AFTER winning raves at last year’s New York Film Festi val, Pablo Larrain’s “Tony Manero,” from Chile, is receiving a run here.
Set in 1978 Santiago, during the brutal Pinochet regime, it is the story of 50-something lowlife Raúl (an impressive Alfredo Castro, who co-wrote), who has a sick obsession — right down to the white suit — with Tony Manero, the John Travolta disco dandy/paint-store clerk in “Saturday Night Fever” (1977).
Sadly, Raúl’s obsession leads him to commit a series of grotesque crimes. In one disturbing sequence, he saves an elderly woman from teenage muggers, then beats her to death in her own home so he can steal her TV.
He sells it to raise money to buy glass to re-create the dance floor in “Fever” for a disco routine he performs with other losers at a seamy Santiago cabaret.
Wait, there’s more. When Raúl discovers his local theater is showing “Grease” instead of “Fever,” he beats the projectionist to death. (And why not?)
He even enters a TV audition to find Chile’s answer to Tony Manero. To stop a competitor, Raúl defecates on his rival’s suit.
Shot with a hand-held camera and presented in a fragmented scenario, “Tony Manero” is the director’s compelling attempt to find parallels between the Pinochet reign of terror (remember that the US promoted the coup that put him into power) and Raúl’s scruple-less antics.
Larrain also has a go at the public’s obsession with celebrity, a point brought home quite coincidentally by the media circus surrounding the recent death of Michael Jackson.
TONY MANERO
Cue the Bee Gees.
In Spanish, with English subtitles. Running time: 98 minutes. Not rated (violence sex, nudity). At Cinema Village, 12th Street, east of Fifth Avenue.