Carancho

About ten years ago, there were exciting things going on in the cinema of Argentina. The international resurgence around the turn of the millennium (with Nine Queens et al) resulted in a healthy state-funded production system, which in turn spawned a reactive and fertile counter-cinema (centred round Mario Llinás). Both thrived, and whilst the independent arm explored various interesting questions of narrrative and representation, the mainstream concentrated on making good, solid, as-it-were Hollywood far, of the type one bemoans Hollywood for making no longer.

Carancho means “vulture” and like the previous year’s Darín-starrer The Secret In Their Eyes is a slick, well-made, and exciting drama/thriller with an emotional thrust, handled in a thoughtful and adult fashion: that is to say, exactly what a popular movie should be. Ricardo Darín is a mainstay of this cinema, effortlessly rumpled, effortlessly ambiguous, and effortlessly charismatic. Here he’s an ambulance-chaser with a shady outfit that won’t let him go; he wants to straighten out as much for himself as for his handsome, somewhat surly, young doctor girlfriend, co-producer Martina Gusman, fine and understated, who turns out to be less held-together than she seems.

Director Pablo Trapero conjures a spot-on grubby night-time world as Darin hustles his way around crash sites, morgues, and hospitals, and he has a fine way with a chaotic action sequence. The film opens with an effectively sustained bang and closes with a double bang, preceded by some nice old-fashioned tension. He’s rather heavy on the close-up and jiggly handheld, but that’s just part of the lexicon, I suppose; elsewhere he gives the actors plenty of scope to play well with one another, in long, often locked-down takes and consistently well-composed two-shots. There’s nothing frightfully profound here – the state of healthcare is briefly bemoaned and there’s some tension between whether Darin is a vulture or can actually help the poor and uninsured who are his clients – but these are efficiently dispensed-with serious-theme-as-backdrop elements. Primarily the film tells of two people near the bottom of the barrel, trying to claw their way up and doing it together, and fitted out in a punchy and efficient urban action style, it works perfectly well.

d/p Pablo Trapero sc Trapero, Alejandro Fadel, Martín Maregui, Santiago Mitre ph Julián Apezteguia ed Ezequiel Borovinsky, Trapero ad Mercedes Alfonsín cast Ricardo Darín, Martina Gusman, Carlos Weber, José Luis Arias, Fabio Ronzano, Gabriel Almirón, José Manuel Espeche
(2010, Arg/Chil/Fr/SKor, 107m)