Sunday, September 20, 2015

Post Mortem (2010)

via IMDB
The first half of Post Mortem, dir. Pablo Larraín, honestly left me baffled. The effect was probably compounded by the fact that, watching in a classroom setting, we had to stop at one of the most confusing moments and continue from there days later. But really, for the first 40 minutes or so I swore we were just watching random moments in the life of a sad, serious man during the times of the 1973 coup in Chile. Sad Mario making eggs. Sad Mario being obsessed with his neighbor lady. Sad Mario calling his colleague a whore. I was confused and didn't really understand why I should care about Sad Mario Cornejo.

That is, until I was clued into some missing background knowledge, in between the two halves of our viewings. Namely, that Mario Cornejo, based on a real man, was present for President Salvador Allende's autopsy, in which his death was (allegedly) fraudulently declared a suicide.

Larraín gave a comment in an interview to the effect of "I don't think Mario is as eccentric as people believe he is." Mario's bleak day-to-day is supposed to be normal, but, in a world as absurd a one where Presidents supposedly just "kill themselves" in the middle of hostile takeovers, or bodies pile up in morgues with no explication, everything registers as "eccentric." Or just off.

A baffling movie about a traumatic and baffling time.