Tony Manero: Slow Disco
Tony Manero a Chilean film that revolves around a man obsessed by the film Saturday Night Fever. For him the obsession is not a Fully Monty style escape from unemployment but instead from dictatorship. In many ways he is a reflection of the Pinochet regime or perhaps a product of that regime?
Tony Manero is for the most part a solitary figure like many characters in cinema of late. Thinking here of IL Divo he is alive but dead. How the dead live? Alone he maybe but he is one part of the Tony Manero troupe who are Lima’s very own Saturday night Fever tribute dance act. We could see the troupe as representing the collective in Chilean society but Tony never feels comfortable among the confines of the troupe. He dominates the group as if a dictator. Glimpses of a printing press allude to political activity, fox like, Tony seems to avoid incrimination. One particular scene just after a curfew winds the night down at 10.30 the secret police arrive. You feel tension for all around but strangely enough you get a sense that Tony Manero will escape reprimand.
This film is by no means a comedy nor even a dark one for that matter. Shot in an austere style, pace is slumbering to such an extent that the music would even fail to move you to even a modicum of excitement. The film goes out its way to defy what you would expect not even giving you the release of a great dance scene. That of course was the secret to Travolta in the original Saturday Night Fever gritty realism gave way to the escape of the dancefloor. No such liberation for Tony Manero he seems to walk the disco dance of death.
The film has a dusty look that gives Lima of the seventies a slumbering look. In this original film we can see influences from film such as The Conformist. Like that the film could be asking how one remains normal in a fascist society. For violence we can see the influence of Le Boucher. The violence occurs suddenly which like the violence of the state can happen suddenly.
