Chilean cinema and the politics of memory. the trilogy of Pablo Larraín

Abstract

The recent history of Chile is marked by three major milestones: the brief socialist experiment during the seventies, the long military government which lasted
until the late eighties, and the neoliberal economic reforms pushed by the military government and perfected in democracy. The cinematographic trilogy of Pablo Larraín, Tony Manero (2008), Post Mortem (2010) and No (2012), is a paradigmatic case of what we might call a Cinema of Memory: Tony Manero portrays the violence of the dictatorship period, Post Mortem breaks on the convulsive days following the Coup d’état, and No reflects on the details of the democratic transition, covering up in each film a different axial moment of the past. This paper aims to analyse the Larraín trilogy from the political and social tensions that circumscribe the discussions around the politics of memory in Chile.