Metrograph, the independent arthouse cinema in downtown Manhattan in New York City, will host the special series ‘Alfredo Castro, a Political Retrospective’ celebrating the work of the internationally acclaimed Chilean actor. The series will take place November 3-8, with the actor in person for select Q&As on opening weekend.
Curated by Javier Guerrero and Juana Suárez, and presented in partnership with Princeton University and New York University, the series is presented in the context of the recent 50th anniversary on September 11, of the military coup against President Allende in Chile. Castro’s work is essential to a deep exploration of the cruelty of the dictatorship led by Augusto Pinochet (1973-1989). Inspired by the French playwright Antonin Artaud, Castro has theorized the ‘third body,’ a key concept in the study of unknown and unconfessed human drives.
In this retrospective, the curators have focused on Castro’s close, decades-long collaboration with the Chilean director Pablo Larraín, and the series will present the feature films Tony Manero (2008), Post Mortem (2010), No (2012) and El Conde (2023).
Tony Manero tells the story of Raul Peralta—played by Castro—a middle-aged criminal in Chile in the 1970s, is obsessed with Tony Manero, John Travolta’s character in Saturday Night Fever (1977). Every Saturday, he imitates his idol by leading a small group of dancers to perform at a bar in the city’s outskirts. His dream of becoming a showbiz star is about to become a reality when a national television station announces a contest for the best Tony Manero impersonator.
In Post Mortem, Castro performs the role of Mario Cornejo, an unassuming state employee who transcribes notes during autopsies. Furtive and lonely, he becomes obsessed with his neighbor, a dancehall performer (Antonia Zegers) who is involved with a group of left-wing activists. After the 1973 coup and Salvador Allende’s death, the dancer’s friends are hunted down, and Mario’s hospital is clogged with dissenters’ bodies. The violence soon grows in Mario’s psyche.
No is set in 1988, when international pressure forces Pinochet to call a plebiscite on his presidency. The country will vote YES or NO to another eight years of his rule. Opposition leaders persuade a brash young advertising executive, René Saavedra (Gael García Bernal), to spearhead their campaign. Against both the odds and pressure from shady actors such as Lucho Guzmán (Alfredo Castro), Saavedra and his team devise an audacious plan to win the election and set Chile free.
The most recent film by Larraín, El Conde, follows Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet (Jaime Vadell), who is a vampire who hides away in a ruined mansion at the continent’s cold southern tip. At 250 years old, Pinochet decides to stop drinking blood and abandon eternal life. Despite the opportunism of his family and right-hand-man-turned-butler Fyodor Krassnoff (Castro), an unexpected relationship inspires him to devote himself to counterrevolutionary passions.
