Castro

Castro (Edgardo Castro) is on the run both literally and metaphorically from his ex-wife Rebecca Thompson (Carla Crespo). Only she won't let him go and she's hired the less than competent Acuña (Esteban Lamothe) to find him. Castro, however, wants Celia (Julia Martínez Rubio), but Celia wants him to find a job or she'll call curtains on their relationship. And so Castro remains on the run. From debut director Alejo Moguillansky comes a fast, frantic and wildly wonderful feature that moves between high action sequences and gloriously absurdist dialogue worthy of Samuel Beckett. And, indeed, while Beckett's novel Murphy is cited as the reference point for Castro, the film eschews the inertia of Beckett's world in favour of a dizzying level of physical, visual and verbal activity. Castro, winner of the Best Argentine Feature award at this year's BAFICI festival, offers an original and often very funny take on the chase movie refracted through the vocabularies of Pina Bausch's dance-theatre and the French New Wave. Distinguished by an outstanding ensemble cast, Castro moves beyond the established paradigms of the new Argentine cinema to provide a witty reflection on the plotting and processes of filmmaking in the 21st century.

Maria Delgado