Post Mortem (2010 film)
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''Post Mortem'' is a 2010 Chilean
drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...
directed by
Pablo Larraín Pablo Larraín Matte (; born 19 August 1976) is a Chilean filmmaker. He has directed nine feature films and co-directed one television series, including the Academy Award-nominated films ''No (2012 film), No'' (2012), ''Neruda (film), Neruda'' ...
and set during the 1973 military coup that overthrew former President
Salvador Allende Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens (, , ; 26 June 1908 – 11 September 1973) was a Chilean physician and socialist politician who served as the 28th president of Chile from 3 November 1970 until his death on 11 September 1973. He was the fir ...
, inaugurating the 17-year
dictatorship A dictatorship is a form of government which is characterized by a leader, or a group of leaders, which holds governmental powers with few to no limitations on them. The leader of a dictatorship is called a dictator. Politics in a dictatorship are ...
of
Augusto Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (, , , ; 25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of ...
. The film competed in the
67th Venice International Film Festival The 67th annual Venice International Film Festival held in Venice, Italy, took place from 1 to 11 September 2010. American film director and screenwriter Quentin Tarantino was the head of the Jury. The opening film of the festival was Darren Aro ...
, Antofagasta Film Festival,
Havana Film Festival The Havana Film Festival is a Cuban festival that focuses on the promotion of Latin American filmmakers. It is also known in Spanish as ''Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano de La Habana,'' and in English as International Festiva ...
and the
Guadalajara International Film Festival The Guadalajara International Film Festival ( es, Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara) is a week-long film festival held each March in the Mexican city of Guadalajara since 1986. The presence in Guadalajara of delegates from other impo ...
. The film's main character Mario Cornejo is based on a real person with the same name.


Plot

Mario (Alfredo Castro) is a pathologist's assistant in
Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whose ...
who is responsible for noting down the pathologist's commentary during the post mortem. The job has given him a grey, deathlike appearance. Previously, in the days of the
military coup A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such ...
, Mario became involved in a love affair with a show dancer, Nancy (Antonia Zegers), who lives across the street with her younger brother David and her father, a communist and Allende supporter. On the morning of September 11, the date of the coup, a military raid takes place in Nancy’s house. Her brother and father are arrested. Mario then begins a frantic search for Nancy, who has disappeared, all the while having to endure pressure from the military who want to hide the real cause of death of the bodies piling up in the morgue.


Cinematography

The film has a projected aspect ratio of 2.66:1, which is ultra-wide and very unusual. One reviewer observes that "''Post Mortems muted color scheme reflects the drab '70s world that only adds insult to injury for Pinochet’s trampled victims." With director of photography Sergio Armstrong, Larraín shot the film with Russian
LOMO LOMO (russian: Ленинградское Oптико-Mеханическое Oбъединение, Leningradskoye Optiko-Mekhanicheskoye Obyedinenie, Leningrad Optical Mechanical Association) is a manufacturer of medical and motion-picture lens ...
anamorphic lens Anamorphic format is the cinematography technique of shooting a widescreen picture on standard 35 mm film or other visual recording media with a non-widescreen native aspect ratio. It also refers to the projection format in which a distorte ...
es, the type used in the 1970s by
Andrei Tarkovsky Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky ( rus, Андрей Арсеньевич Тарковский, p=ɐnˈdrʲej ɐrˈsʲenʲjɪvʲɪtɕ tɐrˈkofskʲɪj; 4 April 1932 – 29 December 1986) was a Russian filmmaker. Widely considered one of the greates ...
and other Russian filmmakers. The lenses are intended for
35 mm film 35 mm may refer to: * 135 film, a type of still photography format commonly referred to as 35 mm film * 35 mm movie film 35 mm film is a film gauge used in filmmaking, and the film standard. In motion pictures that record on f ...
, but Larrain shot on
16 mm film 16 mm film is a historically popular and economical gauge of film. 16 mm refers to the width of the film (about inch); other common film gauges include 8 and 35 mm. It is generally used for non-theatrical (e.g., industrial, educ ...
, achieving a look he describes as "very special". Larraín describes the process of lighting the film as follows:
And then when we were shooting, we were doing all kinds of lighting setups, and we never liked anything that we had. One day we had an electrical problem and all the lighting we had set up went down before we started shooting. So I asked for somebody to turn on the lights for the room, and when I looked at the monitor I realized that I really liked the idea of using very regular light coming from the ceiling, but a lot of them. We created this very plain array so the film would have this public lighting look. It also made sense because there is a certain politic to it. And after the test we realized that it actually did work because it creates such muted colors with very little shadows and we liked that. It was plain, it was grainy, and the color palette was very special. So we only used regular lightbulbs, hung up all over the set but mostly from the ceiling.


Reception

The film is well-received by critics and considered further proof of Larraín’s talent, previously noted in ''Tony Manero''. It received four stars from both
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
, which called it “an eerie portrait of a disturbing time” and Time Out, which praised the “humorously unconventional framings, expressively washed-out colour tones and mysterious low-key performances” that bring together “human comedy and historical tragedy to unique, and surprisingly emotional, effect.”.
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
critic A. O. Scott wrote that “the achievement of ''Post Mortem'' is to take rigorous and unsentimental measure of the unpleasantness”. ''Post Mortem'' has also been popular on the
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
public film reviews website, where it has an 88% approval rating based on 34 reviews, with an average score of 7.08/10.


Cast

* Alfredo Castro - Mario Cornejo *
Antonia Zegers Antonia Zegers (born 29 June 1972) is a Chilean actress. She has an extensive career in cinema, with participation in some of the most awarded Chilean films such as '' Tony Manero'' (2008), ''Post mortem'' (2010), '' La vida de los peces'' (2010 ...
- Nancy Puelma (Bim Bam Bum dancer) *
Jaime Vadell Jaime Patricio Vadell Amión (born 6 October 1935) is a Chilean film, theatre and television actor. He is one of the most recognisable faces in Chilean telenovelas and cinema, having played key roles in films directed by Raúl Ruiz, Silvio Cai ...
- Dr. Castillo *
Amparo Noguera María Amparo Noguera Portales (born March 6, 1965), is a Chilean television, theatre and film actress. Amparo is the daughter of the actor Héctor Noguera Illanes and Isidora Portales. Her grandfather, Héctor Noguera Prieto was descendant of ...
- Sandra *
Marcelo Alonso Marcelo Alejandro Alonso Claro (born 19 March 1969) is a Chilean actor and theater director. Alonso has a degree in Acting from the Theater Department of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Chile. In 1994, he debuted in the ''Champaña'' t ...
- Victor *
Marcial Tagle Marcial is both a given name and a surname. Notable people with the name include: People with the given name *Marcial Ávalos, Paraguayan footballer *Marcial Calleja (1863–1914), Filipino lawyer *Marcial Cuquerella (born 1977), Spanish businessma ...
- Captain Montes * Santiago Graffigna - David Puelma * Ernesto Malbrán - Arturo Puelma * Aldo Parodi - Director of Bim Bam Bum * Adriano Castillo - comedian in Bim Bam Bum


Awards

* Antofagasta Film Festival - Best Film * Antofagasta Film Festival - Best Actress (''
Antonia Zegers Antonia Zegers (born 29 June 1972) is a Chilean actress. She has an extensive career in cinema, with participation in some of the most awarded Chilean films such as '' Tony Manero'' (2008), ''Post mortem'' (2010), '' La vida de los peces'' (2010 ...
'') *
Havana Film Festival The Havana Film Festival is a Cuban festival that focuses on the promotion of Latin American filmmakers. It is also known in Spanish as ''Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano de La Habana,'' and in English as International Festiva ...
- Second Prize Coral * Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano de La Habana - Best Actress (
Antonia Zegers Antonia Zegers (born 29 June 1972) is a Chilean actress. She has an extensive career in cinema, with participation in some of the most awarded Chilean films such as '' Tony Manero'' (2008), ''Post mortem'' (2010), '' La vida de los peces'' (2010 ...
) * Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano de La Habana - Best Actor ( Alfredo Castro) * Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano de La Habana - Best Screenplay * Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano de La Habana - FIPRESCI Award * Festival Internacional de Cine de Cartagena - Best Picture * Festival Internacional de Cine de Guadalajara - Best PicturePost Mortem takes top prize
www.hollywoodreporter.com, 4 January 2011. Retrieved 26 February 2013.
* Festival Internacional de Cine de Guadalajara - Best Actor ( Alfredo Castro) * Festival Internacional de Cine de Guadalajara - Best Cinematography ( Sergio Armstrong)


See also

*
Cinema of Chile Chilean cinema refers to all films produced in Chile or made by Chileans. It had its origins at the start of the 20th century with the first Chilean film screening in 1902 and the first Chilean feature film appearing in 1910. The oldest survivin ...


References


External links

* * (archived / 2010) *
Cineuropa
{{Pablo Larraín 2010 films 2010 drama films Films about the Chilean military dictatorship Films set in 1973 2010s Spanish-language films Films directed by Pablo Larraín Chilean drama films Films about coups d'état