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via IMDB |
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.