Rojo (2019)

Argentinian director and writer Benjamín Naishtat has created a gripping thriller blended throughout with arthouse ambiguity.

Set in 1975 in ‘a province somewhere in Argentina’, the story follows Claudio, a well-respected lawyer and family man. He appears to be a symbol of the politics throughout the country, whilst represented as a benign, respectable person, he is simultaneously duplicitous and engaged in petty corruption.

The film opens with a vignette of various incongruous people looting an abandoned house- a representation of the crimes perpetrated by ‘respectable citizens’ throughout the picture. The most memorable scene soon follows- an excessively angry dispute between two strangers in a restaurant. The claustrophobic camera techniques create a disorienting effect as we centre on the two men, ramping up the tension in this everyday setting. Although our protagonist, Claudio, seems the more reasonable of the two, he is just as keen to assert his authority in such a trivial matter, launching into a pompous tirade against the other man’s bad manners and upbringing. This argument escalates into violence and our ‘well-educated’ man making an ill-advised decision that will haunt him throughout the film.

However, after the striking set-up, the thriller element remains rather generic. This contrasts to the ambiguous and often amusing vignettes, which continue throughout the film, representing everyday curiosities and banalities. The addition of these varied settings and characters helps to root us in the year 1975, and we get the sense that this small unnamed province represents the whole of Argentina.

Nevertheless, given the fact that it is a contemporary film, the treatment of the female characters seems stuck in the era of the plot. The sudden dramatic zooms into faces or objects invariably focus on the male characters as we watch the women being visibly cut from the scene. I felt there were many missed opportunities to subvert this prioritising of the male perspective.

Yet, the combination of interesting camera effects, whimsical dialogue, and elements of tension still make this an unusual and intriguing watch.

Director: Benjamín Naishtat
Writer: Benjamín Naishtat
Stars: Darío Grandinetti, Andrea Frigerio, Alfredo Castro