Ten years almost. We declare ourselves more fans of Damián Szifron than of The Simulators. We think about how he did to write the character of Bombita Darín rather than the performance of Ricardo Darín. We meekly indulge in his creativity, his brilliant mind, his low profile as an attribute. Ten years almost without knowing anything about him until the recent premiere of Misanthrope.
And what happened? We ran to see the last of Szifron. It's that short.
At the time of taking out the ticket we did not get the word "misanthrope" and we asked for the last of Szifron. We appointed the director and they understood us. That's already talking about a brand.
Damian Szifron is the director of "Misanthrope". Photo Gabriel Machado
Attractive start
The film starts as a Kiss recital. It is impossible not to handle the popcorn and, if you do not have, go out to buy it. Fireworks, New Year, gunshots, deaths, dead bodies everywhere. The beginning of the movie is more attractive than the trailer of any movie.
Unbelievable, you think: the guy came to Hollywood to impose the rules of his own genre game.
Wow, man, there's our Quentin Tarantino! Damián "Fuckin" Szifron, you say and rub shoulders with the one next door, who does not know you, but understands perfectly the pride that comes from being Argentine. It even crosses your mind that the singer of La Mosca dedicates a song to him.
A scene from Damián Szifron's "Misanthrope", which in English was called "To Catch a Killer".
You see the beginning as saying, "I follow you from Cement." You see the scene with mixed emotions and you remember its beginnings, far away and long ago, with The bottom of the sea. How far you've come, Damian!
It's like a triumph. As if an Argentine boxer won at Madison Square Garden.
Political correctness
But as the minutes go by, the enthusiasm wanes until it feels like it could be just another movie about another serial killer. The initial pyrotechnics, which threatened a hit, ends in a kind of disappointment that translates into a hallway phrase: "It looks like one from Netflix."
On top of that, unnecessary dialogues, tedious, plagued by political correctness and a police force that is the antipodes of Palermo Division. The annoyance is consolidated with a solemnity of the plot that is rounded, unfortunately, with the soft metaphor of a murderer "victim of the system".
Too sweetened. So much so, that one suspects that the fireworks of the beginning are an allegorical figure of all the exaggerations that we will see in the development.
Misanthrope kicks pointe to the middle of the arc. We imagine that our star director had to accept all the rules of the #MeToo, as if his landing in English meant paying floor rights and leaving the formula of The Simulators, his eminently male top series.
All this to script a gay detective and a super concentrated and shrewd policewoman. After a while we will have a bitter taste. Not even bittersweet. And we worry about Szifron and his possible mimesis with any director who wants a commercial product of scarce artistic carats.
Scene from Damián Szifron's "Misanthrope" with actress Shailene Woodley. Photo EFE/Diamond Films
Moreover, one intuits that the co-writer, Jonathan Wakeham, actually occupied the role of "creative spy", supervising or limiting the imaginative task of our beloved filmmaker.
Almost ten years we were waiting for him and we would not even think of identifying ourselves if, by chance, he won the Oscar.
WD
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