![]() His wife begins to seem like a more advanced, or enflamed, version of whatever Yvan is. Cléau matches Rongione by out-underplaying him, which could not have been easy to do, so controlled is Rongione's affable, "I'm just an average guy trying to do a good job" take on the character. Rongione is outstanding throughout, but never better than when he's showing us how Yvan's "professionalism" amounts to a conscious suppression of any type of moral read on what’s happening. The rest of the scene proceeds with no comment on that line, but we see how it destabilizes Yvan. Then he gets Yvan by himself at the track and tells him that his boss was attached to Keys "like an addict sucking his dealer's cock." The language is shocking because nobody else in the film has talked that way yet. Like the other major characters, Deckerman speaks in genteel language. There's a driver in one client's employ that we are told is not good at driving, but is kept around because he's willing to do "other favours" for the boss.Ī lawyer named Dekerman (Juan Pablo Gereto) represents a major client, Aníbal Farrell (Ignacio Vila), who is threatening to withdraw his assets from the Swiss bank. We hear secondhand reports of an important man whose home was visited by the police, who "took everything" from his house. You can't find out why they didn't happen or where the absent person is. There are in-person and phone conversations about buying and selling things, but we aren't clear on how the items were obtained and whether they really belong to the sellers. The ellipses and frustrations that the couple encounters in their journey are the film's gateway into helping us feel, rather than intellectually understand, what happens when a military junta seizes control of a country and starts a campaign of destabilization and terror. ![]() Although it's probably against the manager's code to express political opinions on the job, he makes an exception because he's offended by the implication that something is rotten in Argentina. When the couple arrives at the hotel, an otherwise mundane conversation between Yvan and the desk manager takes an ominous turn after Yvan describes what they saw coming over. We never hear the voices of these men or the officers detaining them, but we're anxious that they'll be put against a wall and shot. Two young men are being held at gunpoint on the street. Yvan and Ines are brought from the airport to their hotel in the city by a driver who gets stopped by police checking IDs and asking questions. A private banker from Switzerland named Yvan de Wiel ( Fabrizio Rongione) has come to Argentina with his wife Ines ( Stéphanie Cléau) to find out what happened to his partner Keys, a mesmerizing absent presence like Harry Lime in " The Third Man" and Kurtz in assorted versions of "Heart of Darkness" (a tale Fontana directly references when the hero takes a boat upriver through a jungle), Keys is a complicated man, variously described as brilliant, distracted, depraved, untrustworthy, and charming. What's undeniable is that Keys left important business unfinished when he vanished, and it's Yvan's job to wrap it up.įrom the opening scenes of "Azor" we feel a gnawing dread. We're at the midpoint of a military purge of civilian government between 19 that killed, tortured or disappeared thousands and stole land and property from their families. Written and directed by first-time feature filmmaker Andreas Fontana, "Azor" takes its time introducing and exploring its setting. The takeaway feeling isn't, "Oh, the humanity," but, "What would I do if I were in that world? Would I be the revolutionary hero of my fantasies, or something else?" ![]() You come away from it feeling that you've been given a greater understanding of how authoritarian power-grabs happen. Set in Argentina in 1980, "Azor" is a quiet, unhurried, un-flashy film, and that's what makes it unnerving. ![]()
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