Léalo en español
In almost every Cannes there are one or two Un certain regard titles that make everyone wonder why they’re not in competition rather than some of the mediocre entries from established auteurs. Rodrigo Moreno’s The Delinquents, like last year’s Godland by Hlynur Pálmason, is that film, guaranteed to be talked about and celebrated far more than many in the splashier section. Putting a big ole’ bullseye on capitalism yet doing so with a great deal of understated humor, The Delinquents wears its cleverness so lightly you barely realize how expertly Moreno (A Mysterious World, El Custodio) is weaving together characters and themes, sensationally accompanied by musical selections as compelling as life outside the rat race. Paralleling a couple of bank employees who seek to escape the suffocating grip of daily clock-punching, the film backpedals the heist element to draw out an awakening to broader concepts of freedom and fulfilment. The only delinquents here will be hesitant buyers who should be nabbing this long but marvelously rewarding gem.
Everything about Morán (Daniel Elías) says nondescript, from the dull earth colors of his suit and nascent comb-over to his job as treasurer in a downtown Buenos Aires bank whose bland wood décor hasn’t changed since the early 1970s. When colleague Isnardi (Lalo Rotavería) fills in for teller Román (Esteban Bigliardi) after the latter leaves work early to have a neck brace removed, Morán sees the opportunity he’s been waiting for: he enters the vaults ostensibly to safely store the day’s cash intake, but instead places $650,000 in his bag, along with some pesos, and leaves the bank unfazed by the security camera clearly recording the theft. That evening he meets Román at a café and convinces him to stash the dough for the three-and-a-half years (with good behavior) Morán expects to do in the slammer, and after release they’ll split the money. As he explains, it’s either that or another twenty-five years of slavery in the bank before retirement; the goal isn’t to live the highlife but have just enough stashed away to exist outside the daily grind.
The proposal comes as a shock but Román hesitantly accepts, hiding the bag in the apartment he shares with his music teacher girlfriend Flor (Gabriela Saidón). Meanwhile, Morán travels north-west to the province of Córdoba, where he eventually turns himself in to the police. The two men are conceived in tandem, with Morán the unexpectedly bolder one understanding that working within a soul-crushing system is a form of slavery, and Román yet to broaden his perspective. Both guys project something unexceptional, and yet Moreno uses their inconspicuous qualities not only to generate surprise but to facilitate seeing ourselves in these everymen.
This first part of the film – it’s signaled in two parts – has a kind of deadpan artificiality about it, deliberately airless and carefully controlled. Whether in the workplace or on the street, the anagrammatically named Morán and Román blend into their surroundings, and their bank colleagues are exaggeratedly neurotic enough to be humorous without becoming silly caricatures. Real life seems just beyond this stalled hermetic world, and though it’s partly found in Román’s relationship with Flor, there too something is absent, from both their lives.
Change occurs when Román visits Morán in prison to get instructions about taking the cash to a hiding spot he mapped out near Alpa Corral in Córdoba. After completing his task, Román wades into a nearby watering hole and there meets filmmaker Ramón (Javier Zoro) and sisters Morna (Cecilia Rainero) and Norma (Margarita Molfino) – the anagrams are truly fantastic – who insist he stop with them for lunch. By evening he and Norma have fallen for each other, and once back home when Flor tells him the relationship needs a break, Román pursues possibilities with the free-spirited Norma. During this sojourn, on a jail visit, he (and the viewer) discovers that before Morán turned himself in, he too met Norma and company, falling in love and discovering a world unencumbered by the expectations of city life.
Moreno takes his time with this reveal, and though on paper the three-hour running time seems long, it makes sense given the need to give the characters space to develop, contrasting the different rhythms of life. It’s not that he’s demonizing the city – shots of attractive Buenos Aires architecture show the capital in a flattering light – but he does make a point about the way drudge workers and their dreams are subsumed in the mass of robotized humanity programmed to follow a routine whose benefits are few. By contrast, scenes in nature are expansive and full of warming light, though describing it this way makes it sounds as if the concept is simplistic or, worse, naïve, which is far from the case. Even the variation of names could seem gimmicky or far-fetched, but instead the playful scramble of letters is a concrete manifestation of how each person is the flip side of another, not polar opposites but complementary alternates or better halves.
The contrast is apparent in the performances as well, especially when the two men break away from the daily work routine and get a glimpse of what true freedom is like. Daniel Elías transforms the initially dull Morán with the smallest of facial movements, such as when his mouth spontaneously erupts in quickly suppressed impish smiles once he realizes he’s pulled off the heist. Esteban Bigliardi draws out the little differences in Román’s character between work and home, which dramatically increase once he sees what life can be, and Margarita Molfino imbues Norma with such earthy unfiltered warmth that she almost appears to glow.
Shooting took four years, allowing the characters to naturally grow older but also necessitating two cinematographers. Moreno’s affinity for French cinema from the 1970s is not only visible but audible given the way he brilliantly uses music as if it’s a character of its own, commenting on or underlining each emotional trajectory through the use of saxophone or oboe or harp. Snippets are sampled from composer Astor Piazzolla as well as the musician Pappo, whose song ¿A dónde esta la libertad? (Where is Freedom) electrifyingly summarizes the protagonists’ newly awakened aspirations.
Director: Rodrigo Moreno
Screenplay: Rodrigo Moreno
Cast: Daniel Elías, Esteban Bigliardi, Margarita Molfino, Germán De Silva, Laura Paredes, Mariana Chaud, Gabriela Saidón, Cecilia Rainero, Lalo Rotavería, Javier Zoro, Iair Said, Agustín Toscano, Fabián Casas, León Moreno, Aurora Moreno, Adriana Aizenberg
Producer: Ezequiel Borovinsky
Co-producers: Gilles Chanial, Julia Alves, Michael Wahrmann, Rodrigo Moreno, Augusto Matte, Bruno Betatti, Daniel Lambrisca, Marcos Mion, Hernán Musaluppi, Natacha Cervi, Paolo Suarez
Executive producers: Ezequiel Borovinsky, Ezequiel Capaldo, Eugenia Molina
Cinematography: Alejo Maglio, Inés Duacastella
Production designers: Gonzalo Delgado, Laura Caligiuri
Costume designer: Flora Caligiuri
Editing: Manuel Ferrari, Nicolás Goldbart, Rodrigo Moreno
Sound: Roberto Espinoza, Marcos Lopes
Production companies: Wanka Cine (Argentina), Les Films Fauves (Luxembourg), Sancho & Punta (Brazil), Jirafa Films (Chile), Jaque Content (Argentina), Rizoma Films (Argentina)
World sales: Magnolia Pictures International
Venue: Cannes (Un Certain Regard)
In Spanish
180 minutes
