It’s 1948 and the Cold War has arrived in Chile. In the Congress, prominent Communist Senator and popular poet Pablo Neruda accuses the government of betraying the Party and is stripped of his parliamentary immunity by President González Videla. The Chief of Investigative Police instructs inspector Óscar Peluchonneau to arrest the poet. Neruda tries to escape from the country with his wife, the painter Delia del Carril, but they are forced to go underground.
Direction
Larraín turns a manhunt into meta-theatrical meditation
Acting
Gnecco's Neruda is monument and fraud simultaneously
Cinematography
Shadow-drenched Chilean landscapes that breathe noir
Director
Pablo Larraín
Gael García Bernal
Oscar Peluchoneau
Luis Gnecco
Pablo Neruda
Mercedes Morán
Delia del Carril
Emilio Gutiérrez Caba
Picasso
Diego Muñoz
Martínez
Alejandro Goic
Jorge Bellet
Pablo Derqui
Victor Pey
Marcelo Alonso
Pepe Rodríguez
Michael Silva
Álvaro Jara
Francisco Reyes
Bianchi
Jaime Vadell
Jorge Alessandri
Néstor Cantillana
Alfredo Castro
Gabriel González Videla
Marcial Tagle
Amparo Noguera
Drunk Woman
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Larraín calls this an 'anti-biopic' — Neruda's real 1948 manhunt lasted over a year and crossed the Andes on horseback, but the film invents Peluchonneau entirely to explore how legends devour reality.
This is part of Larraín's unofficial Chilean trilogy with 'No' and 'Post Mortem,' all examining Pinochet-era memory through genre subversion — here, noir becomes the language of political haunting.
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