By contemporary standards, reflection on our shared history is on the rise. Whether in tonal shifts to confront or rectify the past, or informing specific narratives of times audiences have collectively tried to forget, history is ripe for exploration. No one knows this as well as Benjamín Naishtat, whose film”Rojo” seeks to mine through the past by way of an elegant neo-noir.
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The director’s third film, “Rojo” chronicles a man’s trepidation and subsequent fall into darkness in mid-1970s Argentina. The film also stars Dario Grandinetti known for Pedro Almodovar‘s “Julieta,” and “Talk to Her” and Chilean great Alfredo Castro, known for the movies of Pablo Larrain and specifically, “Tony Manero,” “Post Mortem,” “The Club” and “Neruda,” though he’s almost appeared in every one.
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While the trailer maneuvers vicariously through the different plot points and turbulent circumstances, it is a thriller with historic relevance ponders moral codes and fixations. The film has thus far received positive traction, winning the Silver Shell Awards for Best Director and Best Actor and the Jury Award for Best Cinematography at the last edition of the San Sebastián Film Festival. “Rojo” also screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and the International Film Festival Rotterdam. With U.S. distribution now acquired, audiences will bear witness to the praise and a history unknown or conveniently forgotten.
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“ROJO” opens July 12 at Film at Lincoln Center and the Quad Cinema
in New York City, July 19 at the Laemmle Royal in Los Angeles, followed by a national rollout.
Here are the official trailer and synopsis:
Set in Argentina during the Dirty War, on the eve of the nation’s descent into a military dictatorship in the mid-1970s, Naishtat’s hypnotic and neo-noir drama follows Claudio, a renowned middle-aged lawyer living a seemingly picture-perfect life in a deceptively peaceful provincial city. One night, a stranger starts insulting Claudio in a restaurant for no apparent reason. The patrons support him; the stranger is humiliated and removed. Later that night, the stranger—determined to wreak a terrible vengeance— intercepts Claudio and his wife, Susana. Claudio then starts to move down a path of no return involving death, secrets, and silences—further complicated by the arrival of a Chilean private detective.