PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Pablo Larrain, director of Neruda from the 69th Cannes Film Festival

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

Celebrated director Pablo Larrain returns on the FRED Film Radio “airwaves” to talk about his latest film, Neruda, presented in Director’s Fortnight, the independent section of the Cannes Film Festival. For the making of this film, Larrain was inspired by a specific speech the poet Pablo Neruda gave, in which he confessed to not be sure about whether some events in his life were real or imagined. In fact, the film is constructed on this very threading of the fine line between imagination – dreams – and reality, channelled through Larrain’s vision.

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.