Keswick Film Club - Post Mortem

Synopsis

In the early 1970's, Allende's Chile was seen round the world as the great hope for social change. This film is set appropriately in 1973, examining the moment when Allende was killed and that dream became a nightmare in the hands of the Chilean army and the CIA.

The main character, Mario (Alfredo Castro), is a coroner‘s assistant who becomes fixated on the fading music-hall artiste, Nancy, next door – a woman with leftwing connections – just at the point when he's forced by the army to join a special unit processing the victims of military massacres.

Larrain likes to show the life of ordinary people against the backdrop of big events. His last film - Tony Manero - had the same lead playing a cabaret artist in Pinochet's 1978. Here, Mario is more interested in his budding affair with Nancy than the politics around him, until those politics invade his world.