This latest film by Adriazola ands Sepúlveda is a summa bringing together certain thematic motifs from their work: the gulf between the person and the mask, and how that space can be harnessed to produce anarchic and destabilising situations where the boundaries between pretence and reality are torn down by a satire so ferocious that it no longer seems to be one. In Cuadro negro, un proyecto infernal, the production of an “artistic documentary” about the Chilean army serves as a fabulist framework for portraying not only its protagonist—another memorable female character in the duo’s filmography (the impressive Sofía Paloma Gómez)—but a whole society. The country is gripped by a systemic crisis, and each shot exudes an air of catastrophe. The protagonist acts as a pivot around which revolve the most antagonistic identities a society can produce: from a grandmother who feels as if she is being watched and fears for her life, as if living under dictatorship, to a group of old women who are nostalgic for Pinochetism. Her work as a documentarist allows Sofía to give orders to soldiers, but also immerses her in a humiliating atmosphere. This polarity and the film’s historical thrust are duly introduced by the double meaning of the title: Cuadro Negro refers to the oldest equestrian acrobatic unit of the Chilean army, but also alludes to an absent, hidden event, so macabre that it cannot be depicted.
Manuel Asín