Director: German Krai (Germany, Argentina). Year of Release: 2023
Buenos Aires, November 2001. Demonstrators are in the streets, and burning tyres are smoking up the air. Inside, a tango band is playing inside a bar which has seen better days. Over the course of the film we will be introduced to the musicians – ageing men who are poor but petty bourgeois. There’s the owner of a shoe shop, a mechanic, a retired history lecturer. Their payment for tonight’s session is 12 Argentinian sweetmeats – 3 each.
Bandoneon player Julio is driving back from the German embassy, where he’s picked up new passports for himself, his 14-year old daughter Paula, and his mother. He’s had enough and doesn’t want to live in Argentina any more. He’s planning on selling his car to buy tickets to Berlin and is learning German on tapes that he plays in his car, Paula has just thrown a spanner in the works by deciding that she no longer wants to go with him, as she’s just met the love of her life.
As Julio is contemplating all this, a taxi runs a red light and totals his car – the one that he was going to sell for flight tickets. The driver of the taxi is Mariela, who asks Julio to get his insurance documents from his car, then speeds off, showing him the middle finger. When Julio tracks her down, she admits that her insurance is forged, and asks if she can pay for the repairs on his car if he doesn’t get the police involved. She’ll even act as his personal chauffeuse.
Julio is initially hostile to Mariela but slowly warms to her, partly because she has a cute kid who is unable to speak, but mainly because it’s that sort of film. To the surprize of no-one, as the film develops, the mutual animosity that Mariela and Julio show to each other gradually cools, and it’s not very long before she’s teaching him how to skim stones in the river, and showing him her favourite part of Buenos Aires before getting annoyed that he doesn’t try to kiss her.
Meanwhile, the band is struggling to find a new singer, after the previous one also fled the country. Someone comes up with the wild idea of approaching former singing idol Ricardo Torotella, who has been abandoned by his kids, and is now languishing in an old folks’ home. To the astonishment of everyone, except those who realise that this is that sort of film, Torotella agrees to sing with the band, even if he needs a cane to keep him steady, and keeps on forgetting his lines.
While all this is going on, the protests that we saw before the opening credits continue, with scenes of poor women banging cooking pots opposite Robocops. However, these scenes take place almost entirely in the background on tv screens. The band members are not well off, but they’re doing ok. Julio, through whose eyes we are witnessing the film, sees no need to join the demonstrations – indeed he regrets the chaos caused, and wishes they weren’t happening.
Then a government minister announces that people are only allowed to withdraw 1000 Pesos per month from the banks. Julio suddenly loses access to most of the money he gained from selling his shop. Instead of flying to Berlin. He’ll have to work his passage on a boat. This says something about the underlying politics of the film, or at least of its protagonists. They are not unsympathetic towards the protests, but see them as unfortunate events which do not directly concern them.
Julio’s cousin works for a government minister, and arranges them a gig that pays real money, at a birthday party where the super rich rattle their jewellery next to an inside swimming pool. Violinist Atilio storms off, saying that the minister is corrupt and he’s not going to entertain someone so privileged. Later on, Atilio is given a great speech about the need to support workers against this venal government, but the rest of the band decide that they need the money.
Adios Buenos Aires is not a film which tries too hard to surprize its audience. It is highly sentimental, and – for most of the time – nothing much happens that we couldn’t have predicted from the start. It is to its credit, then, that despite these dramatic limitations, all of the characters are likeable and we care what happens to them (even though we’re fairly sure what this is going to be). While there is little dramatic tension, we enjoy spending time with sympathetic people.
And then, around 15 minutes before the end, something happens that stands in contradiction to all the predictable sentimentality of the rest of the film. I won’t say what, because of Plot Spoilers and all that, but suddenly we find that the real hero of the film is someone who has until now played a fairly marginal role. The apolitical tendency not to take sides, which has dominated until now, is thrown aside entirely. This scene is deeply moving and belongs to a different film.
Which is, indeed, part of the problem. As the film wrapped up, I thought it might draw conclusions from a scene which literally had me in tears (and I don’t cry easily). But then it returns to its old predictable love plot. This is not a terrible thing – we wish good fortune on the characters who – surprize, surprize, and with one serious exception – enjoy a personal happy ending. It feels curmudgeonly to deny them their enjoyment, but little that we witness taxes our brains.
Adios Buenos Aires is never less than an enjoyable fluffy love story. At one stage it is much more than this, and I find it hard to combine these two quite different moods. Also, the music is great, especially because we watch it being played on old-fashioned record players. And sometimes, just sometimes, we get a hint that the film could transcend the safe atmosphere which it successfully builds up. That is achieves this transcendence at all is to its credit. It’s a shame there wasn’t more.
CinePhil 