The saint – 7 points
(Argentina/2023)
Direction and script: Agustín Carbonere
Duration: 75 minutes
Performers: Roberto Suárez, Elisa Carricajo, Claudio Da Passano and Benjamín Mateos.
It is shown at the Cine Arte Cacodelphia.
“We must have faith”. Even the most atheistic of people resort to phrases of this style when there is no logical argument to envisage the possibility of overcoming adversity or reducing a pain that runs through the soul. That faith, that place from which expect the impossible, takes on multiple forms. There are the traditional religions, of course, with their liturgy, icons and ordering (and very reassuring) dogmas. But also the more pagan approaches towards figures anchored in the ideology of a particular community.
Last January 8, for example, the Corrientes city of Mercedes received more than 300 thousand people for the Gauchito Gil celebration. Ruben Sosa (Roberto Suarez) It does not have the geographical reach of the Mesopotamian, nor its followers nor much of its tradition, but it could have them if word spread about its healing powers. Because Rubén, that sullen, taciturn and enigmatic man, that chain smoker who snorts with exhaustion and responds to supplications by doing his homework with disdain, meets.
Premiered in the International Competition of the last Baficifrom where he got what he deserved award for best direction, The Saint It is one of those films that seems to be directed by a veteran of a thousand battles. To his ability to build his own universe where the mystical is synonymous with perspiration and the fabulous is intertwined with the real, the director Agustin carbonere adds proverbial attention to sound design. Something very logical, given that Carbonere is also a musician and knew how to direct the documentary Babasónico by Melero (2009). The soundtrack is made up mostly of motifs that accelerate in tempo as the scene progresses, giving them an ominous and lethargic atmosphere, as if everything that happens in them were the fruit of a vigil. An apparently ordinary man bringing the victim of a traffic accident back from death by simply laying his hands on her: it cannot be anything other than a dream.
If one of the most recognized characters in Peter Capusotto is Jesus of Laferrere, this could be called Ruben de Balvanera. In a gallery in that neighborhood that had better times, he receives, together with his assistant (the deceased Claudio Da Passano) to the people who come to ask for work, children and cures. Their methods are untraditional and include rituals with beaten eggs, hoses, knives and sweaty hugs. The setting of the “office” is not associated with the idea of spirituality, because where there are usually little cards, new age music and altars, here there is a small room with rickety furniture, urban sounds in the background and even a quartz stove: a future deity of the popular classes? I could reach that place hand in hand with my mother (Elisa Carricajo) of a boy who was cured of motor paralysis. The woman has the key to success, that is, the possibility of turning it into a television star
Divided into five chapters that mark the stages of his particular ordeal, The Saint appeals to a realistic, enveloping and sticky style to follow Rubén, through a camera that does not leave him for a minute, during his ascent to the heavens of mediatization through massive events where the healings are the juiciest part of the show. Although the film embraces a more classic story, Carbonere’s position on the phenomenon he portrays remains in the realm of ambiguity. Far from parody or treating him as a fraud who takes advantage of other people’s misfortunes, The Saint is respectful of Rubén and everything he generates. The most stinging look falls, in any case, on the paraphernalia and business created around his particular gift. A gift that is also his greatest punishment.
