Azor

Banking on Argentina.

(2021) Drama (MUBI) Fabrizio Rongione, Stéphanie Cléau, Elli Medeiros, Alexandre Trocki, Pablo Torre Nilson, Juan Pablo Geretto, Gilles Privat, Carmen Iriondo, Yvain Julliard, Juan Trench. Directed by Andreas Fontana

 

The veneer of gentility is often thin indeed, particularly in an atmosphere dominated by uncertainty and fear. In Argentina as the 20^th century turned into its eighth decade, a brutal military junta had begun a period of repression in which thousands disappeared. Not all of these were from the poor classes; anyone who expressed disagreement with the regime might find themselves gone, even those from the aristocracy.

Swiss banker Yvan de Wiel (Rongione) has arrived in Buenos Aires along with his sophisticated wife Ines (Cléau). He’s a third-generation partner in a Swiss private bank – one only open to the super rich. They are there to reassure their clients that all is well after his partner Rene Keys disappears. Yvan travels from board rooms to opulent gardens, from oak-paneled studies to modern offices, meeting with Argentina’s elite.

Conversations rotate around small talk, rarely lingering long on Argentina’s political situation. People are disappearing and there is palpable fear underneath the genteel world of cocktails, formal dresses, palatial homes and luxury cars. As Yvan quietly investigates the disappearance of his more passionate partner (Yvan is low-key to the point of stupor), he comes more and more into the orbit of those near the junta who are behind the repression and brutality. Especially threatening is the Monsignor Tatosky (Nilson), who purrs “Parasites must be eradicated, even from the best families.” It chills one to the bone.

This is not the kind of movie that has a machine-gun pace; it’s a slow burn, so much so that the viewer might get a chill from time to time. Fontana keeps the tension high without resorting to anything overt; everything is done with subtle glances here, an oblique camera angle there, a pregnant silence over there. In fact, I don’t thin there are many films that have utilized silence as well as this one does; it is the things unsaid in this film that matter almost more than the things that are said.

He gets stellar performances from his two leads who are perfectly cast; Cléau eggs her husband on much like Lady Macbeth, only more cultured and urbane, picking out his suit so as to impress but not outshine. She advises him on matters of decorum and is anything but a conscience; more like a cattle prod, in that regard, urging him to do whatever is necessary to maintain the couple’s status and privilege. “Your father was right; your weakness makes you mediocre,” she observes at one point. It is her way of motivating him, because Yvan is just filled up with self-doubt enough not to trust in his own competence.

In some publications, there are comparisons for the final act with Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and there is certainly some justification for that. It involves a river journey that…well, I won’t spoil it, but suffice to say is the heart of this film’s darkness. This is a movie chilling in ways that horror films are not, nor can they be. This is the banality of evil, on display in the latest Armani suits.

REASONS TO SEE: Elevates the tension nicely under the thin veneer of gentility. Fine performances throughout the ensemble cast. Captures a period in Argentine history not well-chronicled in the States.
REASONS TO AVOID: May be too slow of a burn for some.
FAMILY VALUES: There is period smoking.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Fontana’s grandfather was a Swiss private banker; the film is loosely inspired by his experiences.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 9/14/21: Rotten Tomatoes: 100% positive reviews; Metacritic: 85/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Missing
FINAL RATING: 8/10
NEXT: I Love Us

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The Sharks (Los tiburones)

On the inside looking out.

(2019) Coming of Age Drama (Breaking Glass) Romina Bentancur, Federico Morosini, Fabian Arenillas, Antonella Aquistapache, Valeria Lois, Bruno Pereyra, Jorge Portillo. Directed by Lucia Garibaldi

 

Janis Ian once wrote a song called “At Seventeen,” about a young girl’s awakening to sexuality and objectification, misogyny and emotional heartache. I wasn’t yet 17 when the song came out and I remember being absolutely confused by it; do girls really feel this way? Is this what they go through? No wonder I don’t understand them. If you think understanding the truth at seventeen is no picnic, try doing it at fourteen.

But that’s what faces 14-year-old Rosina (Bentancur), who lives in an Argentine seaside resort. When we first meet her, she’s running away from her home to the beach, chased by her father (Arenillas). We learn that she has injured her older sister Marianna (Aquistapache) who needs stitches near her eye. Rosina claims she didn’t mean it, but her diffident behavior makes you wonder if she did. As the two leave, Rosina sees a dorsal fin come out of the water. Could it be a shark? Nobody believes that it is; sharks are apparently rare in those waters.

Her father decides that Rosina will spend the summer helping him out doing maintenance on a resort – sweeping the debris off the tennis courts, pruning shrubs and so forth. She takes a shine to Joselo (Morosini), an older boy who is supplementing his fishing income by working for Rosina’s dad. In turn, Joselo has an interest in Rosina but it’s purely sexual. They meet at the garage where Joselo hangs out; he masturbates and she watches, but ignores his please for her to touch herself. Finally, he gives up and seems to lose interest in her.

But she doesn’t lose interest in him. She tries a number of different ways to keep his attention, but his focus seems on hanging out with his mates, playing soccer and trying to hook up with someone older. In the meantime, a seal carcass has washed up on the beach and the fishermen, whose livelihood could be decimated by a shark, start taking her story seriously.

Bentancur gives Rosina a perpetually bored, morose expression as if she is far above what is going on around her but at the same time can’t be bothered to change her circumstances. She is isolated within her own family group; her self-absorbed mother (Lois) is trying to start up an online beautician business without a basic understanding of computers, much to Rosina’s eye-rolling bemusement. Marianna, who is stressed out over a college entrance exam, she can’t stand and her little brother is beneath her notice. She spends most of her attention on Joselo and exploring her burgeoning sexuality, sometimes in graphic terms that might make the average guy squirm. Rosina feels like a real teenage girl, with all the maddening drama and emotional fallout that implies.

Garibaldi often places the camera behind Rosina, who never so much as cracks a smile until the movie’s final shot, almost as if we’re following her around like a documentary crew. She often uses wide shots to expand the distance around Rosina, even in interiors. We feel her isolation nearly from the get-go.

The pace is very deliberate and there isn’t a whole lot of action, so this is the kind of movie that Gene Siskel might have loved. Those with short attention spans and who are in need of more aggressive stimulation are probably not going to look on this movie kindly. Those who want to get into a character’s world – not inside her head so much because Bentancur gives such an internalized performance as Rosina – and who want to experience a certain moment in that character’s life unfiltered will probably delight in this. You’ll have to decide which camp you’re in and choose accordingly.

REASONS TO SEE: Rosina is a fascinating and realistic character.
REASONS TO AVOID: Somewhat slow-moving.
FAMILY VALUES: There are sexual situations, profanity and adult themes.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT:  This Sundance world dramatic entry from 2019 is Garibaldi’s first feature film.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Vudu
CRITICAL MASS: As of 4/15/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 88% positive reviews, Metacritic: No score yet
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Mystic Pizza
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: The Legend of Swee’ Pea

Operation Finale

The banality of evil.

(2018) True Life Drama (MGM) Oscar Isaac, Ben Kingsley, Mélanie Laurent, Lior Raz, Nick Kroll, Michael Aronov, Ohad Knoller, Greg Hill, Torben Liebrecht, Michel Benjamin Hernandez, Joe Alwyn, Greta Scachi, Peter Strauss, Haley Lu Richardson, Pêpê Rapazote, Rainer Reiners, Simon Russell Beale, Rocio Muñoz, Rita Pauls, Ania Luzarth, Tatiana Rodriguez, Antonia Desplat. Directed by Chris Weitz

 

When describing Adolph Eichmann, one of the architects of Hitler’s Final Solution and who organized the transportation of millions of Jews to concentration camps, historian Hannah Arendt coined the phrase “the banality of evil.” Eichmann was one of two high-profile Nazis who managed to escape Germany before the Nuremberg trials (Josef Mengele was the other). This film is about the efforts of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad and their efforts to capture Eichmann who had fled to Argentina and bring him to trial in Jerusalem.

Kingsley plays Eichmann with as a man of iron wrapped in a cardigan sweater. He is hunted by a team dispatched by Mossad chief Isser Harel (Raz) and led by Rafi Eltan (Kroll) with operatives including interrogator Peter Mendel (Isaac) and physician Hanna Elian (Laurent). Mendel is particularly haunted by the deaths of his sister and her family at the hands of the Nazis.

Told in the style of a spy thriller but lacking the twists and turns of a good one, Weitz manages to keep the dramatic tension at a decent level (although not an extraordinary one) and benefits from powerful performances from Kingsley, from whom we have come to expect them, and Isaac who is rapidly becoming a big star in his own right.

The movie flew under the radar when it was released in the dog days of August back in 2018 which is a bit of a shame; it deserved a better fate. That can be rectified however as you have the opportunity to catch this via a variety of streaming platforms, listed below. It is worth your while to do so.

REASONS TO SEE: Strong performances by Isaac and Kingsley. There’s a good sense of dramatic tension.
REASONS TO AVOID: At times the film feels a little bloodless.
FAMILY VALUES: The themes are decidedly adult and there are some graphic images related to that; there is also some brief profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Michael Benjamin Hernandez is the younger brother of Oscar Isaac.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, Epix,  Fandango Now, Google Play, Hulu, Microsoft, Redbox, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 1/12/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 60% positive reviews: Metacritic: 58/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Munich
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT:The Wife

And Soon the Darkness

Both these girls need to take Horror Movie Heroine 101 over again

(2010) Thriller (Anchor Bay) Amber Heard, Odette Yustman, Karl Urban, Adriana Barraza, Cesar Vianco, Michel Noher, Luis Sabatini, Daniel Figuereido, Jorge Booth, Gia Mantegna, Javier Luna, Andrea Verdun.  Directed by Marcos Efron

Travel is one of life’s sublime pleasures. Seeing a new place, investigating a new culture can be a good way of broadening your horizon and gaining new perspective. Travel in a foreign  country however can be exceedingly dangerous as well.

Stephanie (Heard) and Ellie (Yustman) are a couple of cute American girls who decide to break off from their tour group in Argentina and go biking around some of the more rural parts. Two young girls alone, who don’t speak the language biking in a rural part of a country not known for being the safest place on earth. Sounds reasonable to me.

They stop by the Hotel Ass End of Nowhere and are warned to stay away from a certain lake by the desk clerk (Barraza). They need to get up early to catch a bus that will take them back to their group, so of course they go out and party the night before. While Stephanie is the responsible one, Ellie never met a guy she didn’t flirt with or a drink that didn’t make her shout WOOOOOOOOH! (the international mating call for college-age girls). Of course that leads to a tussle in which  strong silent guy named Michal (Urban) kicks the shit out of a local who is getting too familiar.

Of course in the struggle the alarm clock gets unplugged, they miss their bus and decide to go to the forbidden lake to sunbathe in skimpy bikinis. Of course they have an argument and Stephanie storms away. Of course Ellie disappears. Of course the police, in the form of Calvo (Vianco) dispute that Ellie is gone. And Michael, who claims to be looking for his own girlfriend, complicates matters. Is he really looking for his girlfriend or is he in fact the one who took Ellie?

Director Efron based this on a 1970 British film of the same name. I actually saw that one a long time go; there are some images I remember from it but little else save that Pamela Franklin played the good girl and Michele Dotrice the party girl – OK I remembered Franklin but I had to look Dotrice up on IMDB.

Heard is an appealing actress who is one of those performers who always puts on a performance that no matter how bad or how good the movie is, is always a strong effort. She has kind of a stock horror movie role of the plucky heroine and there really isn’t a lot she can do with it, but she makes the best of it. Yustman is a beautiful girl who sometimes gets roles that basically has only that element to them –  the pretty party girl. She does it well enough but I get the sense that she has much more in her than that. I hope she gets to show off her range one of these days.

One of the problems with this movie is that it is based on a movie that really has a lot of clichés built into it. The original could have used a little more originality and the remake doesn’t give the original any twists, nothing that would set it apart from the rest. Karl Urban, who was so good in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, plays the suspect with a likable performance but you never get the sense that Michael is seriously the culprit.

You should figure out what’s going on pretty early on. This is one of those movies where the heroines put themselves into jeopardy by acting in a way no intelligence young woman (whom Stephanie is purported to be) would ever act. Sorry guys; if you’re going to get two young women taking a bike tour on their own in Argentina, you’re going to need a better way than this to get them isolated and vulnerable. You’re also going to need a better movie than this to get my attention.

WHY RENT THIS: Some genuinely thrilling moments. 

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: An extremely derivative movie that could have used some stronger performances from its stars.

FAMILY VALUES: There’s a lot of violence, a bit of brief torture, an even more brief bit of sexuality and a little bit of bad language.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: While this movie is set in Argentina, the original British thriller it’s based on was set in France.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: There is a director’s video diary here if you like that sort of thing.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: Not available

FINAL RATING: 4/10

TOMORROW: One Day