It provides a conclusive ending but without answering every question. This is a story with big gaps and fragments in the evidence. De Wiel even tells one of his superiors back in Switzerland that he feels deeply uneasy being here, and we can certainly relate as we watch the tale unfold.ĭirector Andreas Fontana has no interest in delivering a rote by the numbers plot. Conversations with innocuous hotel workers or employees turn sinister when they start to drop hints they know more than they let on. Every time the couple leaves their hotel or the safety of a benevolent client’s home, we begin to worry if they will be the ones pushed up against the wall next. De Wiel gets away because he is protected as a foreigner serving the interests of the elite. The opening scenes feature De Wiel and Ines sitting in their car, their driver telling them everything is fine, while in the background, two young men are searched and lightly roughed up by soldiers. De Wiel sees his primary purpose as closing up the business Keys left on the table but discovers a possible business venture kept off the books. De Wiel has a list of clients and goes to meet with each one, and each appointment pulls him deeper into the mystery his colleague has left behind. The film shows Keys only once and becomes a phantom, a ghost looming over this haunted city and its dangerous corners. Swiss private banker Yvan de Wiel (Fabrizio Rongione) has come to Argentina with his wife Ines (Stéphanie Cléau) to discover what became of his partner Keys. Hard numbers are hard to get because so many of these people were disappeared overnight and never seen again, with no formal record of what happened to them. This military junta killed between 9,000 to 30,000 people. Azor is set in 1980 during the Dirty War when right-wing death squads scoured the country of anyone suspected of supporting socialism or other left-wing movements. But on the surface, it seems…okay? The filmmakers have put their audience in the shoes of people attempting to navigate life under a dictatorship in Latin America. From the moment Azor begins, you feel disturbing things the music and images hint at more sinister machinations at work. It’s one of the year’s most cohesive films, and it holds up to repeated viewings.Written by Andreas Fontana and Mariano Llinás Yet, acting-wise, it’s Rongione (the Belgian actor who earned credibility with the Dardenne Brothers) who stands out, breathing honesty while portraying a sober and attentive gentleman.Īzor is an intriguing and fascinating account with a few crossroads and an unimaginable finale. I’m compelled to mention that this is the first feature by Andreas Fontana, and under his command, the film unfolds through realistic, powerful acting all around. What’s great here is that one has to slowly dig for answers until reaching a final conclusion.Īmong many admirable aspects, I’m hopelessly smitten with the filmmaking process, which makes every scene subtle, methodical and unnerving. He brings a list of important contacts with him, including the confrontational Anibal Farrell (Ignacio Vila), the accessible widow Lacrosteguy (Carmen Iriondo), the bitter Augusto Padel-Camon (Juan Trench), the risk-taking Monsignor Tatoski (Pablo Torre Nilson), and a mysterious person called Lazaro. Displaying hopes and insecurities along the way, De Wiel soon learns about the rumors that Keys was eccentric and depraved. His purpose is to regain the trust of his clients after the sudden disappearance of a charismatic partner, René Keys (Alain Gegenschatz), while operating in the city. Yvan De Wiel (Fabrizio Rongione), a Swiss private banker from Geneva, arrives in Buenos Aires with his supportive wife, Inés (Stephanie Cléau). Meticulously observed and presented with a pronounced sense of discomfiture, Azor is a perceptive, slow-burning thriller that exposes a fragile Argentina in the middle of a bank crisis and torn apart by an austere dictatorship. Country: Switzerland / Argentina / France
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