re:mote voices

Title: El Bonaerense
Cast: Jorge Román, Mimí Ardú, Darío Levy, Víctor Hugo Carrizo
Director: Pablo Trapero

El Bonaerense is currently showing in glasgow and edinburgh. an argentinian film that is being compared to other south american films like Amores Peros. having watched the film however i don't think it is fair to compare El Bonaerense to the recent successes of south american cinema. for the most part films like amores peros, y tu mama tambien, o invasor, and cicade de deus have all had a definite flair, character and impact. El Bonaerense could be said to be the complete opposite - the film is just a rambling low budget Indy, with no flair, or much of anything to make it particularly memorable.

the main character zapa comes across for the most part as lacking in emotion. there is nothing inspiring about this character or his story. the only times he shows any real emotion is in his relationship with a teacher at the police academy. who he engages in aggressive, somewhat repellant sex with - in some ways this could be considered to be sexual passion, but the undertones of their relationship don't really suggest anything positive. the rest of the time he seems to bumble along with out any real emotional involvement.

the plot as it stands is curious. zapa is a lock smith in a small village. he is asked to open a safe one night, and when he gets back to the work premises his boss has disappeared and he is promptly arrested the next morning. some wangle is worked so that rather than being charged with safe cracking he is instead transported off to beunos aires and enrolled as a police officer.

quite why any of this happens is not entirely explained. but it is used as an excuse for an aimless exploration of poverty and corruption. zapa sleeping on the streets, then in the back of police offices, while he gets set up. the trials of the police academy, followed by the back scratching structure of the police force and his dubious rise in the force.

with o invasor, another film set in buenos aires, we get a very different feel of the city and of the potential for the countries cinema. o invasor managed to capture the poverty with the travels through slums and the grimy side of the city and still have a verve and energy. while El Bonaerense tends to dwell on the gritty from start to finish, even in terms of the film quality which emphasizes these impressions.

would i recommend that people should check El Bonaerense out? no. there is nothing special about it and it feels on the whole a lot longer than it really is, so that watching it i became restless and was ultimately unsatisfied. so while it may not be a particularly bad film, i find it difficult to actually work up any enthusiasm for the piece.

the only amusement i have from El Bonaerense is the coincidence that i am currently reading Bangkok 8, by john burdett, which i have mentioned a couple of times before. argentina and thailand see some comparison in that they are both ambiguously on the line between first and third world countries. both these pieces deal with the major cities of the countries and with the lead characters being members of the police. in fact, the main thing which drew my attention to the similarities is that the lead characters both committed some crime, which they have become police men to avoid prosecution for. these little coincidences amuse me for some reason.