The protagonist of the film is the famous Chilean poet Neruda . He was not only a poet, but also a member of the Communist Party of Chile. In 1948, he began a three-year exile for speaking out against Chilean President Vidra.
At the beginning of the film, we see how beautiful the poet is among the people. In a tavern, artists and intellectuals sang and laughed together happily. Neruda plays Lawrence of Arabia, a guerrilla fighter in the desert. His enthusiastic performance was greeted with applause, and he recited his own poems in anticipation of the audience. But the good times didn't last long, the government was relocating party leaders and the Communist Party of Chile was outlawed. Partisans came to tell Neruda that they had to go underground .
Neruda dared to confront the president in person, accusing him of being a lackey. Although it was still useless after the showdown and game with the president, this may be his last insistence as a member of the Communist Party. Before escaping, he also took a photo with his wife. Romantic and poetic , extreme and rebellious . A great hunt of the century begins.
Then came the police officer Oscar , who was chasing Neruda . He was majestic and full of self-confidence. His father was the founder of the police agency, O'Villier. According to the family heritage and professional inertia, he should also be a rational and ruthless policeman. But from the moment he began to hunt down Neruda, his body began to be filled with infinite poetry.
"I'm a good policeman, but I can also be a good artist." The first chase ended in failure, and they came to Neruda's residence and fled. The police began to use poetic narration to describe everything related to the pursuit, which was likened to an expedition to Egypt. When he didn't catch Neruda, he often missed him. "He must have been writing erratic sentences, trivial poetry." "He was trapped in four walls and a ceiling, just like me."
Miraculously, Neruda left him a police novel. Perhaps this behavior itself is ironic, or it may just be a friendly gift, but the police gradually gave birth to a literary atmosphere and insisted on reading it every day.
From then on, a simple "cat and mouse game" turned into a poetic pursuit again and again . The hunter and the hunted person form a beautiful rhyme in a poem in the course of their journey. Police officers make sacrifice the unique art of their profession, as well as poetry with a pleasing aftertaste. They found Neruda's ex-wife and wanted to use it as a breakthrough to capture Neruda. The policeman fell in love with this woman, although he couldn't tell whether it was love or some other feeling.
Neruda, an exile, continued to flee, and was found by the people in a tavern. A singer strongly asked him to read the poem. He looked at the singer, finished reading the whole poem with sadness and excitement, and welcomed the singer's affectionate kiss. Neruda continued his poetic writing, and the long poem "Songs" was completed while on the run. The "I ask for punishment" at the end of each paragraph is both an irony of exile status and a voice for the people.
As Neruda recited the manuscript, his wife reminded him to use "the voice of the poet. " It turned out that during the course of his exile, his identity had quietly changed. He is not only a poet, but also a politician and an exile . The closer you get to the people, the better you understand the suffering of the people at the bottom.
Once, he met a beggar, but since he left without a penny, all he could do now was give her a deep hug. The police came to chase again, and again failed. Neruda deliberately left a small book as a gift to the police, and he read it carefully again. The organization began to have a new plan for Neruda to leave Chile as soon as possible. So he changed his makeup and reborn.
The police had an encounter with Neruda's wife, and he was of course eager to know where Neruda had gone. And Neruda's wife replied that the police couldn't catch him because he created the police (the role).
In Neruda's "playbook," everyone revolves around the protagonist. In one of his novels, there is a hunter and a fugitive . One of them is the protagonist and the other is the supporting role . But that didn't convince the police, and he didn't admit to being a supporting actor. He became more determined to catch Neruda, and the image of a down-and-out policeman came to the fore. He put on his helmet and set off on a motorcycle. It is worth mentioning that this paragraph clearly pays homage to "Motorcycle Diary" . And it was Gael García Bernal who played Che Guevara that year .
In the end, the film ushered in a rather poetic ending. The police walked out of breath on the snowy wasteland. He recited verses, imagining his various connections to the poet. Maybe he already fell in love with him . And Neruda also felt a sense of sympathy for the police who chased him. It was he who kept this poet tossing and turning all the time. In this way, the game of "Cat and Mouse" is no longer about chasing and escaping, but has become an affectionate "masochism" between two men. And they are also chasing each other, forming a wonderful intertext like chords, hovering between the verses .
The last thing I want to say is that it is his poems that make Neruda remember for future generations, but for thousands of Chilean people, he is not just a poet. He is a pioneer who dares to fight, and a spokesperson for the people at the bottom.
As the end credits say— "these verses gave meaning to the nightmares they suffered, and they remembered the verses of anger."
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