guillotine; he usurps the birthday of his wife, Lucia (Gloria M\u00fcnchmeyer), by faking a heart attack; he struggles to play dead while a protester spits on his coffin. At first, the dehydrated vampire is too thirsty to do more than reminisce. While inert, he\u2019s lavished with adoration by his fascist butler (Alfredo Castro) and the British narrator (Stella Gonet) who does her bloody best to bludgeon the audience into agreeing that Pinochet is a national hero.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Larra\u00edn and his longtime writing partner Guillermo Calder\u00f3n are delighted to put a Hammer horror spin on scenes that point toward the facts as often as they fib. Caught with a corpse in an 18th-century brothel, the young vampire uses the same defense the real Pinochet gave when asked if he headed Chile\u2019s secret police: \u201cI don\u2019t remember, but it\u2019s not true. And if it were true, I don\u2019t remember.\u201d The line gets a laugh, but the stinger is our awareness that we\u2019d rather grapple with Pinochet\u2019s predations as camp than somber docu-reality.<\/p>\n The plot doesn\u2019t kick in until Pinochet\u2019s five greedy adult children arrive at his rural estate for their cut of his fortune. They\u2019re aggrieved that he refuses to die, and equally piqued that he squirreled his money in so many hidden accounts that they need a financial whiz, an inquisitive nun named Carmen (Paula Luchsinger), to uncover his millions. Carmen\u2019s Joan of Arc crop is a clue she considers the family\u2019s mortal members to be bloodsucking parasites.<\/p>\n There are only so many ways to serve the film\u2019s easily digestible metaphor. We get it: Most humans are merely chum for the elites. Just as the joke is beginning to wear thin, Larra\u00edn expands this universe with a surprise cameo (consider it his take on \u201cFrankenstein Meets the Wolf Man\u201d) that gets a giggle plus a knowing nod of outrage. But while the filmmaker has the gall to caricature tyranny, he\u2019s too cynical, or too honest, to wrap up \u201cEl Conde\u201d with a satisfying resolution. Larra\u00edn has finally faced his monster \u2014 but he can\u2019t bring himself to drive a stake through his heart.<\/p>\n El Conde<\/strong>
Rated R for ghastly spurts of black-and-white blood. In Spanish, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes. Watch on Netflix.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n