Pablo Larraín and Alfredo Castro — the director and star, respectively, of the acclaimed Chilean black comedy “Tony Manero” (2008) — reunite in the chilling “Post Mortem.”
In the earlier movie, Castro played a killer obsessed with the John Travolta character in “Saturday Night Fever.” This time around, he’s Mario, a meek clerk in the Santiago coroner’s office at the start of the brutal, US-backed military coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in 1973.
Mario, who looks like a zombie-fied Al Pacino, has the hots for a neighbor, Nancy (Antonia Zegers), a dancer who loses her job (she’s too skinny, her boss insists) at the sleazy Bim Bam Bum nightclub. She’s also involved with a cell of left-wing activists including her father and her hunky lover, who’s everything Mario isn’t.
In an inspired twist, Mario misses the noisy start of the coup because he’s taking a shower. Only when he emerges onto a vacant street does he realize that something momentous is taking place. As the bodies — including Allende’s — pile up at the morgue, Mario’s life spirals out of control in unexpected ways.