Pablo Neruda was a complex and controversial figure in his native Chile — a Nobel Prize-winning writer and acclaimed poet, and an outspoken diplomat exiled because of his Communist beliefs.
While he was celebrated publicly among the working class during the 1940s, he was known as aloof and tyrannical in his private life. So when it came to portraying Neruda on screen, a conventional biopic wouldn’t do.
Likewise, when he agreed to star in the title role in Neruda, veteran Chilean actor Luis Gnecco knew he had to keep an open mind and risk the backlash associated with playing a polarizing true-life figure, even if it’s been more than 43 years since his mysterious death.
“Neruda was a very hard character. Many people knew Neruda, so many people had an image already,” Gnecco said by phone. “We made assumptions about how he lived. He’s very distant. I knew that I was going to have to face a lot of critics. Whatever I chose, I knew it would be criticized. But after the film, many people that knew the real Neruda said that although they knew it was fiction, there were a lot of scenes that felt like him.”
The film uses details about Neruda’s life as a springboard for a fictionalized portrait of his cultural and political influence in Chile during a period of post-World War II upheaval that coincided with a rise to power by the presidential regime of Gabriel Gonzalez Videla (Alfredo Castro). The resulting persecution leads to a manhunt spearheaded by a police investigator (Gael Garcia Bernal) for whom the cat-and-mouse chase takes on an almost surreal quality.
The investigator is a fictional character, and his dogged pursuit of Neruda is a mix of speculation and dramatic license about his years spent largely outside the public spotlight.
“This is not a common biopic. This is not history that you could show in school. We didn’t want to make a biopic as they have been made in the past,” Gnecco said. “These days, we need a lot of certainties. We need a very ordered world, where you know which are the good guys and the bad guys. We didn’t want to do that.”
It’s the latest collaboration between Gnecco and rising Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larrain (Jackie), who previously directed him in the HBO series “Profugos,” and in the political drama No.
Gnecco, 54, said that during those prior projects, he became comfortable with Larrain’s affinity for experimentation on set that might stray from a traditional script.
“That was a great rehearsal for how we could work. We generated a very close relationship,” Gnecco said. “You have your lines, and we’re going to shoot it as written, but you have to be ready to improvise. He directs, and then after shooting, he goes to the editing room to create a structure. He could have made four or five different films.
“Working with Pablo is like working with a great artist. He gives you some borders but also some freedom. It’s very exhausting,” he said. “I would love to work with him again, but I need a vacation.”
