When everybody is silent, no one is innocent

Continuing my trip up The Guardians Top 50 Films of 2019

#45 : Rojo

Benjamín Naishtat’s satire, set before the coup that installed a military junta in Argentina, is an enraging – and informative – parable of iniquity about the fate of the disappeared.

Funnily enough, I've never heard of this one - but who's not going to be tempted by a "parable of iniquity", eh?  Going on previous Argentine films, it's either going to be surprisingly good or mystifying obscure.  And I know what I'm expecting...

And well, it starts with Claudio going to a restaurant and getting into an argument with a guy about his table - and it's fair to say things escalate from there.  In a mystifying obscure manner, because after 15 minutes the other guy shoots himself in the head.  What?!?  So, obviously, the answer is for Claudio and his wife to put the guy in their car and drive to the beach.

I'm sorry, I don't have a clue what's going on here.  It's also accompanied by that "look at this, it's so mysterious" music that you used to get in 60s TV series, which is super annoying.   And then, 40 minutes in, I got a potential "Ahhhh - maybe THAT's what's going on!" but there's still an awful lot of unrelated strangeness going on like some American cowboys, a school dance performance, a deserted house, a room full of badly stuff animals, a status of a walrus, a solar eclipse - you name it!  And there's so much randomness that it's still not clear whether I'm on the right lines.

And then, 75 minutes in, we seem to be heading in a different direction - and they're going to have to get a move on though because they've only got 35 minutes left.  And, miracle of miracles, I was actually on the right lines - but nothing actually came of it, so Claudio goes to a dance recital with a wig on.  As you do (and don't worry - this isn't a spoiler).

And that's it.  And what a load of old nonsense it was.  I can believe that if you're a fan of political satire, you might recognise/understand some of what's going on here - and, quite frankly, you're welcome to it.  There is a vague theme of "disappeared" throughout the film, which is (I guess) the "satirical" element but it's not, for me, making any particular point - I'm left with the general feeling that political coups are a bad thing, but I think I might have thought that beforehand.

It's acted well enough - Dario Grandinetti carries the film as Claudio, but he is ably assisted by everyone else in the film (within the context of me not having the faintest idea what any of them are doing).  And I guess it looks fine as a representation of mid-70s Argentina, assuming that's what it looked like.  And the direction?  Well, let's be generous and say that I suspect he achieved what he was looking to achieve (but it wouldn't have been my choice).

And one final random comment which is nothing to do with the film at all - Argentina has the weirdest architecture with every building being just nuts.  And yes, I suspect there are plenty of un-photogenic buildings that were excluded - but there must have been some serious architecture drugs at play in South America around this time.

So - in case you haven't guessed by now, I didn't think much of this film.  I have to admit that I paid much closer attention to this than I might otherwise have done because I was trying to work out how the various things that were going on were related to each other and how they were all going to come together for a clever ending.   And boy do I now feel like I wasted that effort.  Rotten Tomatoes has very interesting (and not at all unexpected) ratings - the critics love it on 96% approval, whereas the audience (ie normal people) give it 39% (which still feels generous) and no audience member could be bothered to write a review (I mean, where do you start?).  I cannot, for the life of me, imagine who would want to watch this film - but it is available to rent in all the usual locations if you're mad enough to do so.

#46 - Engrossingly content-free
#44 - A whole lot of fun