The Dictator and the Disco King

Over the years “Saturday Night Fever” has meant alot of different things to a lot of different people.

But the Chilean director Pablo Larraín is probably thefirst to have been inspired to use that 1970s disco dramaas a device to dissect the abusive dictatorship ofGen. Augusto Pinochet, as he does in his new film,“Tony Manero.”

Tony Manero, of course, is the name of the characterJohn Travolta played in “Saturday Night Fever.” “TonyManero” the movie is about a week in the life of RaúlPeralta, a dancer in a run-down cabaret who embarks ona relentless quest to win a Travolta look-alike contestbroadcast by a Chilean television show at the height ofthe “Saturday Night Fever” craze.

“Saturday Night Fever” was released in Chile in 1978,which happened to coincide with one of the bleakest,most repressive periods of Pinochet’s 17-year rule. Hehad seized power on Sept. 11, 1973, in a bloody, UnitedStates-backed coup that overthrew the Socialist presi-dent, Salvador Allende, and imposed policies thatcrushed political dissent while encouraging an every-man-for-himself scramble for economic gain.

That history encouraged Alfredo Castro, the actorwho plays Peralta, to endow his character with an auraof menace and barely contained aggression, meant toregister as a metaphor for the amorality and viciousnessof the Pinochet regime.

Raúl Peralta is “a social outsider, perfectly capable ofappropriating the opportunity to kill with impunity,”Mr. Castro said. “He lacks moral judgment, and his logicis demented, archaic, that of: ‘If the state is killinghundreds. why can’t I?’”

Released in Chile in 2008, “Tony Manero” was firstshown in the United States at the New York FilmFestival last fall. The festival’s program director.Richard Peña, said the film appealed to him because ofits ability to convey “the feeling, the texture and tactilesense of life during that time” and its complicated andnuanced view of American pop culture.

“‘Saturday Night Fever’ becomes a strange double-edged sword,” Mr. Peña said. “On the one hand it is free

and easy and democratic and represents freedom andmasculine flamboyance. But it also comes fromAmerica, which is seen as being at the root of theproblem, behind the overthrow of Allende and theinstallation of Pinochet.”

In addition Mr. Castro’s character looks a lot like AlPacino, as critics were quick to note after “TonyManero” was shown at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.Mr. Castro and Mr. Larraín said they were amused by thecomments that similarity has provoked, which theybelieve underline and amplify their theme of culturaldomination. “The interesting thing is that here you havea Chilean actor who tries to look like John Travolta andends up being said to look like Al Pacino,” Mr. Larraínsaid. “He’s never Alfredo Castro. He’s always somebodyelse, and what he does in the film is exactly that too.”

Mr. Castro added: “It’s like I’ve been erased, and thereis something symbolic about that.”

The genesis of “Tony Manero” can be traced to a bookof photographs Mr. Larraín, 32, stumbled across in amuseum gift shop in Spain a couple of years ago. Oneimage especially fascinated him: that of a gaunt, tattooedman sitting in a chair and staring blankly out a window,a cigarette in one hand and a revolver in the other.

Back home in Santiago, Mr. Larraín showed thepicture to Mr. Castro, who quickly agreed to joinMr. Larraín in elaborating a story for the man. “We sawa dancer who was also a killer and began to create fromthat premise,” Mr. Larraín recalled. “Later in the processwe came to see that we had the possibility to insert thishuman being and his desire into the political contextof a particular period in Chile, and that made us rethinkthe story.”

Though “Tony Manero” also contains elements of apsychological study, a thriller and a musical, its politicalsubtext has drawn the most attention. After the showingin Cannes, a critic for the Le Monde called Raúl Peralta“a small-scale replica of Pinochet” and argued that “ifthe term weren’t so pejorative, I’d say that ‘TonyManero’ was a great anti-imperialist film.”

On the surface Mr. Larraín would seem an unlikelycandidate for that kind of undertaking. His father,Hernán Larraín. is a former president of the ChileanSenate who is also president of the country’s main right-wing party, which enthusiastically supported thePinochet dictatorship.

On his mother’s side Pablo Larraín is part of the Mattefamily, perhaps Chile’s wealthiest. The Mattes, whosefortune comes largely from their pulp and paper

businesses, have been accused by human rights,indigenous and environmental groups of improperlybenefiting, during and after the Pinochet era, fromthe expulsion of Mapuche Indians from traditionalforest lands.

Asked how his father felt about his movie, Mr. Larraínsaid he wasn't sure his father had seen it.

“You’d have to ask him, but I think he’d like it a lot,because, like any father, he wants his children to dowell,” he said. “Although I don’t share his politicalideas, we have a terrific relationship,” Hernán Larraíndid not respond to requests for comment.

Reaction to “Tony Manero” in Chile has been mixedand often intense. Some on the right are furious at whatthey regard as a betrayal by someone they thoughtwas one of their own, but even some anti-Pinochetcommentators have complained that the film projects anoverly negative image of the country.

“I wanted to provoke an explosive reaction,” said Mr.Larraín, who began his career as a director of televisioncommercials. “This is not a spot, a commercial for Chile.I make the films I want to make, and this one is abouta time that, to the extent that people recall it at all, islike a bad dream, a blurred memory that can’t beremembered as fact but only as emotion.”

By LARRY ROHTER Sunday, July 5, 2009

Above, Pablo Larraín, the “Tony Manero” director. Top, Alfredo Castro as Raúl Peralta, left, and as Peralta looking like the Manero character in “Saturday Night Fever.”

PHOTOGRAPHS BY TOMÁS DITTBORN/LORBER FILMS

LORBER FILMS

a film by Pablo Larraín