COLONIA Review

COLONIA is a romance/thriller starring Emma Watson and Daniel Bruhl as a young couple caught up in the 1973 Chilean military coup, when General Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically-elected but left-leaning Allende government. The event launched a period of harsh repression during which thousands of people were “disappeared,” and torture and murder of suspected dissidents was common, a time that still haunts Chileans today. One of the dictator’s favor places for those interrogations was a remote compound occupied a shadowy religious cult with reported neo-Nazi leanings, known as Colonia Dignidad (Dignity Colony), whose leader Paul Schafer was an influential supporter of Pinochet.

This is real history and it sounds like a great premise for a gripping historical/political drama but COLONIA fails to capitalize on that potential. Instead, we get a fitful thriller that focuses more on a romance between the lead characters and less on the history. With a limp script and indifferent direction by Florian Gallenberger (who co-wrote the script), the film makes little use of either its talented cast or the inherent drama of the time and setting.

Emma Watson plays Lena, a flight attendant who is a regular on the Chile to Germany flights. Her German boyfriend Daniel (Daniel Bruhl), a photographer and activist, recently moved to Chile to work with the Allende campaign. His elation at the election of Allende quickly turns to panic, after the military coup and its subsequent rounding up of Allende officials and supporters. Tipped off that police are coming to arrest him, the couple sneak out of Daniel’s apartment but are captured anyway. Daniel is taken away in a van with a unique insignia on its side, which Lena eventually learns belongs to Colonia Dignidad, a mysterious cult from which members never return once they join. Nonetheless, when no one else will help, Lena joins the cult with hopes of finding and freeing Daniel. Her introduction to the religious community includes meeting its founder and leader, Paul Schafer (a very scary Michael Nyqvist), who is known in the colony as “Pius.”

The film starts well, with a nice thriller buzz and romantic chemistry between the leads, but fizzles almost as soon as Lena enters the Colonia compound. After being captured Daniel is tortured but is later released into the compound population when his captors think he is brain-damaged. The thriller tension dissipates after Lena’s very edgy entry interview with its chilling leader, who comes across as a mix of psychotherapist and madman, an unsettling combination. Nyqvist’s scene with Watson is frightening but as she settles into to the hard, oppressive life in the cult, the energy drains out of the film.

Oddly, hard as it is, there is something generic about the drudgery, restrictions and overbearing oppression in the religious community, and one gets little sense this is a real cult. Men and women are separated and minor infractions lead to harsh punishment. Apart from a lot of German names and German lederhosen and dancing in a show put on for visiting Pinochet dignitaries, there is nothing to suggest the actual colony’s purported neo-Nazi beliefs. The only specifics are underdeveloped plot elements about Schafer supplying poison gas and weapons to Pinochet, and creepy but mercifully brief hints about pedophilia.

Once in the compound, the story becomes increasingly far-fetched, but when the couple do find each other and plan an escape, at least the film returns to its thriller side and finds some energy. Even then it seems more conventional that one might wish.

The film is surprisingly light on historical detail, and the audience learns more about both Pinochet or Colonia Dignidad in the title cards at the end of the film than during the rest of the movie.

There is little the actors can do to rescue the script. Nyqvist tries, perhaps too hard, to interject menace into the compound scenes. Bruhl and Watson generate some nice romantic heat in early scenes but spend the later part of the film mostly just running.

COLONIA is a disappointing film that squanders a terrific opportunity to explore a horrendous, still murky historical time or to reveal more about the shadowy cult that aided Pinochet in his dirty work.

COLONIA opens on April 15th, 2016

OVERALL RATING:  2 OUT OF 5 STARS