Wonderful character development!

Let's be realistic.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Post Mortem is very slow moving and it never really picks up. The head scratching confusion reminds of French film making. It has a couple of really good moments that will stick with you, such as a scene during which the two main characters enjoy a good cry, a prolonged sex scene, and the final drawn out scene involving moving furniture, but all in all it's a lot of this and that without much cohesion. Basically a civil servant in charge of documenting autopsies falls in love with a bulimic showgirl who belongs to a communist group that is wanted by the state. When the state begins indiscriminately murdering the communists, our protagonist must hide his love behind a cabinet in his wall--except one problem: she has a boyfriend. There are some very explicit scenes of naked dead people but beyond that there isn't any real violence or action. The film is very moody and slow, interesting enough to sit through but not something you'll probably go and rave to your friends about. If you're a film student or just love foreign films you'll probably dig it. I thought it was okay but just wished something more suspenseful would have happened. It can't all be about atmosphere.

This is a great movie, but if you are accustomed to standard movies, where the story is pretty straight forward, then this is not for you. For understanding what's going on you need to know what was going on in the country in those days. The movie mixes history with black humor, with non sense and tells you important things without telling them directly. That's why I really like the movies of this Director, he is telling you something behind the scenes that's very powerful, but if you only focus yourself on the 'standard' plot then you missed the whole point. I really liked Tony Manero and this one, great movies but only if you go a step ahead, otherwise I agree that it could be nonsense, but definitely is great just for those able to understand it.

This disturbing movie is a masterpiece. It's about the death of a nation and the death of people. And love. It looks as has been shot in 16mm and blown up to normal format: the image is dirty, the characters are "ghosts" coming from the past, the violence is chilling. Mario, the main character, is a kind of social chameleon trying to survive in a dead society. Some scenes are unbearable: the way Mario goes backstage in the theater, the close shot of Nancy in the dressing room (think of Dreyer), the crying scene at the table, the final, incredible scene, a kind of "modern art work" putting objects one above the other. Larrain is one of the new masters of contemporary cinema, and his actors are great. Unforgettable.

I had recently watched this movie on "Festival International de Cine de Valdivia" (Valdivia's International Film Festival) and it was awful. The movie starts slowly with the story of Nancy Puelma (Antonia Zegers), a cabaret dancer, and Mario (Alfredo Castro). But the developing of the story doesn't catch the viewer, it doesn't have any interesting on it. The only story that was interesting, about Mario's job, doesn't get developed very well, and we only get the worst performance of Zegers ever, and a very very boring movie that doesn't deserve my time. On the Cinema that i had watched this only 2 people applauded at the end of the movie. It was like "What the hell!!... Why i'm watching this? This movie doesn't have any sense". There's a lot of new chilean movies that are way better than this movie. I'm NOT a follower of a dictator (Pinochet). I believe in independent political liberal ideologies. And I simply think that there are way better Chilean movies that threats these political themes in a better way like "Machuca", "Fiesta Patria", and "Bastardos en el Paraiso". In fact, Post Mortem SUCKS.