Magical realism meets gender-blurring surrealism in Argentinean writer-director Luis Ortega’s latest extravagant confection, Kill The Jockey. A heady cocktail of stylised characters, sumptuous visuals and wild narrative swerves, this ebullient equestrian comedy thriller is effortlessly enjoyable as camp spectacle, with shades of Almodovar in the mix, even if its twist-heady screwball plot ultimately delivers more style than substance. It screens in competition in Venice this week, with a North American premiere in Toronto to follow next week.
In a comically blank hangdog performance worthy of Buster Keaton, Nahuel Pérez Biscayart (120 Beats Per Minute) plays Remo Manfredini, a champion Buenos Aires jockey permanently zoned out on booze and other substances. But where once he could win races in his sozzled state, Remo is now on an extended losing streak, and his shady gangster boss Sirena (Daniel Giménez Cacho) is losing patience.
Complicating matters further, Remo’s lover and fellow jockey Abril (Úrsula Coberó) is winning more races than him, but also pregnant with his baby daughter, forcing her to weigh up the odds between career-ending motherhood and termination. Meanwhile, Abril is tempted by romantic interest from another jockey, Ana (Mariana Di Girolamo), putting an explicitly queer spin on the film’s already gender-fluid, camp-infused tone. An erotically charged locker-room flirtation between the two women, staged as a disco-tango showdown with bullfighter overtones, is one of several deliciously silly stand-out dance sequences here.
Locked up in a converted stable by Sirena’s heavies, Remo faces one last chance to sober up and redeem himself. Riding Sirena’s new prize Japanese stallion, archly named Mishima, he initially seems assured an easy victory. But he is in booze-addled and self-destructive mood, leading to a terrible accident, which Ortega strikingly shoots from the horse’s viewpoint.
Waking up in hospital, Remo’s memories and identity have been wiped. “His injuries are not compatible with life,” the doctor says. But life continues with a different set of pronouns as the mentally fractured jockey dons a fur coat and make-up, renames himself Dolores, and checks out of hospital to wander the streets of Buenos Aires in his new female persona.
This gender-switch leap through the looking glass signals a definitive departure from minimal standards of narrative realism, which Kill The Jockey never quite regains. The final act involves a lethal gunfight and a spell behind bars, where Remo inhabits his Dolores persona to perfection, only to abruptly drop her for a return to his male jockey career, this time riding horses again for an illegal underground race scene. This goofy final gallop offers more wild comic flourishes than narrative closure, leaving behind too many loose ends,
But while it lacks coherence or direction in storytelling terms, Kill The Jockey is consistently funny, inventive and visually voluptuous. Ortega was backed by Almodovar’s El Deseo production company on his last feature, the queer serial-killer thriller El Angel (2018), and his new film feels indebted to the Spanish maestro’s ravishing aesthetic: saturated colours, gorgeous clothes, rich retro-heavy jukebox soundtrack. Ortega is also working here with Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki’s regular cinematographer Timo Salminen, who brings his signature deadpan visual grammar, all symmetry and geometry, understated sight gags and beautifully lit interiors.
Ortega peppers the broad canvas of Kill The Jockey with surreal asides: a rabbit in a microwave, an insect crawling up a human nostril, characters who inexplicably defy gravity and walk up vertical walls, a horseback marching band rolling through deserted city streets. Some of these details serves the story’s loose central theme of fluid identity – a baby who mysteriously changes skin colour midway through the plot, for example. Others just feel like whimsy for its own sake, which will test the patience of some viewers, but richly reward those with a higher tolerance for live-action Looney Tunes slapstick.
Director: Luis Ortega
Screenwriters: Luis Ortega, Rodolfo Palacios, Fabián Casas
Cast: Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, Úrsula Corberó, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Mariana Di Girolamo, Daniel Fanego, Osmar Núñez, Roberto Carnaghi, Luis Ziembrowski, Jorge Prado, Adriana Aguirre, Roly Serrano
Cinematography: Timo Salminen
Editing: Rosario Suárez, Yibran Asuad
Production designer: Julia Freid
Costume designer: Beatriz Di Benedetto
Music: Sune Rose Wagner
Producers: Benjamin Domenech, Santiago Gallelli, Matias Roveda, Luis Ortega, Esteban Perroud, Axel Kuschevatzky, Cindy Teperman, Charlie Cohen, Paz Lazaro, Nando Vila
Production companies: Rei Pictures, El Despacho, Infinity Hill, Exile Content, Warner Music Entertainment, Piano, El Estudio, Snowglobe, Jacinto Films, Barraca Producciones
World sales: Protagonist
Venue: Venice Film Festival (Competition)
In Spanish
97 minutes
