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REVIEW: Pablo Larraín's Post Mortem Feels Around for the Feeble Pulse of Love, or of a Country

REVIEW: Pablo Larraín's Post Mortem Feels Around for the Feeble Pulse of Love, or of a Country

In the States, at least, it may seem odd to make a bitterly funny movie about glum working people caught in the crossfire of political upheaval and state-sanctioned murder. But Pablo Larraín pulls it off with Post Mortem, a modest, mordant little drama set in 1973 Santiago, Chile, just as a military coup is spelling the end for democratically elected President Salvador Allende and setting the stage for the ascent of dictator Augusto Pinochet. If you were a Chilean citizen in the middle of all that, you probably wouldn’t be smiling much, and sure enough, Larrain’s protagonist here, a dour coroner’s assistant named Mario, sets the tone for the movie from the beginning: He’s a gaunt, living ghost, with lank, longish blonde-gray hair – he’d almost be hip, if only he had the energy.
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