Tony Manero

This film has lingered in my mind for a very long time.

The lead character is probably one of the scariest and most disturbing I have seen on cinema . He is without any morality and empathy but for some reason you are captivated by him and his life. You want him to succeed at first but as the film progresses you ate repulsed by him but stills obtain a fascination in his life. This is due to the writing and directing.?

The conditions and larger political scope of the film are well thought out, to live in that kind of fascistic government one such as the lead of this film is created and thrives. He is the logical product of that environment.

The scene when he kills the old woman for the TV is so disturbing i still think about it to this day and I saw it about three years ago.

The most haunting aspect for me was when he gets on the bus at the end and watches the winner of the competition and we all know what will happen, what he will do and what is store for his prey. Brilliant ending.

This is brutal, disturbing and amazingly directed.

TONY MANERO (dir. Pablo Larraín) The film is set in Chile during the fascist reign of Augusto Pinochet, and focuses on a man who is obsessed with John Travolta's discotheque super-star character in Saturday NIGHT FEVER. This might have been played for laughs, but Pablo Larrain's film is an evil fantasy of disco glory that portrays an obsessive and twisted character who is willing to kill to to fulfill his grotesque vision of acclaim. The frenzied violence in this film is so sudden and inexplicable that it literally takes your breath away. The film seems to present a subtle metaphor that compares the highly stylized nature of disco to the uncompromising fascist posturing of totalitarianism. ABSOLUTE MUST SEE

For a hit movie, 'Saturday Night Fever' is a surprisingly bleak and serious film; but not quite as dark as 'Tony Manero', a Chilean movie about a criminal whose life dream is to emulate the character played by John Travolta in the earlier film. Both the anti-hero, and the society he lives in (it's the Chile of Augusto Pinochet) are pretty rotten, and the film cuts neither any slack. Indeed, behind the black comedy, this is a portrait of a civilisation on the brink of collapse through a loss of respect for basic human dignity: the fake Manero desperately seeks dignity for himself in his act, but shows no respect for anyone else's. It's compelling, convincing, and yet, as a story, ever so slightly pointless: 'Satruday Night Fever' had its own redemption narrative, and while one can mock this as Hollywood softening, without any such story a film can seem slightly devoid of direction: it's hard to even imagine what a happy ending would have been for 'Tony Manero', so hopeless is the initial premise. It's still a good film; and fundamentally a political one, even though the politics is all implicit.

In the midst of the social context of the Pinochet dictatorship, Raúl Peralta, a man in his 50s, is obsessed with the idea of impersonating Tony Manero, John Travolta's character in the movie "Saturday Night Fever". Raúl leads a small group of dancers, who regularly perform at a bar on the outskirts. Every Saturday night, he unleashes his passion for movie songs by imitating his idol. His dream of being recognized as a successful showbiz star is about to come true when the national TV station announces a Tony Manero impersonator contest. His anxiety to reproduce the idol leads him to commit a series of crimes and thefts.

It is an extremely ambiguous film, at the same time that we feel sorry for the protagonist in the first ten minutes we feel the incredible that pulsates and disgust for its violent and obsessive data, bordering on the sick... A very interesting film with a differentiated approach, obsession for a idol, the dream of pursuing a profession and aggression taking on realistic contours...

The film, which conveys impressions from a country that is politically and economically collapsed, shows us how martial law situations actually get people out of control psychologically and sociologically rather than creating a control mechanism. You are increasingly watching your character's obsessions about the role model of a psychopathic character and their relationship with other people.