Oscar Restrepo (Ubeimar Rios) is a bum. Name him a lush, a louse, a putz, a schmuck, a sad-sack, and a dumb-SOB and all would apply. He can take them, after which some. He’s, in spite of everything, a person of phrases — poor Oscar’s a poet, and woe unto all those that know him.
However excellent news for all people who soak up “A Poet” (“Un Poeta”), director Simón Mesa Soto’s immensely interesting and sometimes caustic character study-turned-social-satire premiering out of Cannes’ Un Sure Regard sidebar. Put along with spectacular effectivity — the movie solely began capturing in January — this art-world send-up explores the various fears and frustrations the acclaimed director felt within the decade since making the 2014 quick movie Palme d’Or winner “Leidi,” channeling them right into a darkly-funny burlesque that speaks of verse whereas enjoying like a Dan Clowes comedian delivered to manic life.
Oscar’s a poet, alright, and never a lot else. He isn’t a lot of a father to the high-schooler Daniela (Allison Correa), who clearly lives beneath a special roof; he isn’t a lot of a caregiver to his personal getting old mama (Margarita Soto), who nonetheless helps her failure-to-launch with an allowance and a pair of car-keys; and he isn’t even a lot of an writer. Oh he was, after all — profitable various literary prizes as a precocious youth that now grasp on his mantle, alongside a photograph of José Asunción Silva, quietly taunting a middle-ager riven with author’s block. It’s no marvel why he drinks.
And when he will get within the cups, what else can he shout about however “poeeeeesíííííaa,” stumbling alongside the back-allies of Medellín and slurring his phrases, however leaving little question as to the eagerness that animates him. Director Simón Mesa Soto shares in that fervor, mining his primary character for pathos, not ridicule, framing Oscar as a true-blue romantic — a sort of holy idiot vulnerable to even the obvious of scams however solely as a result of this staunch aesthete has devoted all of his consideration to verse. And if Oscar’s maybe extra guilelessly dogmatic about art-above-all, he’s hardly alone in a rustic that places writers like José Asunción Silva and Gabriel García Márquez on its foreign money.
Drawback is, Oscar doesn’t have too a lot of these pesos. Recognizing that extra prosaic actuality — whereas seeking to at the least purchase his approach in direction of his daughter’s good graces — our poet quickly accepts a instructing gig at a neighborhood high-school. There, he meets Yurlady (Rebeca Andrade) — a decrease, lower-class pupil with a pure aptitude for… properly, take a guess. Any variety of discrete movies might construct from that premise, and “A Poet” tries fairly a couple of on for measurement, enjoying with components from the inspirational trainer faculty and the late-coming-age redemption drama earlier than setting right into a extra sardonic register as soon as the trainer tries to make his pupil a star.
The duo are each aesthetes in a world of opportunists, together with however not restricted to the 14-year-old’s household, who can acknowledge a meal-ticket after they see one, and to Medellín’s literary elite, who see the exact same however for a lot better sums. If the 39-year-old Soto — who works as a trainer in between movies — sees in Oscar a model of his personal path that didn’t run by means of Cannes, the director pours simply as a lot of his personal expertise into Yurlady — a promising expertise from a background that lends itself to simple clichés. If she might simply show she’s ‘severe’ by filling her verse with laments about poverty and race, she would possibly even win over a couple of deep-pocketed European backers. I’m wondering the place Soto got here up with that thought.
Break up into 4 chapters and filmed on grainy, 16mm inventory that leaves a masks of schmutz across the corners of the body, “A Poet” loops round questions of artwork and commerce in an endearingly crazy tone. The movie’s bawdy humorousness performs off a non-professional star — himself a full-time trainer from a close-by faculty — that appears like he was drawn by Robert Crumb and acts the half simply as properly. Whereas outcast valentines like Owen Kline’s “Humorous Pages” and acrid satires like Radu Jude’s “Dangerous Luck Banging or Loony Porn” would possibly function stylistic and thematic comparisons, Simón Mesa Soto actually owns his personal voice, mixing high-art with unhealthy style to piece aside the mechanisms of a mess-up.
Few go away unscathed as the hand held digicam whip-pans and fast-zooms between cringe-comedy and real pathos and again once more — particularly as soon as the hapless prof paves his personal highway to hell together with his good intentions. Properly, extra like self-serving intentions; Oscar would possibly solely wish to see his younger mentee celebrated for her work, although at no level does Yurlady point out an identical ambition. That we do actually really feel for Oscar when he inevitably screws himself up and out of a feel-good film displays Soto’s tonal dexterity. The Colombian filmmaker actually provides a welcome F-U to World Cinema good manners, however he’s not simply taking the piss together with his story of a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and no king.
Grade: B+
“A Poet” premiered on the 2025 Cannes Movie Pageant. It’s at present looking for U.S. distribution.
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