 |
||||||
| |
 |
|
|
A
Man Aside
INPUT 2003 An intimate and surprising portrait of an eccentric old man who wants to recapture lost fame. While following him as he tries to achieve his goal, the directors succeed in a unique way in creating a disturbing close-up of his hero. El Mercurio Journal - Sábado Magazine Santiago - November 23, 2001 To mention that A Man Aside speaks about the loneliness of oldness is like saying that Chi-Chi-Chi Le-Le-le Martín Vargas from Chile speaks about the decline of boxing. The relation is relevant, since the authors of this documentary, Bettina Perut and Iván Osnovikoff, are also the authors of the previous one (together with photographer David Bravo); but most of all, because both films seem to enunciate different things from those that emerge from their images. The Man Aside is Ricardo Liaño, a Spanish inmigrant and ex box promoter, once a sponger and talker, now octogenarian and poor, who is wandering around with the obsession of still being a winner. The whole documentary is built over Liaño´s endurance towards reality: towards the scriptwriter (Samir Nazal), towards his friend (Luis Mondaca), towards his distant family, towards his final defeat. That is why it is actually a portray of death, not of loneliness, but of the progressive darkening of the mind that twinkles and puts out, a portray of the devastated body that sinks in the darkness, like the shivering last shots suggest. There are images in this film previously unseen in the Chilean filmmaking, not because of their novelty, but for their savagery, a vocation, also present in the previous one, which makes Perut’s and Osnovikoff’s project one of the most interesting in the current documentary making. Ascanio Cavallo. La Segunda Journal Santiago - December 12, 2001 “A Man Aside”, a documentary at the level of the best filmmaking. When Bettina Perut and Iván Osnovikoff were sensitive enough to see the human being behind one of the secondary characters of their awarded documentary “Chi-Chi-Chi-Le-Le-Le Martín Vargas from Chile”, they showed their first big hit. This founded the solid grounds of one of the most powerful and outstanding works of the category known in Chile: “A Man Aside” will be screened tomorrow at the Hoyts Cinema in La Reina. The flatteries to this production can be taken from many different angles: the language, the coherent truth in the narrative, the clear, but free of question, point of view, the capacity, almost psicoanalytical, to undress the deepest and most painful truth of a man who still does not want to face his reality. Because of any of these qualities, this 56 minutes film is exceptionally valuable. The whole of them makes it comparable to those great novels of the universal literature. The couple set eyes on the octogenarian ex box promoter, Ricardo Liaño. And maybe what best prooves their accurate description, which meant a joint search of the truth during nine months, is what the main character declared today in a morning press interview. “There were beautiful things about my life to include in the documentary, but unfortunately they weren’t so (...) I am not a man aside. (...) They’re only showing a ten percent of my life in this documentary.” Actually, the most interesting part of the work was that it took an option and was able to capture that very ten percent: the here and now of a man whose absolutely refractory attitude towards his reality has pushed him, in the last stage of his life, to an anguishing loneliness, that in which his closest people avoid him... The documentary also shows the remains of that pushing protected against any stumbling rock that once gave him good results, but that once it becomes an obsession, it turns people into loners, ignorant victims of their own mistakes and defects they definitely refuse to see. “I’m a triumphant, I’m a winner”, tells he, with his strong Spaniard accent, to the supposed script writter who will make a film about him. “I think I’m wise and smart”, he adds, when the scriptwritter tries to make him see his reality telling him that the truth is he is nothing but a lonely, abandoned man with illusions. This is a work with a deep human content, a road that will hopefully inspire our filmmakers in general. Ana Josefa Silva El Mercurio Journal - Wikén Magazine Santiago - December 13, 2001 “A Man Aside”: Pure Dinamite The last shots of “A Man Aside” must be the most strong, heartbreaking and honest shots the Chilean audiovisual industry has ever produced. They are the final period of a tremendous documentary, in all senses of the word: in its intention, in the character that portrays, in its subject. That is why the documentary demands strength from the audience. In return, it gives a brutal honesty. The film focuses on the big and toothless figure of Ricardo Liaño, the legendary Spanish, ex box promoter who worked with Martín Vargas. Liaño is followed by the camera in his daily activities, while he argues with his friends and a scriptwritter about the making of a film (which is not this documentary) based in his life. The man portrayed is one who is living his last days, rejected by his own family and living alone and only for his dreams. But these dreams are of an insane size: he is convinced his project ( a World Antidrugs Youth Campaign) will have the success that will redeem him. The contrast the camera shows is an emotional bomb explosion. Bettina Perut and Iván Osnovikoff, those who produced this work, are playing in the big leagues. This documentary portrays the attempts of a human being to defeat death. Here, the same questions one finds in great literature, philosophy and religion, are found. Alfredo Sepúlveda La Tercera Journal Santiago - December 14, 2001 The greatness of “A Man Aside” is fed by two essential sources: the humanity of an overflowed character and the provoking look of his producers. It is in the clash of two equally moving forces –the success of a man in his twilight facing his almost marginal reality- where the drama of this outstanding work is developed, obviously manipulated to get an almost cinematographic effect in its moving hability. The images of “A Man Aside” choose 8 months in the 80 years life of Ricardo Liaño, ex promoter of Martín Vargas and organizer of artistic and sports events during his best times in life. The choreography of his exaggerated grimace and hand movements or the scenery of a poor room right in the middle of Santiago downtown, give shape to this character. Finally, certain defined shots –a press conference no one attends to, a finger quivering on a handrail, an honest cry- give the authoress dimension to this magnificient work, strange crossing between poetic fiction and lamentable reality. Rodrigo González > back
|
