La triple muerte del tercer personaje

Besides Miguel Littin, Patricio Guzmán and Raúl Ruiz, Helvio Soto was the most famous Chilean director to go into exile. During the Frei Montalva government and the Unidad Popular era, Soto had directed films similar in tone and style to the popular political cinema en vogue in Italy, France and the United States at that time.

His very Damiani-esk titled Metamorfosis del jefe de la policía política (1973) was among the very first Chilean films to be screened outside the country after the putsch. With La triple muerte del tercer personaje, Soto continues in this vein, albeit in a decidedly more paranoid as well as allegorical register. After surviving incarceration and torture in a Latin American dictatorship, journalist Arturo writes a book about his experience. In his descriptions of the people and situations, he unwittingly unveils certain information deemed vital by a mysterious, internationally operating Organisation which goes on a killing spree. While Arturo finds himself in the centre of an affair beyond his immediate understanding, another prisoner who also survived slowly reveals himself as a key figure in this operation – player or target? One of the most enigmatic and suspenseful films of this corpus!

– Olaf Möller

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