Nobel Prize winning poet, Pablo Neruda (played by Luis Gnecco) is the dramatic centre of Neruda, a film set in post-World War II Chile, when the country’s authoritarian president bans Communism and arrests anyone associated with the Communist Party.

Pablo Neruda is a conflicted figure. His position as a senator in Chile’s government is quickly jeopardised because of his membership of the Communist Party. He is revered as a poet by his country but despised by the President and his government because of his Communist affiliation.

Although Neruda supports the working class in his speeches and poetry and exhorts them to behave like revolutionaries, he also expects to be treated in a manner befitting royalty by those same workers.

This contradiction is questioned starkly when a woman confronts Neruda and asks whether, when the revolution happens, her status will become equal to his elite position or will he become her equal. It is a subtle but critical distinction.

People accept and tolerate just about anything Neruda says and does because he is cherished. When his poetry is infused with his leftist political views, the government decides to imprison him.

Rather than surrender, Neruda and his leftist artist wife Delia del Carril (Mercedes Moran) become fugitives. The President assigns Police Inspector Peluchonneau (Gael Garcia Bernal) the specific task of capturing Neruda.

Director Pablo Larrain, whose last film outing, Jackie, portrayed Jacqueline Kennedy following the assassination of JFK, turns Police Inspector Peluchonneau’s pursuit of Neruda into a film version of a 1940s style pulp fiction detective novel. 

He has colourised the film in a style reminiscent of old film that has been damaged by age and heat. Many shots are blown out with lens flare and overexposed highlights. It’s like watching a discarded home movie discovered in a box hidden in the garage.

Peluchonneau becomes as important to the narrative as Neruda. He is always a step behind Neruda yet never manages to catch him. The policeman also provides an interesting voiceover throughout the film that makes it seem as if he is not only a character in the film we are watching but also a character in a fiction created by Neruda himself. Don’t worry; it’s not as confusing as it sounds.

This is Larrain’s interpretation of the actual events surrounding Neruda’s flight from the authorities. It is neither a documentary nor an accurate historical account of the real events. He molds these events to create a personal vision regarding the facts surrounding the poet Neruda that is distinctive and enthralling.