Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Cissy Évelyne It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

masonfisk Naruda is a segment of the great poet's life when he was accused of communism by the government & needed to flee. In pursuit of him, a loyal officer of the law tracks his prey, in what amounts to a person living vicariously through another's, we're meant to glean insight into the man's thoughts & why he's at odds w/the ruling class. Ultimately as presented we have 2 modes of film in conflict w/each other. Whereby the biopic is sorely lacking since we only focus on a glimpse of his life & the procedural, the hunter who tries to imprint his quarry's worldview onto himself to better acquire his target. Handsomely produced & the second film from Pablo Larrain during the same year (!) as Jackie, this uneven film does have some merit.

SnoopyStyle In post war Chile, Communist poet Senator Pablo Neruda (Luis Gnecco) enrages the political establishment. He decides to go into hiding as Óscar Peluchonneau (Gael García Bernal) leads a large police dragnet to arrest him. Soon, anti-communist repression takes hold in the country and many are imprisoned.This has too much of an artistic flair. I get the connection with a poet protagonist. I would like to understand the political climate at the beginning. Neruda talks about strikes. It would be helpful to see more of the anti-union brutality. It would set the stage for his initial escape. Not everybody knows the history or even who Augusto Pinochet is. I like the Captain Ahab aspect of Peluchonneau. It would be good to have less artistic flair. I want less literary exposition and more intense thrills. I like the turn as the political roundups take its toll and the darker character descend. There is a more intense take on this story but I'm not completely opposed to this artistic rendering.

Horst in Translation ([email protected]) "Neruda" is a Chilean Spanish-language film from 2016 directed by Pablo Larraín and written by Guillermo Calderón, not the first collaboration by this duo. It runs for 105 minutes roughly and focuses on the post-WWII years in writer Pablo Neruda's life. Do not be fooled by the title here: This is not a biopic and this is maybe also the film's biggest problem. Of course, you need to use an actor like Gael Garcia Bernal if you have him at your disposal, but he really took away from the film here in terms of quality and with this I am not talking about the performance, but about his character in general. I really would have liked this film to focus exclusively on Neruda, but many times you have a feeling that he just plays second fiddle to GGB's character here. The latter is a police officer in charge of finding Neruda and the longer the film goes, the more mysteriously it all becomes. Is he just a figment of Neruda's imagination? Is he a character from one of Neruda's works? Is he an actual police officer? Is it Neruda himself? There is no definite response to any of these questions. But the occasionally pretentious voice-over coming from Óscar (that's his name) as well as the fact that Bernal is credited first makes obvious that Neruda is just means to the story and his co-lead here, a tool basically, but not the man in charge, even if the police officer's actions are all consequences of Neruda's.I personally would have preferred this film to be entirely about Neruda or at least to keep it a more factual, more thrilling tale of one character ruthlessly chasing the other. More realism would have helped. instead questions arise like why does he not have any officers under him that help him. Why is he always chasing him like a lone wolf? Or why does he seem to die at the end and then magically reappears again. These may all be symbolisms or metaphors, but it's mostly over the top and the link to realistic events gets lost inevitably the longer the film goes. This is a shame as the subject of Neruda could have made for a really great film. From what we see in here, the character is very interesting, as a politician as well as writer. Now we have to wait probably another decade till we get a new Neruda film and maybe that one will be as weak as this one here too. I think the idea of Óscar having doubts about his own worth and how he needs to be an artist too to take down Neruda, not just a supporting player was a really nice one and the entire film and protagonist's inner conflict could have been about this all the time. Instead the script feels lost and lacking focus on more occasions than one. It also shows how little awards recognition Gnecco received for such a baity character that it is all about GGB, even if he didn't receive that much either. I think all the consideration for this film in foreign language categories (also at the Golden Globes) feels very exaggerated. It is Larraín's weaker 2016 film compared to the Oscar-nominated "Jackie" and also compared to "No". I have to give "Neruda" a thumbs-down and say the Academy got it right in not nominating Chile's submission this year, also not including it among the final nine. Not recommended and you can certainly say this is "Catch Me If You Can" gone wrong because it did not try to tell a memorable story, but be way too artistic for its own good.

jdesando "If nothing saves us from death, at least love should save us from life." Neruda The Chilean Noble laureate Pablo Neruda (Luis Gnecco)is depicted in Pablo Larrain's Neruda, a fiction showing the poet-politician as heroic, profane, poetic, and fat. He's a stew that can seduce women and provoke presidents, a genius communist in the late 1940's who became a fugitive for joining the party.The film is alternately serious about this leftist politician and writer pursued by fictional police detective Oscar Peluchonneau (Gael Garcia Bernal) and playful as he cavorts with strumpets to remind us of his vigorous friend, Picasso (Emilio Guttierrez Caba). Neruda is less the poet and more the champagne Communist.Larrain's filming is poetic, too, full of lush, shadowy shots that reinforce the complex lyrical details of a poet on the run. Yet, this is not a biopic; rather it is an imaginative rendering in the poet's own spirit as it comes through in his poetry and Stalinist affections. A scene with a drag queen discussing how Neruda incites passion is all you need to know about the difference between Neruda's magical words and the lower order of his daily life.Although Oscar's pursuit of Neruda smacks of Javert's obsession in Les Miserables, Bernal plays him as a serious policeman with a thirst for connection to Neruda. In large part, everyone who meets Neruda, even his fellow legislators when he is a senator, seems to be hypnotized by his words and his bravery.Most of all the film does an exemplary job of depicting Neruda as a demigod whose very presence demands devotion and a shared passion for life and happiness only through the patient devotion to one's country and one's loves: "Love is not about property, diamonds and gifts. It is about sharing your very self with the world around you." Neruda