QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM TALLINN

Roger Ebert, the influential Chicago-Sun Times film critic, coined the popular phrase, “empathy machine” in order to describe cinema. It is, however, much more than that. Film has a vibrant and eternal memory. Whether something has the hook to make it relevant in today’s 24/7 news cycle, cinema needs no rhyme or reason, other than the story merits telling. Time and again, cinema remembers and refuses to silence the past.

This seems a fitting way to describe the Chilean filmmaker, Diego Figueroa’s A Yard of Jackals. Set in 1978, when Chile was under the control of Augusto Pinochet‘s military junta, the story revolves around Raúl Peralta (Néstor Cantillana), an unassuming and quiet model maker who lives with and cares for his ailing mother. There’s the suggestion of a romantic affection between him and Laura (Blanca Lewin), a local tailor and part-time filmmaking assistant. When new neighbours suddenly appear next door, Raúl’s quiet life is upturned by their sinister and suspicious activities. He hears the disturbing sounds of frightened pleas, raised voices and music turned up to drown out the ruckus. When Raúl calls the police, they are dissuaded from interfering by mysterious and intimidating men.

Under Figueroa’s inexperienced yet assured hand, A Yard of Jackals is patiently manoeuvred. The director waits for the logical juncture to present itself, then the horror-esque psychological thriller begins to usher in the sensibilities of the spy film.

It’s easy to be lured into describing A Yard of Jackals as a psychological thriller only, but this fails to acknowledge its layered form. Throughout, it’s in direct conversation with the horror genre, and reminds us how pliable it is. The film is emblematic of the unstable and unpredictable boundaries of genre cinema, and Figueroa wastes no time in seeing that this playfulness affords him the opportunity to flex his artistic muscles.

The director does this to great effect, particularly in the early going. He creates a potent atmosphere of palpable suspense, tension and paranoia. A Yard of Jackalsbenefits from the emphasis of sound design over music, by luring the audience into Raul’s nightmare of paranoia and suspicion. As if we can’t resist creeping nearer, Figueroa is there to give us a push down the rabbit hole.

As is common in horror, we are the only witnesses to what Raúl says he has seen and heard. Never venturing into those futile efforts to convince others, the film adequately suggests that Raúl is a shadow of these archetypal characters. In one striking scene, a neighbour says she didn’t hear any noises—her sick husband kept her awake. The few encounters with the couple tell us that Figueroa is using horror tropes to contextualise the clandestine military authorities in a creative and engaging way. Masterfully isolating Raúl, the director plants a seed of instinctive distrust in his audience—who can Raúl really trust? Figueroa delicately builds his paranoid and vulnerable character who is becoming unhinged. A Yard of Jackals manipulatively leads us into questioning what’s real and what’s not, even though it’s never Figueroa’s intent to create such doubt—the parameters are clearly drawn.

That’s not to say he doesn’t enjoy allowing his film to function on parallel layers. And like Martin Scorsese’s knack for making you feel the emotions of his characters, as though it were us cruising around New York in a taxi cab or ambulance with an exhausted stare of despair in Taxi Driver (1976) or Bringing Out the Dead (1999), Figueroa allows his audience to feel present in Raul’s oppressive psychological and emotional ordeal.

Throughout A Yard of Jackals, Figueroa explores the importance of knowledge or awareness and its perilous implications. Early on, there’s a deliberately orchestrated misunderstanding that emphasises this, and echoes the reality of Chile’s military dictatorship. Laura, however, presses the point about compromising ourselves and getting in too deep. In some ways, Figueroa’s film takes the Hitchcockian model of Rear Window (1954), and strips away the innocent playfulness of the precarious gaze, and thrusts us into a non-romanticised take on the heroic exploits. Meanwhile, a few surprising and likely unintentional similarities evoked are Joe Dante’s The ‘Burbs (1989), itself a story about intrusive new neighbours, and Brian de Palma’s Blow Out (1981), by way of Raúl and Laura’s audio recording surveillance and its ensuing fallout.

Figueroa’s feature debut is striking for its reflections on the integrity of cinematic storytelling. The film’s key scene is when Raúl looks in the broken mirror and his reflection is split into three. A Yard of Jackals is all about guilt, projection, and layers of truth. Almost like a magician and the art of misdirection, Figueroa creates a fluidity between wake and sleep, reality and dream. One of the thoughts that occurred to me watching A Yard of Jackals is how Figueroa is replicating that period where we’re unaware that we’re drifting off to sleep, and much of the film is a template of that natural flow in and out of that state—not only about dream or nightmare, but that period beforehand.

The story is constructed around an act of projection and the way Figueroa chooses to tell it creates a collision between different points of view. This enters into direct conversation with the idea that, this film is an example of narrative storytelling as a fabrication of truth and coercion, which is necessary to tell the story. Figueroa compels us to comprehend the limitations of cinematic storytelling, whether it be the camera and the challenges of committing to a point of view, as well as the layers of authorship that exist in a single narrative.

In the wake of Donald Trump’s Presidential election victory and his threats to use the military to go after his political enemies, an echo of autocratic practices, gives films about “forced disappearances” on the troubled South American continent like A Yard of Jackals and Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here (2024) a renewed energy. A Yard of Jackals is an impressive first feature that manages to get under one’s skin, and yet, with humility, it encourages a simple and quiet appreciation. This, however, doesn’t prevent Figueroa from showcasing his command of the cinematic language and evoking cinema’s playfulness with genre.

A Yard of Jackals just premiered in the First Feature Competition of the 28th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.