Neruda **** and The Handmaiden ***** 

by Walter G. Tarrow

Uniquely crafted tales from Chile and Korea screening at the Traverse City Film Festival:

Neruda, available on Netflix, about Chilean poet, Senator and Communist Pablo Neruda, unfolds like a book, page by page, scene by scene. Pablo Larrain (Jackie) shoots and edits from a variety of perspectives giving us the audience as much a literary read as a cinematic viewing.

Neruda, in 1948, as a leader in the Communist Party, was forced to go into hiding after Communism was outlawed by the government under President Videlas. That much is true. Larrain then introduces a fiction in the person of an occasionally bumbling but relentless police inspector Oscar Peluchonneau who is assigned to capture, discredit and defame Neruda. What transpires is a lyrical cat and mouse game with the mouse cunningly always one step ahead of the cat and perhaps the true author of the story.

Yet since Peluchonneau narrates throughout the film, observing the goings on from a fly’s eye view and even when not present commenting as if he were part of the conversation, is he the teller of the tale? His first words are disdainful of the privileged Communists whom he claims love the workers, the miners, the much less fortunate for their suffering. Neruda symbolizes what the inspector despises yet admires from his own humble beginnings. Yet he begins and continues to question the true natures of who Neruda and he really are.

Neruda wants to stay close to his pursuer and eventual capture. He takes risks in appearing in public and hiding in plain sight. As it is with Batman and the Joker, without Peluchonneau, Neruda is just another privileged poseur. Yet, as Peluchonneau observes, this is a hunt without terror. Not so much a chase, but a revealing of characters.

And the questions remain. Who writes the story? Who plays the lead and who are the supporting characters? One thing is for certain. The story ends. And ends with a very satisfying final shot.

Oh, and the soundtrack includes music from the likes of Penderecki and Ives. Larrain is good like that.

In The Handmaiden, available on Amazon Prime, Chan-wook Park (Oldboy) spins a graphic web of sex, seduction and violence in the service of m’lady. Despite this being my most favorite of most recent films, be cautioned. The film merits at least a hard R rating. This is not a film for the easily offended, the faint at heart, and definitely not one for the youngsters.

Set in Japanese-occupied Korea prior to World War II, a young Korean grifter is sent on behalf of her fagin to work as a handmaiden to a Japanese heiress in order to manipulate her affections into marrying the ersatz Count. From this simple premise is created storytelling perfection.

Subplots abound. Realities, truths, perceptions are seemingly never what they seem. Relationships go in directions unforeseen, unimagined. Who is seducing whom? Who has the power over whom? And also twists, both intended and not, are deliciously served.

A spellbinding exposition of the art and language of film. An exquisite Korean puzzle box of eroticism and intrigue. The players and props, plot points and places presented in the first part are realized as half truths then revealed in whole in the second half. And that unique storytelling  device elevates this film to a masterwork.

The soundtrack enhanced the visuals in lush and varied ways and even evoked the Coens’ “Fargo” for me in one scene.

In the end, in keeping with Park’s sensibilities, we can rejoice that Koreans and women come out on top.