How entertaining? ★★★☆☆
Thought provoking? ★★★☆☆ 24 May 2016
A movie review of SOY NERO. |
YouTube review:
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“Where are you from Nero?” Sergeant Frank White (Joel McKinnon Miller)
It’s a wonder why more filmmakers have not followed the structure of Stanley Kubrick’s FULL METAL JACKET, to be a project of two distinct but related halves. By doing so, the audience is playing catch up in a different arena. Directors should always want to be ahead of those consuming their offerings. The reverse makes for a lacklustre, patience-testing experience (see most blockbusters as examples.)
It’s a wonder why more filmmakers have not followed the structure of Stanley Kubrick’s FULL METAL JACKET, to be a project of two distinct but related halves. By doing so, the audience is playing catch up in a different arena. Directors should always want to be ahead of those consuming their offerings. The reverse makes for a lacklustre, patience-testing experience (see most blockbusters as examples.)
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SOY NERO is even more daring in its change of theatre, going from illegal immigrant drama to war movie. Monotone social realist misery is sidestepped for an almost surreal experience that still does not hesitate to condemn hypocrisy. After a lewd joke about an elephant and an ant, a chase begins. We only have lead Nero Maldanado’s (Johnny Ortiz) word for a brief backstory. He is caught striving to enter the USA without proper papers. He claims to be from Los Angeles and a 17-year old scholarship student. Due to the Patriot Act he states, he was kicked out. Now desperate to return, the implication is of multiple attempts, though until the conclusion one guesses if this opening is also the closing (à la INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS).
A different kind of cross border journey story is being told however. Imagery not used before is proffered. A funeral takes place on the American side of a fence for a naturalised U.S. citizen, born in Mexico, who died while as a soldier in combat for his new country. His family have to watch from Mexico. Sparking an idea in Nero, he realises he must become a “Green Card Soldier” to gain citizenship. The idea is honed, for the less tolerant members of the audience, with a volleyball match across a stretch of the boundary barricade on the beach, between two nations’ youths.
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New Year’s firework celebrations cover Nero’s next crossing. A man and his young daughter pick up the hitchhiking lead. Driver Seymour (Michael Harney) delivers a suitably creepy performance. All kinds of theories flash across the mind: Is he really the father and actually a kidnapper? Is Seymour on the lam? Is he unhinged? It is an odd aside that shows kindness and danger ensconced in a single person. In gunning for the unexpected SOY NERO has a random quality that entirely does not gel. It is the not-quite-right respite, when finally reaching brother Jesus (Ian Casselberry), where the narrative reveal is both hard to swallow and unnecessary. It does not derail, but it certainly trips up the movie. Becoming a “Green Card Soldier” is how the story is elevated, by showing something not talked about in cinema.
Hopelessness is a theme running deep in the films of director Rafi Pitts. Sentimental reprieve is absent. The forces arrayed against his protagonists are just too great. Pitts is clearly not a sugar-coater.
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