Chilean director Alicia Scherson, adapts Roberto Bolaño's posthumous manuscript The Third Reich into Summer War, with the blessing from Lotaro Bolaño, the author's son (serving as an executive producer). This is Scherson's second adaptation of Bolaño's work, the first one being The Future, based on A Little Lumpen Novelita, about two orphans and a recluse, former beefcake played by Rutger Hauer in Chile. The Third Reich, which was written in 1989, may lack the author's signature style of labyrinthine, POV shifting later works, but is just as sharp and complex in its observations of Latin America under political strife and legacy of colonialism.
Summer War takes place in Chile in February 1989, in the waning days of Pinochet dictatorship. A pasty, bespectacled gringo named Udo Berger (Dan Beirne) is vacationing in Santiago, staying in the same hotel he once visited as a child with his parents. He is there to write an article about a popular strategy board game called The Third Reich. It's a WWII inspired wargame with hexagonal chips with complicated rules and stats. Udo belongs to an enthusiastic players group in the US and takes the game very seriously. In fact, he brought the board game with him to play by himself, much to the chagrin of his gorgeous girlfriend Ingrid (Lux Pascal). Udo narrates that things have changed in Chile and it feels much safer since his last visit - someone describes it as, "like Florida, just a little bit dirtier."
While on the beach sunbathing and swimming, Udo and Ingrid befriend a group, headed by enigmatic Charly (Augustin Padella), an Argentine with his profession and background shrouded in mystery. Udo also notices a man with a burn mark on half of his face, locally known as El Quemado (burnt man), living on the beach, making a living by providing beach chairs and surf boards to beach goers.
One night, to Ingrid's dismay, they witness Charly beating up his girlfriend. When they tell locals about calling the police, they laugh it off. "No, the police aren't going to help." A few days later, Charly disappears after taking his surfboard out to the sea. Udo suspects a foul play. We get the feeling that below the surface of sun-kissed beaches, things are not as safe as it seems. Spooked by all these dark developments, Ingrid goes back home. Udo stays behind, telling her that he will stick around until the missing Argentine is found. Instead, he finds a formidable opponent in El Quemado, in playing the Third Reich with. Udo notices that Quemado is extremely fast at catching up with the game - The Allies are winning! Udo finds out Quemado is coached by a sick old proprietor of the hotel, whose wife he is having an affair with.
On the eve of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Pinochet stepping down, Summer War examines how the past lingers on in the minds and actions of people. As the board game bleeds into real life, things get intense. The Third Reich might be a harmless strategy game, a theoretical exercise for an American, but for people who lived and experienced everyday violence under dictatorship, which was assisted by the US government, it hits differently. For Quemado, it's not a mere game. He has to defeat the nazis.
Summer War is a synecdochical story of checkered Colonial/Imperialist history and the First World intervention in Latin America. Udo is an arrogant, yet naive man who thinks past memories and infatuations with the place give him the right to be there and stick his nose in other people's business. The film is an intriguing psychological study that is at once seductive and mesmerizing. Just like The Future, her previous Bolaño adaptation, Scherson relies on building a mood and tension rather than explaining things through dialog or narration while dealing with the complex geopolitical dynamics of the region.
Summer War plays part of Tribeca Film Festival on 6/7, 8, 12. For tickets and more info, please visit the festival website.
