“Tony Manero” (07/09)
A handheld camera follows the main character in the film “Tony Manero” in a manner as realistic as any documentary to evoke the loss of personal identity and hopelessness during the Chilean dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
Director Pablo Larraín sets his story in the late 1970’s during the bleakest days of the regime. The setting is in the ragged outskirts of town, not even the city itself. With uneven movements, the handheld camera trails Raúl Peralta, (an inspired performance by the veteran actor, Alfredo Castro) a rodent with uneven movements following its prey, for a week as he readies for a contest impersonating John Travolta’s character in “Saturday Night Fever.”
The week feels like an eternity. Perralta is a man in his fifties who has nothing else to live for but the film, and apparently has been honing his act, having done everything in his power to transform himself into the character from dying his graying hair to watching the film endlessly.
But there is not one hint of Travolta’s own sweetness toward his friends and family that made the original film so appealing as the loner out to better himself. Raúl is instead a “rat” leader of his own “rat pack” of three other amateur dancers and a barkeep, brilliantly acted by Amparo Noguera, Paola Lattus and Elsa Poblete is Wilma. They not only accept his fantasy but vie for his attention since there is nothing else in their lives.
The two women, mother and daughter, plus young Goya perform at a bar every Saturday evening. There Raúl shows off his empty Tony Manero personality – all mannerism and dress but no soul.
This is no dance troupe though there is a semblance of rehearsals, mostly with Raúl raging against real or imagined threats to his leadership. His intermittent violence is accepted passively, including one particularly realistic, repulsive and unforgettable sex scene between the impotent Raúl and his girlfriend’s daughter.
Goyo (Héctor Morales), involved in underground activities against Pinochet’s regime, is pursued by the secret police, as Raúl observes while scuttling around town. Still he looks out only for himself, possibly because he considers young Goyo a rival.
Not surprising for a man who lives by thievery and violence, and to whom killing innocent strangers for petty goods comes easily. Larraín introduces this brutal characteristic early on in the film with Peralta spying an old woman being mugged in front of his apartment, and escorting her home. What happens next sets the mind reeling as his sociopathic behavior flares up like a boomerang. Afterward Raúl stops to feed the cat and eat from the same can.
Peralta’s obsession with the “Saturday Night Fever” film (he knows the dialogue by heart in English though not the meaning of the words) escalates. One day in the movie theatre, after he discovers that “Saturday Night Fever” has been replaced. by “Grease” he flies into a rage and bludgeons the projectionist.
The grand finale of the story is the TV contest. Even his goal of being discovered as a star is an empty one since the local TV contest is forgotten once it is over. But in the nightmarish existence of Peralta, the event is part of the dream life he leads, and one that he will go back to again.
“Tony Manero” reflects the hopeless mood and of the Pinochet takeover more than any documentary in a provocative and unrelenting way that makes it impossible to forget, and at the same time serves as motivation to learn more about this period of history in
“Tony Manero” is directed by Pablo Larraín; written by Larraín, Alfredo Castro and Mateo Iribarren. The director of photography is Sergio Armstrong, the editor is Andrea Chignoli. The film is in Spanish, with English subtitles. Running time is 1 hour 38 minutes.
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