Director Pablo Larraín: ‘Chile is my world. How can I not be allowed to talk about the things that happened to us?’

Augusto Pinochet returns as a bloodsucking vampire – together with Margaret Thatcher – in El Conde, the Chilean director’s black comedy horror. He talks about his fascination with the dictator and why, despite his family ties, he feels empowered to keep telling stories about his countryMargaret Thatcher and Augusto Pinochet are vampires in the new film from the Chilean director Pablo Larraín. Literally so: El Conde (The Count) drapes them in black capes and has them fly over the city, biting the necks of their victims and tearing hearts out of chests. Pinochet, in particular, is voracious and insatiable. The monster likes all types of blood, Thatcher explains with all the cloying condescension of her race and her class. “But naturally English blood is his favourite.”Larraín – a quick-witted, combative man in his mid-40s – has been fascinated by Pinochet for decades. As a child he watched him on TV and felt an instinctual aversion. As an adult he has made films about the dictator’s corr