GRANMA
May 28, 2007 A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann. http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/2007/05/28/cultura/artic01.html
The
Night of the Innocents After a decade-long break from feature films, Arturo Sotto returns with a sitcom-like detective story set in present-day Cuba and, in the manner of a tropical film noir director worth his salt, he makes sure to link the whole nuisance of a criminal investigation to the social milieu where the events take place and portrays a police-society bonding now “natural”, now wrapped-up in hints and suggestions which at times prove more imaginative and artistically effective than others, but altogether capable of giving shape to a sound body. The night of the innocents' best merit is its crowd-pleasing plot. Questions like who, how and why crisscross the viewer’s mind since the rainy night when the emaciated body of an apparent transvestite is left at the entrance of a hospital, where an ex-cop thug (Perugorría) gangs up with his sweetheart –- a nurse played by Silvia Águila -– to take on the investigation, intent on having his skills recognized at the end and, perhaps, to recover his badge as a result. Through scenic flashbacks to recreate the supposed policeman’s inquiry among the beaten young man’s relatives and friends, Sotto balances the flow of information, though sometimes he gives things away by following the thread of the depositions and then going back to the facts to offer new versions or nuances. Ergo, in keeping with the rules of the game, the viewers get mixed up just when they thought they knew the culprit’s identity, and remain so until the end, when everything unfolds to those who were in the alert for the duration. Love, sex, homosexuality –- real or apparent -– or just the need for affection, are the focal point of both the plot and its characters. Now and then Almodovar comes to mind, like a naughty goblin flitting around this comedy where excellent scenes and dialogue hobnobs with others left half-finished. All of this is on top of a sustained witticism appreciated by the audience –- laughing is good after all -– but dressed in a few sickly-sweet, albeit seriously-assumed, tones related to the young couple’s impossible love. (For example, when he takes the microphone from the club singer’s hand to publicly declare his great passion for a woman who is just hours away from tying the knot with another man). For all its sound script, another achievement of director Arturo Sotto –- something hard to accomplish sometimes even to the specialists -– this whodunit leaves nevertheless some loose ends when it comes to the “social raw material”. Among these: the points held by the middle-aged Italian businessman to marry at all costs the young girl who came to him for her personal convenience in the first place –- a sub-plot to be reckoned with, even essential to launch the story told by The night..., but stale enough in the latest Cuban films to put together a full-blown anthology.
Boasting outstanding performances, The night of the innocents
is a film with no deadlocks and a well-structured account. However,
despite its concoction, from the very beginning, of a story
delivered with the same dogged insistence of a dripping faucet (that
on-and-off radio program in the background), its ending never quite
jells and even bewilders some of us after the closure of some
particular stories in a way such that the aesthetic overtones until
then respected are suddenly changed (if it was to pay tribute to
American comedy styles remains to be known, what with so many
tributes present in this film). ---ooOoo--- |
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