How many actual laughs are there in Tony Manero, a Chilean black comedy about one man's obsession with Saturday Night Fever? Probably not that many - unless one counts the scene in which our hero defecates on the pristine white suit of a rival, or the one in which he becomes so enraged by a screening of Grease that he opts to break into the booth and club the projectionist to death. And yet a comedy this is - and one that perversely becomes more hilarious in hindsight, when the initial horror has had time to subside. Watching Tony Manero is like being accosted by a disturbed loner on a late-night bus. Assuming we survive, we may one day find it funny.
Alfredo Castro plays Raul, a 52-year-old nobody who models himself on John Travolta's disco idol, ineptly mouthing movie dialogue and essaying dance moves with a frowning, joyless concentration. Chances are that you could put a jacket on a dog and teach it to walk on its hind legs and it would make a more convincing Manero. But no matter, because Raul's monomania is enough to draw a gaggle of adoring disciples. His harassed lover dotes on him, as does her nubile daughter and the elderly owner of the local ballroom. All of them want Raul, but Raul just wants to dance. Specifically, he wants to dance, as Tony Manero, in a TV talent contest. First prize is a blender, second prize is a poncho. And "no political talk" please, for this is 1978, the darkest days of the Pinochet regime, when loose talk can get you shot.
Tony Manero, the second film from writer-director Pablo Larrain, makes for a brilliantly clammy and unnerving piece of work. The action unfolds in a shiver of handheld camerawork and grainy, overcast colours. There is sex and larceny and random acts of violence. Some scenes literally lose their focus as the fog of madness blows in from the wings. You might file this as an acid satire of 1970s Chile, a time when imported escapism served to distract the masses from the real business of political oppression.
Alternatively, it can be viewed as a broadside against globalisation as a whole, spotlighting a sub-continent hopelesly hard-wired to US culture and stumbling blindly in search of an identity. This point is driven home in a brief but telling exchange between Raul and his girlfriend. "Manero is an American," she tells him gently. "You're not. You belong here."
Except that Raul, true to form, has no desire to ponder this statement. He's too busy killing people, too intent on rehearsing his routine or fashioning a makeshift glitterball from shards of broken glass. So off he goes, this shambling bulk of articulated body parts and crudely firing synapses, slouching towards the TV studio to be born.
What a terrific performance Castro gives us here: funny, scary and pathetic by turns. When Raul Peralta finally slithers on stage, it's a wonder the audience doesn't run for the exit. Perhaps they recognise one of their own. A round of applause for Dr Frankenstein's movie star; the sharp-suited mascot of a zombie nation. Wind him up and watch him dance.