Film Review: A film critic turns his eye on himself
Several years ago, an enterprising TV news show tried to game the Nielsen ratings during sweeps week by programming a series of reports on “The Nielsen Families.” Clever, but Nielsen threw out the results.
Similarly, Argentine filmmaker Hernan Guerschuny makes his feature debut with “The Film Critic” (“El Critico”). I’m not accusing Guerschuny of emulating that trick, but, seriously... what critic could keep himself away? (Not me, obviously.) His motivation is likelier a case of writing about what you know: Guerschuny is a veteran critic.
Victor Tellez (Rafael Spregelburd) is a 40-something reviewer, who’s been plying his trade for more than 20 years. For reasons that you can imagine — and that no film critic has to imagine — he feels stuck, burnt out, desperate. “I am dying,” the first subtitle tells us over a still image. We may not notice at once that the voice-over is inexplicably in French. After several still shots, the narrator addresses the issue: “At this point one may want to know why I think in French.... I have no idea.”
A certain school of film buffs, however, will instantly know why: A French narration over a sequence of black-and-white stills is also the opening (and most of the rest) of Chris Marker’s classic 1962 short “La Jetee”; and Tellez thinks in film. This is the first of many homages (or riffs or rip-offs or however you want to think about it) sprinkled throughout “The Film Critic.”
His occupational burnout has made him cynical and melancholy. All on-screen romance is hogwash. Happy endings are the exception, not the rule. Most films are junk.
His analytical and stylistic skills have attracted fans and enemies: On the one hand, a producer (Eduardo Iaccono) wants him to write a screenplay; on the other, a young filmmaker (Ignacio Rogers), whose first feature Tellez has thoroughly panned, is stalking him.
He sees his life in terms of art-house classics, like “La Jetee” and Godard’s “Breathless,” but he finds bourgeois rom coms crowding those out. First there’s a classic “meet cute” — he has an appointment to look at an apartment... apparently at the same time as Sofia (Dolores Fonzi), an attractive young woman. Their meeting is contentious, so, in classic Hollywood form, they are obviously made for each other.
As he pursues her, his art-film imaginings are invaded by the trappings of Hollywood “reality.” Gradually he finds himself in the world of “Jerry Maguire,” “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and “When Harry Met Sally.” Sofia is a classic edgy “kook,” like Melanie Griffith in “Something Wild.” When they first kiss, fireworks appear out of nowhere. Later on, he runs through a rainy traffic jam on his way to the airport to stop her from leaving.
I can’t deny that what ails Tellez is an occupational hazard, which the film naturally exaggerates. (Or maybe it doesn’t: I couldn’t believe what a mess Tellez’s apartment is... until I got home and looked around.) Most critics absolutely love movies, but, after decades of seeing two or three hundred a year... well, let’s just say it’s not all “Citizen Kane” and “The Road Warrior.”
“The Film Critic” approaches its film-and-reality issues in a much lighter, simpler way than “Adaptation.” or even Quentin Dupieux’s current romp “Reality.” For a critic, it’s pleasantly amusing; for the rest of the world, no critic can honestly say.
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ANDY KLEIN is the film critic for Marquee. He can also be heard on “FilmWeek” on KPCC-FM (89.3).