Post Mortem

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Chilean writer-director Pablo Larrain likes his unsympathetic characters with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Following up his bleak 2008 drama Tony Manero, Larrain teams-up once again with lead Alfredo Castro to delve deep into the dark corners of humanity and no one comes up smiling.

As Chile descends into chaos following a military coup to oust Marxist president Salvador Allende, Mario (Castro), a recording officer at Santiago's morgue, couldn't be less interested. He has only eyes for the girl across the street - Nancy (Zegers) a cabaret dancer whose best years are behind her, but Mario doesn't see it that way. As General Pinochet's troops take control of his city, Mario becomes ever more besotted with her…

Post Mortem is typical Larrain fare: those who enjoyed (or endured would be more accurate) Tony Manero should find more of the same here. Post Mortem, however, is an altogether quieter affair. Like its protagonist, if that's what you could call someone like Mario, it moves at its own pace, untroubled by the audience's impatient mumblings that something should happen and soon. Because not a lot happens here but an inescapable gloomy mood that seems to envelope the entire theatre.

Mario isn't the hero of the piece - there are no heroes to be had. Larrain seems to be commenting on people who bury their head in the sand, ignoring the strife that's going on around them. When the army trashes Nancy's house, kidnapping her father, brother and communist lover, Mario is in the shower and misses it. When his car takes a wrong turn into an oncoming political protest march, he tries to reverse up the street before giving up and letting the march engulf his car. He doesn't even react to the corpses that are dumped at the morgue. Mario doesn't believe in anything and the dark climax, which is bleaker than anything in Tony Manero (that's right!) gives him reason to. Larrain seems to be saying that Mario may be bad but he's no worse than those around him.

We see the coup through Mario's eyes and it has to be quietest one in history: we never hear a shot fired or see someone shot because Mario wouldn't allow himself to be in a situation to witness something like that. To emphasis his disassociation from all things human, Larrain shoots Castro with odd angles; shots cut off his head or settle on his midriff in a tactic that suggests that he's an incomplete person.

Being deliberately emotionally distant, though, kills any chance of being emotionally engaged, which in turn can lead to flagging curiosity in how it will all turn out. Post Mortem can by guilty of this.