Films like Neruda (most notably those of the Coen brothers) in recent years have been emerging more and more frequently, taking on a style inspired by documentary that when placed in a formulaic approach to storytelling (inciting incident, rising action, climax, denouement), takes an interesting spin on the biopic. I find this mix to be an inventive method for story-telling that is somewhat semi-fantastical and rather imaginative, that really speaks to the power of art and how it is able to use experience as a form in which to fit itself within in order to transform and/or heighten our understanding of that experience (to create a sort of logic or reasoning for the things that we do experience, to give sense to life). Director Pablo Larraín is able to do so effortlessly by merging reality and fiction, art and politics. He illustrates the relationship between President Gonzalez Videla and Pablo Neruda as one that is subtle, playing the fine line between the co-existence of these two parallel sphere: how politics feeds into art and how art in turn has the agency to determine or sway the direction of politics to a certain extent, and if not on that grand scope, at least on the micro level of influencing individuals’ understanding of people and how a system of people work, in turn creating empathy. I think here is where Larraín is incredibly strong—in building that empathy not so much for Pablo Neruda as for his invented detective character, Oscar Peluchonneau, who is an Apollonian balance to the rather Dionysian lifestyle Neruda leads but also adds a complexity to the hackneyed dichotomy of good and evil. It is this ability for art or film to share experiences that are “other” or outside of ourselves that the power of art has in creating culture.