Playing hide-and-seek with a world-famous poet

FILM REVIEW black ink.” The suggestion is that Neruda may have invented his own nemesis — and how better to keep one step (or one page) ahead of him?

When we first meet Senator Neruda, he is arguing lustily with other statesmen about political corruption and American influence in their government. Threatened with arrest, he decides to disappear rather than be jailed. But, he concludes, “this has to become a wild hunt.”

Enter Pelochonneau, one of apparently 300 police officers sent to find him, though pretty much the only one we ever see in the film. With his tidy moustache and a fedora tilted just so, he is a bit of a dandy, and in one scene manages to walk right past his quarry, who is “disguised” as a photograph of himself.

Neruda proves to be almost as bad at hiding as Pelochonneau is at seeking. Rather than spend all his time indoors with his saintlypatient wife (Mercedes Moran), he thinks nothing of slipping outside for a stroll or to visit a brothel. The common people do not report him, although they do try his patience by constantly requesting Tonight I Can Write, a “greatest hit” poem written when he was 20.

Larrain has been busy of late. His English-language debut, Jackie, opened in Toronto on Dec. 9 with other cities to follow; The Club, a drama about disgraced clergy, had a brief theatrical run early this year. Neruda is perhaps the least accessible of the three, although it’s hardly opaque. Even if you’ve only heard of Neruda’s sonnets or his Stalinist leanings, you don’t need much in the way of introduction to enjoy this metanarrative.

And Pelochonneau’s obsession with his prey is wonderful to behold. After Neruda’s ex-wife refuses to denounce him on the radio, the policeman pulls her away from the mic and addresses the nation himself, but the worst he can bring himself to say about Neruda is that the man is “a public menace and an unforgettable lover.”

His plan to have Neruda’s ex vilify him has failed. “This is how the strategy of plot geniuses falls apart,” he moans in voice-over. Within the movie, that may be true. But viewed from the outside, this is one more example of how it all comes together. ∂∂∂½