So they ran the Sydney Latin American
Film Festival level with the Persian Film Festival as if tracking down fringe
movie shows wasn't hard enough. Why should they worry? The support they get
from the serious movie goers is in the area of nada.
I did manage to get to Capitan Kóblic
the new movie from the Un cuento chino/ Chinese Take Away (Argentina, 2011) team of director
Sebastián Boren-sztein and leading Argentinian star Ricardo Darin. This
one fields some of the most accomplished Hispanic performers and technicians to
back up Darin in one of his best “I may be tortured by my past but don’t mess
with me” characters. It works a treat.
In 1973 pilot Ricardo is on the run
after being involved in heaving opponents of the dictatorship out of a military
plane. Leaving the gaunt woman we never learn anything about, the most out of
sight he can get is seedy rural hamlet Colona Elena with its bare trees and
scruffy fields, which his old flier pal crop dusts. Ricardo moves into the
isolated hangar after being told to only use the airfield truck because his car
screams stranger.
 |
| Ricardo Darin, Capitan Koblic |
The plane’s motor failure means Ricardo
has to land on the highway just missing local Marshall Oscar Martínez (barely
recognisable from his equally impressive star turn in El ciudadano ilustre/Distinguished
Citizen). He’s the last person Ricardo wants to get to know as he wheedles
and re-shapes information about everything happening in town. Nothing like
providing him with a pilot whose plane is on the ground to go to work on. He
also shoots the pet dog that is barking while he interrogates its owner.
Martinez impeccably maximises the character’s complexity and menace.
Also around is young Marcos Cartoy Díaz,
in a Basque beret and patterned sweater, and a visit to the local garage to
pick up a tank of butane gas introduces Inma Cuesta (Blancanieves/Snow White),
the film’s most scrubbed up character, though she turns out also to have a
twisted back story. Soon she and Ricardo are in passionate embrace and her
loathsome husband Juan Bernardo Forteza is taking an unwelcome interest in
Ricardo, egged on by the sly implications of Martinez. Time for a bit of
The Postman Always Rings Twice. We’re not too far from Bad Day
at Black Rock either though the new film is a genuine original.
By this time all the characters have
surprised us and there are crows circling over the cornfield which can’t be a
good sign. The makers liked their shot of the owl on the gravestone too. It
turns up in the trailer. Ricardo now has a dog, a woman and a kid he owes big
to worry about, as well as the law and the military.
The way this is worked out is
particularly satisfying in the best action movie tradition, gaining more
strength from the detailed, miserable setting. I’ve commented on the community
between Argentina and Australia before - both countries separated from their
cultural roots by an ocean, both having a broad streak of military machismo.
It’s striking again here. Martinez keeps on evoking Chips Rafferty in Wake
in Fright and this time we get "amiguismo" which comes alarmingly
close to a perverted mateship.
The sure handling - sparse widescreen imagery
and plausible staging, the strong performances and the film’s inventively
violent streak make this one of the best pieces of popular cinema around. I'd
hate to suggest that there's any logic to the selection of material offered at
this festival. In fact, and more generally selection of
fringe film for the local market, especially 'festivals', seems
irrational. In further fact, Capitan Kóblic has a
firm-handed intensity which is unlike both the multiplex and art movies around.
It's closer to Alberto Rodriguez' 2014 La isla minima/Marshland. Capitan
Kóblic hasn’t been received with any enthusiasm outside its original market
which makes one worry about its fate in the limbo which has claimed so much
Hispanic film.
Watching the new Tom Cruise wide distribution
movie American Made also about a rogue pilot, I couldn't stop
thinking how much better Koblic was.
Honestly, Latin American cinema has much to talk about, and as it has been overcome over time, show the evolution that has had both the stories told, the actors and directors, simply, I love Latin American cinema
ReplyDelete