PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Gael Garcia Bernal on his role in the film Neruda by Pablo Larrain from Cannes 2016.

To listen to the interview, click on the ► icon on the right, just above the picture

Neruda marks the second collaboration between Gael Garcia Bernal and director Pablo Larrain, following their previous effort No, which was presented in Cannes in 2012. Neruda, presented in Director’s Fortnight at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival is not a biopic on the Chilean poet. It is more of a can and mouse game betwee Pablo Neruda (played by Luis Gnecco) and the chaser, the Police prefect Oscar Peluchonneau (Bernal). In this interview, Bernal reveals how he loves being directed by Larrain and why, even though everytime he works with him, he doesn’t have a clue about what the director is in the process of creating until the end of the shoot.

NERUDA: It’s 1948 and the Cold War has reached Chile. In congress, Senator Pablo Neruda (Luis Gnecco) accuses the government of betraying the Communist Party and is swiftly impeached by President Gonzalez Videla (Alfredo Castro). Police Prefect Oscar Peluchonneau (Gael García Bernal) is assigned to arrest the poet. Neruda tries to flee the country with his wife, the painter Delia del Carril (Mercedes Morán), but they are forced into hiding. Inspired by the dramatic events of his new life as a fugitive, Neruda writes his epic collection of poems, “Canto General”. Meanwhile, in Europe, the legend of the poet hounded by the policeman grows, and artists led by Pablo Picasso clamor for Neruda’s freedom. Neruda, however, sees this struggle with his nemesis Peluchonneau as an opportunity to reinvent himself. He plays with the inspector, leaving clues designed to make their game of cat-and-mouse more dangerous, more intimate. In this story of a persecuted poet and his implacable adversary, Neruda recognizes his own heroic possibilities: a chance to become both a symbol for liberty and a literary legend.