Il cittadino illustre

This is how a movie should be like. every moment of this was meaningful and the cast were chosen perfectly. It should be even watched twice.

Being an Argentine (sans the Nobel prize as the main protagonist achieved) away from Argentina for over 43 years I could totally relate to the topic of this movie. I liked the main character in how clear he is about his convictions, his work, his principles and how all of this clashes against the bureaucracy, guilt, jealousy which awaits for him when he comes home... The movie is a great study of change and lack of change. His travel brings him perspective and intelligence ... The main character is a writer who forces himself to go back to his birth place and finds a world which has not changed and which projects onto him what they want him to be. This may happen to many of you writing when you go back home after not being there for a while... this movie is an extreme case of that: going back from a first world to the third world he came from. (Not Buenos Aires but a small town 500 miles from B.A.)

Black comedies are a difficult movie genre. They have to get the tone exactly right, otherwise they are either not funny enough or too much over the top. In this respect, 'El ciudadano ilustre' is perfect. It's understated enough to be subtle, and surreal enough to make you laugh. It has this quality in common with that other Argentinian surprise from three years ago, 'Relatos Salvajes'.

'El ciudadano ilustre' is about a Nobel-prize winning author living in Spain, who decides to accept an invitation to become honorary citizen of his hometown, a sleepy backwater in the south of Argentina in which all of his novels are set. At first, it is unclear why he decides to accept this invitation, and only in the final minutes of the film this question is more or less answered. This nice twist at the end is the cherry on the cake.

The author, used to being admired and praised everywhere he goes, has to adapt to the less sophisticated way of life in his hometown. Already during the drive from the airport, he is in for a surprise. The car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, and he is forced to tear his latest novel apart in order to use the pages for lighting a camp fire. It's symbolic for the lack of respect the local people have for his novels. Some of them are not extremely enthusiastic about the way their town is portrayed.

His visit starts a series of unexpected events, in which art, sex, violence and local politics play a part. But the film's bizarre story line is not its only quality. Above all, it's the way the local community is shown. In one small scene, the author is sitting on a street bench when an old man appears from a nearby house to bring him a cup of the Argentinian drink 'mate'. He drinks in silence, returns the cup to the man, who re-enters the house. End of scene.

'El ciudadano ilustre' is a wonderful film, highly recommended for anyone who likes understated humor and surreal situations.

This is a perplexing story from Argentina about fame and the fact that as Thomas Wolfe advised, you can never go home again. A pampered writer, in fact, a Nobel prize winner, impulsively decides to return to his native village which he left half a century ago without ever returning. He longs to revisit where it all began and our sympathy is with him because who hasn't longed to retrace the paths of life to see what might have been? The provincials in his home town pull out all the stops to curry favor with the man, lectures are scheduled, there's a parade,, he asked to judge the local art contest and they erect a hastily improvised statue of him. But instead of understanding their jealousy of his fame mingled with their genuine pride in his accomplishments, he pompously mocks their country ways and their longing to escape from the monotony of provincial life. Suddenly the tables are turned; we see the the bumpkins as honest and fallible human beings even if they lack the will and talent to escape, and the writer is revealed to be the pompous ass he probably has always been. This transformation is very skillfully done in a film that is at once funny and sad. Highly recommended.

For starters, let me express that all the events that take place in this film can happen in real life, this fact being very welcome and of course, unusual. Not short of this, the genre explored here is indeed scarce. This film invades the spectator with a feeling of uneasiness very difficult to describe by minute five. And far from relieving you from this uncanny feeling, it builds up more and more and more and more. By the hour, I just had to stop and switch my TV to a stupid channel in order to go to bed peacefully. But don't misunderstand me: if you see my reviews you'll find I'm a tough critic of unnecessary violence and gore. What you have here is a mounting tension like when you see huge amounts of snow in the mountain ladder and you know a huge avalanche is due. Some other reviewers (of this same film) call this "predictable"; in my opinion they are completely mistaken. The avalanche is due, but you just don't know when and what it'll do. The nearest comparison I have at hand is a very old film starring Dustin Hoffman "The Straw Dogs", but it's just a poor comparison: "The Distinguished Citizen" is by far better and suspenseful. I watched the (almost) remaining half the next day and it just got better. Be warned, this film is better served for those who are emotionally sensitive: an idiot will just not notice that everything that goes on in this film is terribly wrong! I will end up saying that this is a class A film that deserves a place in the nominees for best foreign language films if not the Oscar. Highly recommended.