NERUDA: A FILM IN THE MOST NERUDAIC SENSE “Love is so short, forgetting is so long” – Pablo Neruda Who am I? Am I just a character in a fiction, forever trapped in the mind of the author? These were the questions that flooded my mind after watching the 2016 Chilean film directed by Pablo Larrain entitled, Neruda, in honor of the late poet and diplomat, Pablo Neruda. Originally, I intend to write this essay for explicating the ideas of communism especially in our “Americanized” consciousness but the issues of identity and existence surpassed the first reason. Historical point: Pablo Neruda is a poet, a diplomat and an ex-senator of Chile. At the age of 12, he began to be known because of his poetry. By his 20’s, he already published his much-acclaimed, Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desasperada (Twenty Poems and a Song of Despair). He serves in numerous diplomatic capacities in his early years. In the midst of the Spanish Civil War, he is the Chilean consul to Madrid. This experience opened his eyes to the longing of the people trampled by the bourgeois. Since then he adopted communism as his political identity. Upon return to Chile in the 1940’s he was elected Senator of the Republic. President Gonzalez Videla of the Radical Party asked him to be his campaign manager which Neruda gladly did. However, upon being elected, Videla betrayed the left (which is actually the base of his electoral triumph) by illegalizing the Communist Party. Everything took its peak when Videla ordered the arrest of picketing miners supported by the communists. Augusto Pinochet, commander of the armed forces and later dictator of Chile during the ‘70s until early 90’s (sounds familiar eh?), led the arrests and putting the communists and those who sympathize with them in concentration camps. Eventually, Videla ordered the arrest of Neruda in an attempt to counter his popularity among the citizenry. Neruda was then sacked from the senate and was gone hiding from the government forces for almost thirteen months. Eventually he escaped Chile through passing the mountains to Argentina by horseback. He then settled in Paris with his friend Pablo Picasso, leading the resistance against Videla. The film revolves around this point of Neruda’s life. It involves a healthy mixture of fiction and history, very Nerudaic if you ask me. A keen young policeman named Óscar Peluchonneau was tasked to pursue Neruda. Then a cat and mouse chase ensue with Peluchonneau always arriving at the place where Neruda was a minute ago only to find detective pulp fiction with a dedication to him by Neruda. Ultimately, the Communist Party decided to smuggle Neruda out of the country through the mountains but his wife has to be left behind. Peluchonneau then questions her about her husband. Instead of telling him about Neruda, she began telling him about him. She tells him that in every story there is a primary and a secondary character, in this story the secondary character is the policeman. This unsettles him. She further says that while Neruda and her are historical figures, that is they exist in the physical world, Peluchonneau, on the other hand, is just a figment of Neruda’s imagination. An imagined character made by a prisoner’s bored mind. This destroys his confidence. And so, to prove his reality, he follows Neruda until the mountains. At the end, unable to reach Neruda, he kills himself. Neruda then finds his corpse. His companions asked him if he knows Peluchonneau and said “No… Yes…” At the end the viewer will ask himself: “Is the policeman the creation of the poet? Or is the poet the creation of the policeman?” In this imagined world where history and fiction mixes gracefully, who indeed is real? Peluchonneau, nearing the end of his life, tells the audience through the narration, “Here I am the pawn of the traitor Videla… or am I not? Am I Neruda himself?” After watching the film, I have to pause for almost an hour wondering the same question: “Here am I a pawn in this universe… or am I not? Am I the universe itself? Who really am I?” Who am I? This is the question humankind has tried over and over again not to face. We invented distractions just to escape this question. But who really is this I? What is he? Why is I? Why I? What if I am just a pigment of your imagination? Worse, what if we are just character in a fiction? I guess I should have just stayed with discussing communist thought. Over all, Neruda is great film and I will recommend it to anyone who can understand Spanish (since there is still no English dub or good English sub available). For the meantime, here is a sample of Pablo Neruda's poem in English and the original Spanish:
|
anonymous lenzJust a traveling someone in this reality we have fallen in love with... this we call our world... "What is essential is invisible to the eyes..." Tags
All
"The absolutely other is the Other" Archives
September 2018
"There is only one corner in the universe that you can be certain of improving and that's your own Self" |