Tony Manero
18, Key Cities
This is a Chilean film of the kind that is probably only showing at an independent cinema quite far from you until last Thursday but that is life, so get over it. Also, the only Easter alternative seemed to be a big action flick starring Vin Diesel whom I have nothing against personally, but whose performance in The Pacifier I did not admire particularly. (I also felt Arnold Schwarzenegger had rather got in first as the big, tough guy who comically does babysitting in Kindergarten Cop, but that may be just me.)
Anyway, I didn’t see Tony Manero at the cinema, because the distributors were kind enough to lend me a ‘screener’, which is what film people call DVDs, and you will have to continue calling a DVD, not being a film person up there with someone like me. So I watched it at home one evening with my partner who fell asleep 35 minutes into the 98 minutes which, actually, should not be taken as any kind of condemnation. Of course, whenever I attempt to poke him awake, he’ll always deny ever being asleep. ‘You were asleep,’ I’ll tell him. ‘I wasn’t,’ he’ll exclaim. ‘You dropped off,’ I’ll say. ‘I didn’t,’ he’ll exclaim.
But on to business. This is about Raúl (Alfredo Castro), a fifty-something, gaunt, grey-faced man of no obvious employment who is obsessed with Saturday Night Fever and, in particular, the white-suited, hip-swivelling John Travolta character, Tony Manero. On paper, it sounds as if it may be some sort of screwball comedy — the Pinochet years meet the Bee Gees, that kind of thing — but it so isn’t. Seriously, if you are going to rush to make it by last Thursday, don’t do so thinking it’s a screwball comedy, or you will be most sorely aggrieved. Plus, it’ll frighten the life out of you.
It’s set in Santiago de Chile in 1979, when Pinochet was at his peak as the country’s dictator, the death squads lurked everywhere, and screwball wasn’t really an option. In fact, Raúl may be as pitiless and grotesque as the regime itself. He is a thief, a cheat, and a betrayer capable not just of the most cold-blooded acts of horrific violence but also something truly shocking on the scatological front. I didn’t enjoy this film, and can’t imagine anyone would enjoy this film, but it does possess and disturb in a way that is never boring, which has to be the main thing.
Raúl’s own waking hours are exclusively devoted to Tony Manero, and his Saturday nights when he recreates — badly; he’s no dancer — his hero’s moves on the rotten dance floor of a clapped-out bar. The other members of his dance troupe are his needy girlfriend, her daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend, although why they put up with Raúl is something of mystery. Perhaps they are so desensitised to cruelty that they no longer feel it anymore. Whatever, he finds his true purpose when a television station announces it is holding a Tony Manero dance-and-look-alike contest and, yes, Raúl will do anything to win.
Directed by Pablo Larrain, and mostly shot on shaky hand-held cameras in 16mm blown up to 35mm — this gives it a grainy look, known to film people as ‘that grainy look’ — it presents a purgatorial Chile of dingy rooms, grim backstreets and a decaying cinema that seems to play Saturday Night Fever on some kind of loop. This is all allegorical, I suppose, and is probably about a country so seduced by North American culture and imperialism its people ignore their own real-life commitments and relationships, both personal and political. Still, I don’t think you need get weighed down by all this, although there is one particularly telling scene when, on the day of the competition, Raúl slips away in his white suit as his girlfriend and co. are being brutally interrogated by the secret police.
This film is not a joy, and there is no joy in it, but it is powerfully grotesque and it will linger, whether you want it to or not. Give it a go, if you feel brave enough, or go for Vin Diesel, if that is more your thing. I may have been too hard on him. Heck, everyone loves a big tough guy comically looking after the kiddies, don’t they?
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