User reviews

This is the first feature film by acclaimed Chilean director Pablo Larraín, where he presents us with the story of the descent into madness of a gifted musician and conductor, who life has been in charge of constantly ruining him. Larraín plays ingeniously with his shots and time lines and, making the most of his actors, achieves one of the most interesting works of Chilean cinema of the 21st century.

There are editing and sound errors that dirty the final product a bit, but it is not distracting to take the viewer out of the film.

The second act is somewhat weak, but it picks up with a dramatic ending, in the third one, if a bit forced.

For the first film, it ends up being a very well made film, promising the world a film director who has shown off his skills.

Totally recommended.

The best way to define this movie is... such a waste. Very good Chilean actors (like the sublime Alfredo Castro) and a bunch of pianos are destroyed in this movie, a stupid and pretentious story about a musician that went mentally insane (the handsome Benjamin Vicuña) and another musician who's trying to find him and steal his music (God knows why, the music is not even that good). Nice idea, but just the idea. Larrain, the director, probably watched too many '90s video clips in his young life: the movie is a poor mix of Madonna and Guns and Roses nineties videos, with yes, the blood, the flying curtains, the pianos, etc. etc. He (the director) just missed the beautiful girl running through dark corridors wearing a long and sexy white gown. But well, Benjamin Vicuna is more feminine and delicate than a lot of girls you see around, so is almost the same.

This is a great movie! The story is very good structured, parts of the story are always in a perfect mixture with the present happenings. The actors are good and the music is strange. There are some really great scenes, and this movie has everything: love, hatred, passion, pianos, aggression, music, violence and a great plot. The only thing is, that I don't understand people who really dislike this movie, some of them have written bad reviews, but I'm glad that I watched it anyway...probably those people didn't really understand the movie and those hidden messages. I will never forget the tension which this movie built up, I can only suggest everyone(who like psychological movies) tho watch it.

Eliseo is a talented composer. A work of his, Rapsodia Macabra = Macabre Rhapsody (!) has been associated with two traumatic incidents in his life and the shock has unhinged him. He has destroyed part of the score and is interned in a mental institution. Ricardo, an opportunist, dishonest musician is trying to rescue the missing parts of the Rapsodia to present the work as his own.

The problem is, Ricardo's quest is described in a series of disjointed and often incoherent happenings, with secondary characters that add nothing to the tale. The worst parts are perhaps the episode of the floating platform, which makes one suspect that the movie has switched to the black comedy genre, and the ending, where melodrama explodes with megaton force. Good actors are not given a chance. Gaston Pauls as Ricardo is constrained to play a villain/sleaze from Central Casting and Benjamín Vicuña as Eliseo is forced to emote endlessly; he doesn't get a single lighthearted line. And last but not least, we get to hear parts of the Rapsodia Macabra with the inevitable outcome: why the fuss about this?

Fortunately, this mess was not career-ending for director Pablo Larrain. He went on to direct a string of good movies, the best perhaps The Club (2015) with Post Mortem (2010), No (2012) and Neruda (2016) following close behind in quality. Even his Hollywood movie Jackie (2016) was solid. So, if this was your first Larrain movie, don't give up; the others are also in the streaming services.