El Conde – review

Director: Pablo Larraín

Release date: 2023

Contains spoilers

Augusto Pinochet was, of course, a right wing dictator who seized and violently maintained control of Chile and who is associated with fascism (though academically it is argued that, whilst ultra-nationalistic and popularist, his ideology skirted close to, rather than was, fascism). His human rights abuses are well documented; Thor Halvorssen, president of the Human Rights Foundation said:

“He shut down parliament, suffocated political life, banned trade unions, and made Chile his sultanate. His government disappeared 3,000 opponents, arrested 30,000 (torturing thousands of them) ... Pinochet's name will forever be linked to the Desaparecidos, the Caravan of Death, and the institutionalized torture that took place in the Villa Grimaldi complex.”

Jaime Vadell as the Count

All of which is background useful for a film that is a sociopolitical satire and centres on Pinochet (Jaime Vadell), or the Count as this version of him insisted on being called in private, as a vampire. Set in the here and now, the Count is aged and dying. Clinging to his martial past (the diegetic opening music is the March of Radetzky and his book Memoirs of a Military Man is on display), he lies in bed and it looks like he is about to salute but rather he puts his hand to his weary brow.

old fangs

The film is accompanied by a narration, the identity of the narrator (Stella Gonet) is not revealed until quite a way into the film (when she becomes physically involved) but was blatantly obvious within the first lines of her voiceover – though I won’t spoil as it is a reveal. The narration reveals that he has taken blood from all over the world but his favourite is English (no doubt tied to empire) and suggests that South American blood is insipid and the blood of workers – a dismissive view of the relevance of the working class.

about to be staked

In an alternate biography, we discover that Pinochet was born Claude Pinoche (played age 28 by Daniel Contesse) an orphan who became a soldier in France (the real Pinochet’s ancestry was French), under Louis XVI, and discovered his vampirism when he (drunk) bit a prostitute. He awakens, not remembering and a group of prostitutes tell him what he had done, call him vampire and look to stake him, in consort with a mallet wielding priest. He turns the stake on the priest and kills the prostitutes, smashing one of their heads to a pulp with repeated mallet blows.

at the guillotine

Of course, the revolution occurs and Pinoche betrays his king by deserting and passing himself off as a revolutionary. His taste for blood has solidified and we see him licking blood from Marie Antionette’s guillotine. He eventually robs her grave and steals her head (replacing it with that of another corpse he desecrated) – the executed Queen’s head becoming a prized keepsake – and fakes his own death. He reappears as a soldier in Haiti, Russia and Algeria fighting against revolutions – indeed his loyal manservant (and vampire) Fyodor (Alfredo Castro) was a White Russian. Eventually he appears in Chile, in 1935, rises up the ranks and in 1973 deposes the left-wing Government in a coup.

lying in state

After Chile became democratic and he found himself under investigation, he once more faked his own death, in 2010 (the year the real Pinochet died). He does this by not drinking blood for several months and seeming to have a heart attack. There is a scene of him lying in state, in a glass fitted coffin, and him sneaking a peek at the mourners. The imagery of him in the coffin brought Dreyer’s Vampyr to mind. 

hunting

In the here and now, he resolves not to drink blood as he wants to die and yet seems to be hunting – taking hearts and liquidising them to drink. His (human) children are due to visit – they want his monies – and the church send an exorcist nun, Carmencita (Paula Luchsinger), to dispose of him and the film does, as well as playing with the evil of fascism/pseudo-fascism, have a thing or two to say about the church and its financial obsession (she acts as an accountant and the church specifically wants his money as much as the children do) and how easy it is for the church to be politically turned.

Carmencita and the Count

So there is plenty, in a satirical sense, going on but not so much as far as in-depth narrative. The story is fairly simply laid out, with the Count exiled to a remote complex, miles from the thriving, pulsing modern city but close enough to fly to. We do get an understanding of how he was born a vampire, which is relayed later in the film, though for the most part a vampire has to bite to turn someone. Because of this the main method of feeding is to cut the throat, open the chest and then, as mentioned, take the heart and blend it into a drink - thus avoiding a plague of vampires. The only other notable lore is that the heart of a vampire is the most potent thing another vampire can consume and will make that vampire younger. It is worth noting that Fyodor has front fangs and all the other fangs we see are side placed (though we see the Count's as broken and aged).

Fyodor's front fangs

The film looks brilliant, the black and white photography superb, with a real Gothic edge, and the acting is top notch. The story, as mentioned, is on the surface really simple but the political discourse is interesting and has not only much to say about Pinochet and the enduring impact of his legacy, as well as wider nationalism, popularism and neo-liberalism/capitalism conversations, but also plenty to say about the church as well. This is not a film to go into expecting anything different to what it is, this is not a grand story or a standard horror. It sits neatly against such films as Back to the USSR - though this is, by script, satirical edge and cinematography, far superior to that film. 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.