El Conde: A Review - Netflix's Toothless Political Vampire Movie

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A bore and chore of a movie that never fully fleshes out its intriguing premise.

El Conde, the new film by director Pablo Larrain streaming on Netflix, describes itself as a black comedy horror film, which I suppose is accurate for a movie that depicts former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet literally as a centuries-old vampire.

The problem with El Conde though is that while it is certainly black, at least visually - as it’s shot in a crisp black and white, it isn’t funny or horrifying or, unfortunately, even all that interesting.

The premise of Pinochet being a blood-thirsty monster is more than just metaphor. While Pinochet was not a “vampire”, he certainly was a brutal and vicious dictator who came to power through a U.S.-backed coup in 1973, and was responsible for the torture, rape, murder and disappearance of tens of thousands of Chileans.

Pinochet is unquestionably a monster, as is the other political figure featured in the film, Margaret Thatcher, which makes the animating idea of El Conde an intriguing one that piques both my artistic and political interest, but despite its alluring thesis the film fails to coalesce as it keeps dramatic and narrative coherence at arm’s length.

The film, which is in Spanish, English and French, can be watched by English speakers either dubbed or with subtitles. The dubbing is distracting because the voice-actors are painfully poor. Subtitles made for a more fluid cinematic experience but it also neuters the comedy…or the attempts at comedy.

The cast, which features Jamie Vadell as Pinochet and Stella Gonet as Thatcher, is entirely underwhelming. All of the performances seemed muddled and stale.

The Pinochet family, including his adult children and wife Lucia (Gloria Munchmeyer), all melt into one amorphous blob of forgettableness, like so much flotsam and jetsam in a dirty stream.

Carmen, a nun hired by the family to exorcise and kill Pinochet, is played by Paula Luchsinger, and the character is so poorly written that one wonders why she’s in the film at all.

No doubt the actors struggled because the script is so distracted and disheveled. None of the characters are dynamic or magnetic and none of the plot lines is thoroughly fleshed out enough to generate any drama.

Writer/director Pablo Larrain is an interesting talent. The first film of his that I ever saw was 2016’s Jackie, starring Natalie Portman as Jackie Kennedy. That film was very polarizing because of Portman’s mannered performance, but I found it fascinating and thoroughly enjoyed it as an arthouse experience.

The next Larrain film I saw was 2021’s Spencer, which was about Princess Diana and starred Kristen Stewart. I think highly of Stewart as an actress (at least in her pre and post Twilight work) but found Spencer to be the most vapid and vacant garbage imaginable. It struck me as arthouse posing rather than artistic adventurism.

Now with El Conde, Larrain’s artistry is becoming clear to me in that he is someone who excels in the bells and whistles but not the foundational elements of filmmaking.

For example, El Conde is exquisitely photographed by Edward Lachman, who is nominated for Best Cinematography at this year’s Academy Awards. Lachman’s black and white is sharp and lush, and the flying sequences in the film are elegantly staged and executed and beautifully shot.

But despite Lachman’s stellar work and the gorgeous look of the film, the movie fails because the story at the heart of it is not fully fleshed out and the drama/comedy lackluster and banal…and that falls entirely on Larrain.

The noticeable thing to me about Larrain and his films is that he doesn’t actually have anything interesting to say. To declare that Augusto Pinochet is a blood-thirsty monster, and to do it in such an obvious way, isn’t exactly groundbreaking.

The one oddity of El Conde, which means “The Count”, is that the film unintentionally makes Pinochet into a mush less horrifying beast than he was in real life. Turning this ruthless torturer and murderer into a vampire makes him appear…dare I say it…like someone innocent of his crimes because of his inherent demonic nature. Pinochet is no longer a depraved human-being, he is a struggling demon/animal who doesn’t kill out of maliciousness but out necessity. The real Pinochet inflicted pain because he could, not because he had to, which is why he was such a deplorable person.

One would maybe think that Larrain is being artistically courageous in making such a case, but in context it becomes clear that this defense of Pinochet is purely accidental and not intentional at all. Larrain just doesn’t understand anything about his project beyond its surface layer and its catchy elevator pitch.

Ultimately, El Conde fails at being a black comedy, a horror film or even a mildly entertaining movie. While I thoroughly enjoyed Edward Lachman’s cinematography, I found the rest of the movie to be a bore and a chore.

I simply cannot recommend El Conde because despite its gorgeous photography and intriguing premise, it just never comes together to create a worthwhile or even moderately entertaining piece of cinema.

 Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2024

Personal Shopper : A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!!****

Estimated Reading Time : 4 minutes 52 seconds

My Rating : 4 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation : SEE IT. See it in the theatre, but be forewarned, it is a "French" film in style, rhythm and pace, but not language. If you want more Hollywood fare, skip Personal Shopper.

Personal Shopper, written and directed by Olivier Assayas, stars Kristen Stewart as a young American woman working in Paris as a personal shopper for a French female celebrity. 

Personal Shopper is a difficult film to categorize by genre, as it is part ghost story, part psychological thriller, part intimate character study all rolled into one. At its heart though, the film is really a meditation on grief. As I watched the film I kept thinking of Joan Dideon's insightful book on grieving, "The Year of Magical Thinking". Another story that kept popping into my head was Hamlet, and how his run ins with ghosts and mysticism were a way to propel the plot and the narrative forward in Shakespeare's masterpiece. 

Grief in this film, and in real life, can be an equally disorienting and enlightening experience. The grief stricken are able, and often forced, to dig deep into themselves and to see the world from a much different perspective than they are used to, which puts them distinctly at odds with the world around them. I remember, years ago, sitting on a subway train in New York City a few weeks after my best friend had been killed in a car crash. I was thinking of him and silently weeping, tears streaming down my face, and then I remembered a particularly funny moment we had shared and I laughed uncontrollably at the memory, and then cried again because I realized that those memories were all I had left. At some point I had a brief realization of where I was and I became aware of my surroundings I noticed that people on the train were looking at me in horror, and probably thought I was a crazy person. Grief will do that to you. Hamlet is great example of this, people think he has gone mad…but he hasn't, he is simply grieving. Grief knocks you out of the everyday rhythm of the world around you, and in so doing makes you seem entirely out of sorts to those still in sync with the "normal". 

When you are grieving, the veil between the worlds thins and all sorts of magical things occur (Ms. Didion might say "all sorts of magical things seem to occur"). Signs, symbols, and messages are everywhere you turn, and you are attuned to notice them. The most mundane of things can take on the most profound of meanings. The grief stricken ache for connection with the departed in order to not only confirm the depth of their feelings, but to validate both the dead and the living's existence.

And so it is with Kristen Stewart's character Maureen in Personal Shopper. She is waiting for a sign from the netherworld, and even when she gets it, it is not enough to convince her. Proof of afterlife connection only heightens her confusion, and her knowledge of what was lost in the here and now. This is the conundrum at the heart of Personal Shopper, everything is possible, but nothing may be real. And that is also a perfect summary of what it is like living with intense grief. 

This is Kristen Stewart's second film with Assayas, the first being Clouds of Sils Maria, which was a film I thoroughly enjoyed. Assayas use of metaphor and symbolism allows for him to tell stories on multiple levels, which makes for an extremely rich viewing experience. He is a confident and skilled director who never fails to surprise and intrigue.

Kristen Stewart is phenomenal as Maureen, the melancholy and morose woman trying to make sense of it all. Assayas brings out the best in the enigmatic actress, as she was also particularly good in Clouds if Sils Maria.

I remember the first time I ever saw Kristen Stewart in a film, it was in Sean Penn's Into the Wild. Her performance was absolutely electric and she jumped off the screen. She had such a smoldering presence and a visceral ache to her in Into the Wild that it was impossible to take your eyes off of her. I had a conversation with a very famous actress friend of mine after seeing the film and we both said, "who IS that girl?". My actress friend and I both marveled at Stewart's innate ability and undeniable presence and were excited to see what came next in her career. And then came the Twilight garbage and the suffocating and stultifying fame that accompanied it. 

Stewart is a luminous talent who possesses a gravitas and magnetism that permeates her every scene in Personal Shopper. Escaping from the artistic black hole that was the Twilight septic tank is no easy feat, but Stewart is going about it in exactly the right way. Doing art house and European films will not only restore her credibility but her creative spirit. She is simply too brilliant a natural talent to get swallowed up by the Hollywood shit machine. If she stays on her current trajectory, she can return to Hollywood for specific parts that invigorate her artistic soul, not just her bank account. 

I think it is not a coincidence that Stewart has teamed twice with Assayas to play someone in service to a woman who is a creature of fame. Fame nearly strangled Stewart's sublime creative gifts in the cradle, so she has a very intimate knowledge of its toxic effects. The fame game is a soul-crushing endeavor, and if undertaken by a sensitive artist like Stewart, can be a deadly one as well.  In Personal Shopper, as in The Clouds of Sils Maria, Stewart is playing with her public persona by playing off of it. Her performances in those films are like watching the actress do an active imagination gestalt with her famous alter ego in a Jungian therapy session, and it makes for remarkably compelling cinema. 

Coincidentally, today is Kristen Stewart's 27th birthday, and my birthday wish for her is that she continue to make the films she wants to make, and that speak to, and feed, her artistic soul, and not the crap that Hollywood wants her to make. She is young enough, and talented enough, to recover from the trauma of the Twilight saga, and become the great actress that she is meant to be. I for one, am rooting for her.

As for Personal Shopper, it is best described as a walk through the minefield that is our own graveyard. It is a strange and at times incredulous film, but it never veers from the path Kristen Stewart's powerful work steers it down. Director Assayas is remarkably effective in heightening the tension and drawing the viewer into the world of Maureen. It feels effortless how Assayas tightens our stomachs as we walk through a creaky old house. Every knock, every bump in the night, forces another twist of your innards. This is, at times, a horrifying film, but it is also an enlightening one, especially for those who carry the scars of grief. 

I recommend people see Personal Shopper, but to do so knowing that it is a film out of sorts with Hollywood movie making. Like someone grieving, Personal Shopper has its own rhythm, pace and view of reality, that may seem odd to those not accustomed to it. If you give the film a chance, and go along for the ride, it can be a highly entertaining and fascinating journey, and is well worth your time and effort.

©2017

Still Alice : A Review

****THIS REVIEW CONTAINS NO SPOILERS!!! THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!!****

Still Alice, written and directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, is the story of Alice (Julianne Moore), a Columbia University linguistics professor among the best in the world in her field, who is stricken with early onset Alzheimer's disease. The film is based on the 2007 novel, "Still Alice", by Lisa Genova.

Still Alice is a pretty standard, by-the-book, 'disease' movie, the likes of which can be seen most any night of the week on cable television, with one glaring exception though, the spectacular performance of Julianne Moore. Moore's performance is meticulous, specific and forceful, all the while deftly avoiding the ever present danger of sentimentality that can so often derails actors taking on these sorts of roles.

Julianne Moore is one of the great actresses of our time. A look at her work over the last twenty years reveals Moore to be a master craftswoman and major talent. Her string of truly great and courageous performances starts in 1993 with Short Cuts and includes but is not limited to, her roles in Safe, Boogie Nights, The End of the Affair, Magnolia, The Hours, A Single Man, The Kids are Alright and finally this year with Still Alice. Moore's only missteps in her career have come about by being swayed by the siren's call of movie stardom. Whenever she has made the leap for the brass ring of being a 'star', she has seemed out of place. Julianne Moore is an actress, one of the best there is, and she needs to stay in the 'art house' in order for her to make the most of her exceptional talent.

Kristen Stewart has a supporting role as one of Alice's daughter's. It was good to see Stewart back on the road to recovery from those awful Twilight movies. I remember the first time I ever saw Stewart on screen, it was in Into the Wild, directed by Sean Penn. Stewart played a teen girl who befriends and tries to seduce the main protagonist Chris played by Emile Hirsch. Stewart just lit up the screen in every scene she inhabited. She had a charisma and magnetism to her that was unmistakable. In the scene where she tries to convince Chris to sleep with her, her sexual yearning was palpable and her presence combustible. I thought she had big things ahead of her as an actress and artist. Then Twilight happened. She can't be faulted for taking the gig and the money, but the type of fame that comes along with a film like that can be death to an actress. Escaping the shadow of Twilight will be no easy task, as audiences have long memories and short attention spans and critics can be a fickle and unforgiving bunch. But Stewart's work in Still Alice seems like a step in the right direction on the road to artistic redemption. I think if she can do more supporting roles, in films like this, films set in the real world, as opposed to imaginary ones filled with vampires, werwolves and the like, she will stand a fighting chance to really become an actress of note. She has some great advantages going for her, she is young, she is beautiful,  and she does have talent, so I wouldn't bet against her, but she must avoid the blockbuster like the plague, and take up permanent residence in the art house.

Speaking of art, let's talk about the art and craft of acting for a moment. Playing someone with a disease of the mind is a road fraught with artistic peril. All too often actors (or directors) end up focusing on the external and trying to engender pity in the audience instead of the internal which requires embodying a character and letting audience opinions fall where they may. Another danger of the external is for an actor to get showy when portraying a mental illness, dementia or Alzheimer's character. The key to playing characters with these sorts of issues is to understand that all humans are rational thinking beings, even when they appear to act irrationally. The difference between a person acting rationally and irrationally is based on external judgement, not internal judgement. Irrational behavior is simply the result of a person's inability to perceive the world or gather information like a 'normal' person would. No one decides or chooses to act irrationally. So someone with a mental illness for example, is using logic, reason and rational thought to make decisions, it is just that their perceptions and information gathering are skewed by their illness and so their actions and decisions are based on faulty or incomplete evidence. The way to play this is to see the world from the characters perspective, not the external one we live everyday, and to stay grounded in the character's reality and be specific in intention and action. This approach helps to avoid the common problem of an actor depicting a mentally ill/brain damaged/cognitively disabled character as flighty or distracted. A great example of how to do this is Cate Blanchett's performance in her Oscar winning performance in Blue Jasmine. Her train of thought is out of sync with the rest of the world, but it isn't internally illogical, in fact it makes perfect sense to her, and it isn't distracted at all, it has a laser-like focus but just not on what everyone else is focused on.

I have worked with many actors trying to figure out these 'mentally ill' roles, and the key to unlocking them has always been clarity of thought, not obscurity of thought. This may seem counter intuitive, but it is the key to getting inside the mind of someone who isn't 'thinking right' according to the outside world. Once you can create order, logic and reasoning that fits with the internal perceptions and world view of the 'mentally ill/cognitively disabled' character, then you've created a specific, detailed and actual human being, grounded and real, and not a caricature, generalization or approximation. 

Mental illness/dementia/Alzheimer's patients are not vacant as much as they may appear to be, quite the opposite actually. Julianne Moore's Alice actually describes the internal process of Alzheimer's in the film, when she says the words are right in front of her but she can't quite grasp them. This is Alzheimer's as an internally active searching or reaching for thoughts and words, not a passive vacancy and deterioration. This is a way to fill this type of character, by filling their apparent mental void with a distinct use of their senses. For instance, how does the character try and remember? Do they use their internal sight, like Moore's description of 'seeing' the words in front of her? Do they try and listen for the words or clues? Or are they tactile, an example of which could be Moore's description of the impulse to try and 'reach out and grasp them'? Once you discover the dominant sense associated with remembering, be it sight, sound, touch or in some cases a combination of them all, then you can build internal associations that sufficiently animate the void in cognitive recognition. Combining techniques like this, and the previously mentioned clarity of thought, specific focus and intention, and the understanding of the internal order, logic and reason of a character are the ways to create a genuine and memorable character who suffers from any of these horrific diseases. This is what Julianne Moore does so skillfully in Still Alice. Both Moore's work in Still Alice and Blanchett's in Blue Jasmine are master classes in this approach to playing the mentally ill/cognitively impaired character, and every actor should study them closely.

You may think this is a lot of insider acting technique mumbo jumbo that has no application for any 'normal' person who isn't an actor, aspiring or otherwise. I think this may not be entirely true. These acting techniques are just an approach used to try and understand another human being different from ourselves. This 'other' has a radically different perception, perspective and understanding of the world than anything we have probably ever experienced. Being able to find understanding and empathize with them, and not just sympathize for them, is a way to build a connection that bridges all human conditions and conventional communication. Just the attempt to understand the internal logic of the mentally/cognitively ill, is a way to express much needed, and sometimes healing, love and release negative judgements and frustrations. These techniques are a way for the actor to express the humanity of their character, and for the non-actor they can be a way to find our own humanity and embody the compassion that the stricken so desperately need and deserve. 

As for the film Still Alice, it is a pretty average movie albeit one with an exquisitely crafted performance at it's center. If you want to watch a virtuoso acting performance surrounded by a rather mundane film, then Still Alice is the movie for you. If you are an actor, Still Alice is well worth seeing if for no other reason than to witness Julianne Moore, a master craftsperson, skillfully ply her artistry.

© 2015

FOR REVIEWS OF OTHER FILMS RELEASED DURING THE HOLIDAY SEASON, PLEASE CLICK ON THESE LINKS TO THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING , WHIPLASH , BIRDMAN OR (THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE) , FOXCATCHER , WILD , AMERICAN SNIPER , A MOST VIOLENT YEAR , THE IMITATION GAME , NIGHTCRAWLER , INHERENT VICE , SELMA , MR. TURNER .