Event
FILM
Neruda
The audacious and grandly entertaining new film from multi-award winning director Pablo Larraín, Neruda is a lavishly-mounted reimagining of the Nobel Prize-winning poet’s pursuit into political exile, and notably marks his reunion with No star Gael García Bernal. It’s 1948, and the Cold War has reached Chile. In Congress, Neruda (Luis Gnecco) accuses the left-wing government of betraying the Communist Party and is swiftly impeached. The bumbling Police prefect Oscar Peluchonneau (Bernal) is appointed to arrest him. Neruda tries to flee the country with his wife Delia, but they are forced into hiding. Yet the poet is somehow inspired by the dramatic events of his new life as a fugitive, and uses this struggle as an opportunity to reinvent his work and life, leaving clues for his nemesis designed to make their game of catand- mouse more dangerous, more intimate. Indeed in this ingeniously-crafted tale of the persecuted poet and his implacable adversary, Neruda discovers his own heroic possibilities: a chance to become both a symbol for liberty, and a literary legend. Gripping, funny and ingeniously conceived, Neruda is undoubtedly Larrain’s finest accomplishment to date, and not to be missed.
"Not many directors get a one-two punch like Jackie and Neruda in the same season, but it just makes it all the more clear that Larrain is one of the world's most exciting and imaginative filmmakers, whatever the subject may be."
"For anyone who believes that poetry and democracy spring from the same source and provoke the same enemies, this movie provides both encouragement and warning."
"It reminds us that movies, by their very nature, owe far more to poetry than they ever will to the novel."
"Drolly and persuasively, the movie demonstrates that when it comes to evoking the artist and the nature of his art, historical fidelity and literal-minded dramatization go only so far."
