FILM 14. Post-Mortem, dir. Pablo Larraín, 2010. AMAZON $3
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Post-Mortem (Chile, 2010)
F10. Post-Mortem (Chile, 2010). Directed by Pablo Larraín (b. 1976-)
Screenplay by Eliseo Altunaga, Roberto Brodsky, Mamoun Hassan and Andrés Wood
Coproduction of Chile, Spain, the United Kingdom, and France
Script by Eliseo Altunaga, Mateo Iribarren and Pablo Larraín
DVD. 98 mins.
Synopsis:
“In Chile, 1973, during the last days of Salvador Allende's presidency, an unassuming, apolitical employee at a morgue's recording office becomes obsessed with his neighbor, a dancehall girl involved with a band of left-wing activists--activists who begin to clog his own morgue as they are hunted down by the authorities after the coup that installs Augusto Pinochet. A brilliant, black-humored portrait of a man whose own breakdown mirrors that of his country's.”
Cast:
Alfredo Castro Mario Cornejo
Antonia Zegers Nancy Puelma
Jaime Vedell Dr. Castillo
Amparo Noguera Sandra
Marcelo Alonso Víctor
Questions:
1)What does Mario have in common with Raúl in Tony Manero? In what ways is he different
2) How can Mario ignore everything that is happening around him and just go on with his everyday life like nothing is happening?
3) Does Mario actually love/really like Nancy? Or is he using her as a means of survival? (e.g. a way to deter his mind away from everything else that is going on)
4) Compare Mario’s relationship with Sandra and Nancy to Raúl’s relationships with women.
5) The first time that you watch this film, the post-mortem of Nancy Puelma, toward the beginning of the film, seems incongruous. Later we realize that it took place chronologically after the end of the film. What is the effect of including it out of chronological order, as Larraín does?
6) Why do you think a theatre/theater figures prominently in both films?
7) What was the reason that Nancy cried when she went to visit her neighbor?
8) How is sex represented in the film? How erotic is the extended sex scene between Mario and Nancy? Do you think this is intended as a commentary on the sexual permissiveness of the 1970s?
9) How are Nancy and Sandra portrayed? Compare them to Cony, Wilma and Paoli in Tony Manero. Are they as subservient to Mario as the other women characters were to Raúl?
10) Comment on Dr. Castillo. What do we know about his political beliefs early in the film and how do these compare with his actions following the coup?
11) Was Mario right to be offended by the way he was treated by Nancy and Víctor?
12) How might Nancy and her lover Víctor's deaths symbolize the experience of many Chileans under the dictatorship?
13) Why do Sandra and Mario argue about whether Allende committed suicide or was killed in the course of the coup? Why does it matter one way or the other?
14) Comment on the ending of the film. Why does it go on for so long? What effect does this have on the audience and what comment does it make implicitly about the political situation in Chile after the coup?
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