A meditation on stardom and Cold War cultural imperialism centered on the winner of a televised look-alike competition whose resemblance to the eponymous movie star pulls him into a hall of mirrors.
In addition to working on a clandestine film attacking the Pinochet regime, Carlos Flores also directed a series of subversive films that indirectly critiqued the dictatorship’s brutal repression, conservatism and manipulation of popular culture as a form of insidious distraction. The Chilean Charles Bronson (Or Exactly Identical) offers a meditation on stardom and Cold War cultural imperialism centered on the winner of a televised look-alike competition whose resemblance to the eponymous movie star (whose name is itself an invention) pulls him into a hall of mirrors that Flores refracts further with great verve and humor. An unacknowledged, even phantom, precursor to Larrain’s Tony Manero, Flores’ film was never released theatrically in Chile and remains largely unseen, with this being its first public screening in the US.
$10 / $8 non-Harvard students and seniors / Harvard students free
Phone: (617) 496-3211
Email: bgravely@fas.harvard.edu
2023/02/25 - 2023/02/25
Harvard Film Archive
Harvard Film Archive Cinematheque, Cambridge, MA 02138
Although parking in Cambridge is difficult (most of the surrounding streets have restricted parking for Cambridge residents only), metered parking on Broadway and Harvard Streets, as well as the rest of Harvard Square, is free after 8pm. Film-goers are encouraged to use public transportation, particularly the MBTA Red Line.
This film has English subtitles.