Larrain shows considerable dash in this first feature about a traumatized young composer, Eliseo Montalbán (Benjamín Vicuña), whose memory of seeing his sister raped and murdered (over a piano) when he was a child is reawakened when the mysterious death of his female piano soloist during the premiere of his symphony leads him into madness. He disappears into an institution, till a mediocre musician, Ricardo Coppa(Gastón Pauls),trying to reconstruct his lost composition from writing on the sanatorium walls hidden under wallpaper, finds him, now working as a fisherman.
"Everything in this co-production between Argentina and Chile is preposterous and unbelievable," a Latin American reviewer wrote. Yet in spite of the far fetched and melodramatic elements of the screenplay Larrain directs with conviction. The adult Eliseo (lovely name) appears crazy from the start, and Vicuña has presence though he alternates between poetical suffering and merely vacuousness. One believes in Eliseo because everybody else does but when he has his breakdown and massacres six grand pianos with an ax things become a little too bizarre. (Flashbacks to his childhood are well done; the boy actor too has a strong presence.)
In spite of the far fetched and melodramatic elements of the screenplay Larrain directs with conviction. The adult Eliseo (lovely name) appears crazy from the start, and Vicuña has presence though he alternates between poetical suffering and merely vacuousness. One believes in Eliseo because everybody else does but when he has his breakdown and massacres six grand pianos with an ax things become a little too bizarre. (Flashbacks to his childhood are well done; the boy actor too has a strong presence.) Larrain doesn't have as good material to work with here as he was to have in 'Tony Manero,' either in terms of a central character or in the way of a socio-historical world with rich and disturbing overtones. This seems a little like something Francis Ford Coppola might have recently done -- but the doomed Italian family in Buenos Aires of Coppola's 'Tetro' is a much richer mix than Eliseo and his privileged parents, and the intermingling of Chilean and Argentinian elements and characters seems unconvincing to South American viewers and confusing to North American ones.
The title plays with the double meaning of the word "fuga" as both the musical form of the fugue, and "flight", since Eliseo goes into a flight from his traumas and his madness. But I guess that isn't any more profound than any other aspects of the screenplay.
Still, the element already there that was to flower in 'Tony Manero' is the ability Larrain has to delve into an utterly doomed, deranged world with unswerving focus and conviction. It just means so much more in the second film than in this polished but relatively empty debut.
"Everything in this co-production between Argentina and Chile is preposterous and unbelievable," a Latin American reviewer wrote. Yet in spite of the far fetched and melodramatic elements of the screenplay Larrain directs with conviction. The adult Eliseo (lovely name) appears crazy from the start, and Vicuña has presence though he alternates between poetical suffering and merely vacuousness. One believes in Eliseo because everybody else does but when he has his breakdown and massacres six grand pianos with an ax things become a little too bizarre. (Flashbacks to his childhood are well done; the boy actor too has a strong presence.)
In spite of the far fetched and melodramatic elements of the screenplay Larrain directs with conviction. The adult Eliseo (lovely name) appears crazy from the start, and Vicuña has presence though he alternates between poetical suffering and merely vacuousness. One believes in Eliseo because everybody else does but when he has his breakdown and massacres six grand pianos with an ax things become a little too bizarre. (Flashbacks to his childhood are well done; the boy actor too has a strong presence.) Larrain doesn't have as good material to work with here as he was to have in 'Tony Manero,' either in terms of a central character or in the way of a socio-historical world with rich and disturbing overtones. This seems a little like something Francis Ford Coppola might have recently done -- but the doomed Italian family in Buenos Aires of Coppola's 'Tetro' is a much richer mix than Eliseo and his privileged parents, and the intermingling of Chilean and Argentinian elements and characters seems unconvincing to South American viewers and confusing to North American ones.
The title plays with the double meaning of the word "fuga" as both the musical form of the fugue, and "flight", since Eliseo goes into a flight from his traumas and his madness. But I guess that isn't any more profound than any other aspects of the screenplay.
Still, the element already there that was to flower in 'Tony Manero' is the ability Larrain has to delve into an utterly doomed, deranged world with unswerving focus and conviction. It just means so much more in the second film than in this polished but relatively empty debut.
