Review No.91: Carancho

In 2010 there was a bit upset at the Oscars in the foreign language category as a barely-seen Argentinian film entitled The Secret in Their Eyes beat the critically-praised A Prophet and Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon to the prize. Personally though it was one of my favourite films of that year, if not quite as good as A Prophet, however the year later Argentina's entry Carancho failed to make it into that year's nominated films though I'm not quite sure why. The Secret in Their Eyes' leading man Ricardo Darin stars as Sosa an ambulance-chasing lawyer known as a 'Carnacho' or vulture. Sosa's work often means he gets beaten up by those who profit from the dead, and indeed the opening subtitle tells us that 8,000 people die in traffic accidents every year in Argentina, though he does have members of the police as well as paramedics who help him target the families of those who die or have been injured. As we learn Sosa was once a lawyer but when lost his lisence he started work for The Foundation an unscrupulous organisation who try and take as much of the compensation money that they can rather than give it to the families. Early on Sosa meets Lujan a doctor who is picking up extra shifts as a paramedic despite her knowing what he does the two fall for each other but when one of his schemes causes the death of an old man she distances herself from him. Eventually he decides to become legitimate but The Foundation won't let him leave easily especially after he manages to represent family members of people who were killed in an accident and give them their full compensation money. The final third of the film sees a race against time as Sosa tries to leave his dodgy past behind and leave the city with his beloved Lujan but whether or not this will happen or not is another question altogether.

For me Pablo Trapero's film was very reminiscent of Martin Scorsese's Bringing Out the Dead as a lot of it happens at night and focuses on paramedics who often work at night. Trapero takes us into the street-lit scenes of Argentina at night a haunting place where a lot of dirty deeds take place. What I liked about the film is the way in which the camera angles made us feel trapped in narrow hospital corridors or in the back of ambulances which I believe represented the fact that the lead characters were trapped in lives that they struggled to get out of. The film also keeps the viewer's interest by switching in tone from a moody drama to a high impact thriller with both genres fitting in with the overall themes of the film. I thought once again Darin succeeded in playing a morally ambiguous leading man who was both charming yet damaged however in this film at least he tries to better himself. Martina Gusman is also great as Lujan her character is well is a lonely one, working most of the hours in the day she and Sosa really find each other as they are both lonely souls. Carancho is also an incredibly violent film however it is all contextual even the violence against women, which I'm never comfortable with seeing on screen, was justified and it was kept as brief as possible. For me the film isn't perfect and I found the scenes following the budding romance between the two leads to be a bit dreary and the film really dragged in the calmer scenes in which they were just being a couple. Overall though Carancho demonstrates just how good Argentinian film is and I have to say that I'm really surprised that this well-acted, densely-plotted and brilliant stylised film didn't make into an Oscar category which was won by the fairly average In a Better World.

Verdict: While dreary at times this Argentinian film was gripping and looked great so for those two reasons it gets an 8.5/10