Summary
El Conde is a black-and-white compelling visual experience reminiscent of Hammer classics with a hint of Nosferatu thrown in.
Just over a decade after his Oscar Nominated No (2012), Chilean director Pablo Larraín’s El Conde once again uses the country’s infamous dictator, Augusto Pinochet, as the basis for its story. While No was a grounded-in-reality political feature, El Conde presents the fascist general as a still-alive yet aging vampire whose sole wish is to finally rest in peace.
The film premiered to critical acclaim at the 2023 Venice International Film Festival and even snagged a Best Screenplay award.
As the mysterious British narrator (voiced by Stella Gonet) explains in the first few scenes, Pinochet’s (played by Jaime Vadell) life started as an 18th-century soldier in France. Horrified by what the French Revolution did to his beloved monarchs, Pinochet vowed to stop such revolutions from happening again.
He eventually re-emerged in Chile, climbed up the ranks, organized the 1973 coup d’état, and became the vicious dictator from the history books.
In 2006, he faked his death at his wife Lucia’s (Gloria Münchmeyer) birthday, no less, and has been hiding in the desolate Patagonia desert with no one but his butler (Alfredo Castro) left to serve him.
The plot truly begins when the vampire’s adult children learn of a series of murders involving human heart smoothies that have been plaguing the city. They suspect their vampiric father is behind the killings, meaning his resolve to die has weakened, as have their chances of inheriting his money.
Make no mistake, while human, Pinochet’s children are as heartless and devoid of humanity as their vampire father.
So the five run to Patagonia to claim their long-overdue inheritance from their undead father. The problem is that Pinochet has been so good at hiding assets that even he can’t get to the bottom of where the fortune is.
In comes Catholic nun Carmen (Paula Luchsinger), who moonlights as an accountant. She’s there to exorcise the demon in Pinochet and locate his missing wealth.
El Conde is a compelling black-and-white visual experience reminiscent of Hammer classics with a hint of Nosferatu thrown in. Larraín doesn’t shy away from showing gore and violence but does so in an aesthetically pleasing manner.
The narrative itself can get confusing. Specifically when the dialogue switches between witty political references (which are quite hard to understand if you’re not familiar with Chile’s history) to soulless and robotic exchanges between cast members.
The constant narration gets tiresome after the first few minutes, and the film’s third act tries and fails to explain the voiceover’s omniscience.
There’s a disconnect as the movie is too focused on getting the imagery right while forgetting the story it was trying to tell.
Jaime Vadell shines as the undead dictator, as does Paula Luchsinger as the confused nun. The rest of the performances are solid, but it’s Vadell and Luchsinger who carry most of this movie.
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