Luis Ortega’s Surreal Gender-Bending Comedy

Nahuel Pérez Biscayart (BPM) stars as a troubled jockey whose id shifts radically after a severe accident on the observe in Kill the Jockey (El Jockey), a Venice Movie Pageant entry by Argentinian director Luis Ortega (El Angel, Dromómanos). Visually lush and filled with playful thriller, this equestrian-themed psychological thriller-comedy-whatsit strikes loads of poses that will tickle the flowery of viewers with a style for camp, surrealism and/or the absurd. Nevertheless, others would possibly really feel underwhelmed by the movie’s strenuous efforts to attraction and discover it slows to a trot by the tip.

Ortega’s knack for nifty needle drops has been famous earlier than, and Kill the Jockey, partly financed by Warner Music Leisure, stays true to type with a killer soundtrack mixing Latin pop, synth-heavy EDM, native tangos and authentic music by Sune Rose Wagner. Paired with the saturated shade palette, boxy 1:85 side ratio and intentionally nonetheless and stilted performances, the vibe recollects the work of Aki Kaurismäki — no shock, on condition that the director of pictures right here is the Finnish auteur’s longtime collaborator Timo Salminen.

That retro aesthetic is additional buttressed by manufacturing and costume design selections that evoke the Fifties or ’60s, particularly within the reduce of the lads’s fits and the peculiar getup Biscayart’s lead character sports activities for a lot of the movie: a full-length mink coat with dainty bracelet sleeves and a tightly wrapped, padded bandage round his head that evokes the form of a comfortable pillbox hat.

However earlier than we get to that ladylike look, our hero, Remo Manfredini (Biscayart), principally rocks the standard silks that determine skilled horse riders — a uniform he’s hardly out of for the primary third of the film. Remo is first met ingesting arduous in a Buenos Aires bar filled with unsmiling workers and patrons who look on as he’s hauled off by the henchmen of his employer, Sirena (Daniel Giménez Cacho). The gangster, who controls playing within the area, has his personal distinctive accent: He’s by no means seen with out “his” child — really a collection of infants, all lower than a 12 months previous, whom Sirena or one in all his males tote round like tommy weapons. Why he’s all the time packing child warmth is rarely defined.

As Remo prepares for a race, it turns into clear his ingesting is uncontrolled. At one occasion, he barely will get out of the beginning gate. The rider of the profitable horse is Abril (Úrsula Coberó, Cash Heist) his skilled rival but in addition his lover. Collectively, they have a good time their victory with a delightfully herky-jerky disco pas de deux that’s prefer to be the second viewers will bear in mind finest lengthy after the movie is completed. We quickly study that Abril is pregnant with Remo’s child, although her stony expression suggests she’s not all that bothered with whether or not the completely sozzled Remo is concerned within the parenting. In the meantime, one other jockey, Ana (Mariana Di Girolamo) makes her romantic curiosity in Abril very clear, including a candy sapphic dimension to the story.

Even supposing Remo is a complete screwup, Sirena insists he rides his newest acquisition, a shocking chestnut stallion named Mishima imported from Japan, within the subsequent large race. This time, Remo manages to make it out of the gate. However simply after he takes the lead he veers off and, based mostly on the horse’s POV digital camera, rides proper into the fence, severely injuring himself. (And possibly poor Mishima, though the horse is unfortunately by no means talked about once more.) Remo wakes up within the hospital with amnesia, barely capable of say a phrase at first, not to mention his personal identify. After stealing the aforementioned fur coat and a pocketbook belonging to a different affected person, he walks out into the streets of Buenos Aires.

The remainder of the movie evolves right into a picaresque of semi-comic encounters as Remo, who renames himself Dolores and adopts she/her pronouns, discovers his female aspect. Presumably, that is all meant as an instance the plasticity of gender id or the fragility of recent masculinity. Or perhaps it’s all only a lark. The screenplay, by Ortega, Rodolfo Palacios and Fabián Casas, is mild on queer concept and even character motivation. However the comely solid, who contribute admirably athletic, bodily performances throughout the board, have sufficient charisma and vigor to maintain this not-especially-long movie jaunty. In the long run, all of it feels a bit like a style movie or another branded train in fashion — besides that the model is Ortega’s peculiar and distinctive imaginative and prescient.