White Elephant

White Elephant

Directed by Pablo Trapero

Argentina, 2012

Cornerhouse, 27 April 2013

As a priest in a slum neighbourhood, occupying an ivory tower while ministering to the poor, Julian (Ricardo Darin) feels as though he is being slowly ground down.

Nicolas (Jeremie Renier), a fractured fragile colleague, is called upon to fight the good fight alongside him.  Like the prince of peace, they are assailed on all sides by vested worldly interests: criminal gangs dealing drugs and fighting over turf, the police and the politicians on the city council, cut-throat construction companies, even the church establishment itself.  But, unlike with Jesus, miracles and much less the odd moments of simple grace are in short supply.

It is an aggravating film to watch, for you feel too much how impossible, how fatally compromised the priests’ predicament is.  The way in which the film comments en passant on how reputation and myth are made, how canonisation occurs, is impressive.  Some excellent performances grace the film, not least from Jeremie Renier.

Carancho (The Vulture)

Carancho (The Vulture)

Pablo Trapero

Argentina, 2010

Cornerhouse, 24 March 2012

It’s a typical noir tale.

On falling for a girl, a guy looks at his life and wants to make it better.  Love will do that to you.  Anyway, he decides that her love deserves more than what he is: an ambulance chaser, a dodgy lawyer.  She’s in a noble profession, a doctor working in A and E, and she could never ever, or so he feels, love him simply as he is, warts and all.  No, she is too pure and perfect for that.  Even though when he goes down on her on their first date, she seems to like it a lot.

So the dodgy lawyer (the brilliant Ricardo Darin) decides to become a good man: a fine notion.  But in doing so he thereby threatens the livelihood of his similarly dodgy, not to say violent colleagues.  And so they act (and attack) to protect their interests.  Naturally.

And another thing: the doctor, working long hours in A and E, has been taking drugs in order to function, I’m guessing amphetamines.  She’s got a bit of a dependency.

The upshot is that this great love, a catalyst that he (they?) believed could transform everything, becomes mired in the messiness of contemporary urban life.  You have two fallible people bonded by a fragile love, running scared, making a bid for freedom.

As a noir experience, it is a terrific film, well worthy of David Goodis, Jim Thompson, one of those guys.  Imagine The Getaway without the happy ending.  That’s how it crashes out.

The Secret in Their Eyes

The Secret in Their Eyes
Directed by José Campanella
Argentina & Spain, 2009
Cornerhouse, 4 September 2010

Still from The Secret In Their Eyes

The film that won the Best Foreign Film award at this year’s Oscars.

It is a curious blend of crime drama and love story, set against the backdrop of Peron’s Argentina.  When a young bride is raped and murdered, Benjamín Esposito (Ricardo Darín) is assigned to the case.  He promises the bereaved husband justice, ‘a life sentence’ for the killer but no more, and he is  led to acknowledge, gradually,  his love for a woman whom he has long neglected.  For if he doesn’t act on his desire both he and she will be serving a life sentence of their own.

If you can imagine James Ellroy putting his own characteristic spin on Chekhov’s ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’ (with Ricardo Darín playing the part of Gurov) then you will have some sense of what the film is like.  This may take quite a bit of imagining, granted.

On the whole, The Secret in Their Eyes is a richly rewarding experience.  And never has the truth of the proverb that revenge is a dish best eaten cold been better illustrated.