Tetro

The week of his 18th birthday , Bennie (Alden Ehrenreich fim debut) travels to Buenos Aires to find his long-missing older brother . As he seeks out his older brother, the washed-out and disturbed Tetro (George Gallo) , whom he hasn't seen in years. Tetro lives with Miranda, (Maribel Verdú) a happy and always glad woman . He's introducing him as a "friend," refusing Tetro to talk about their family and some thoughts of their nasty dad cast a shadow over both brothers . But every family has a secret and every family has a past . Along the way Bennie's discovery of his worn-out brother's near-finished play might hold the answer to understanding their shared past and renewing their bond .

This an unsettling and interesting film , an intense drama concerning what past has Tetro left behind , being full of emotion , touching scenes , good feeling , marvellous dances inspired by The Hoffman Tales , The Red shoes by Michael Powell/ Emeric Pressburger and a final twist . It is a simple , dramatic and intelligent portrait of two people , focused on brothership , and sibling rivalry which a dark secret will forever change the family's fate . This is an uplifting movie at times , too , not just a tear-jerker or horrific in showing two sibling's suffering , as they attempt to regain the dignity they lost after years spent without seeing . The picture is developed in slow-moving but is pretty well realized . The flick stands out for its melancholy and poignant multilevel exploration of alienation , past records and despair . The story has a certain melancholic style , a climate of transience and sadness that spread the dispute between the two protagonists brothers . Visually it transports one into a dark, grey , nightmarish world but enriched by some colorful images thanks to some flasblacks well photographed by Mihai Malaimare Jr. , these images were shot in colour , but treated to give a slightly faded texture. The screenplay by Coppola himself , acting, direction all come together to create this extraordinary viewing experience . George Gallo gives a nice acting as the burnt-out Tetro , once-promising writer who is now a remnant of his former self , and he is is hot and cold toward his brother . His sibling is finely played by Alden Ehrenreich at his film debut as Bennie, a waiter on a cruise ship who has a layover in Buenos Aires to meet again his brother and subsequently he finds pages of Tetro's unfinished novel, then he pushes both to know his own history and to become a part of his life . Support cast is pretty good with several Argentina/Spain actors such as Maribel Verdú , Carmen Maura , Rodrigo De la Serna , Silvia Pérez , Erica Rivas , Leticia Brédice and special mention for Klaus Maria Brandauer as father .

The motion picture was compellingly directed by Francis Ford Coppola , though far from his greatest successes . Coppola explained that this one was a very "personal" project , being the kind of film he set out to make as a young man, before he was sidetracked by fame , fortune and sucessful boxoffice. Coppola's film The Godfather (1972) became one of the highest-grossing movies in history and brought him an Oscar for writing the screenplay with Mario Puzo The film was a Best Picture Academy Award-winner, and also brought Coppola a Best Director Oscar nomination. Following his work on the screenplay for The Great Gastby (1974), Coppola's next film was The conversation (1974), which was honored with the Golden Palm Award at the Cannes Film Festival, and brought Coppola Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay Oscar nominations. Also released that year, The Godfather: II (1974) , rivaled the big hit of The Godfather (1972) , and won six Academy Awards, bringing Coppola Academy Awards as a producer, director and writer. Coppola then began work on his most important film, Apocalypse Now (1979), a Vietnam War epic that was inspired by Joseph Conrad . Released in 1979, the acclaimed film won a Golden Palm Award at the Cannes Film Festival, and two Oscars. With George Lucas, Coppola executive produced Kagemusha (1980), directed by Akira Kurosawa, and Mishima (1985), directed by Paul Schrader and based on the life and writings of Yukio Mishima . Coppola also executive produced such films as The Escape Artist (1982) , Hammett (1983) , The Black Stallion Returns (1983), Barfly (1987), The Wind (1992) , The secret garden (1993), among others .

Tetro may be the "best" film Francis Ford Coppola has made in over 15 years. Whether this speaks more to the quality of his present state of direction as an artist or on the relative hits and misses of his career in the dregs of Hollywood (be it aiming high and just missing the mark with Godfather 3 and Dracula to stuff that went over people's heads like Youth Without Youth to even crap like Jack) is a combination. He's someone who attained financial success at a time, but then lost nearly all of it and along with it, arguably, some of his artistic merit. But after years of laying low and making wine, and making a whacked-out experiment that people either dug as an abstract piece or hated to hell ('Youth'), he comes out with Tetro like a porn star with a five-foot erection. He's got something to prove, if not to his audience then himself, and he proves it with a story that is personal and a film-making technique that recalls other masters but never too directly.

Tetro is about family, a subject Coppola is, of course, well-versed in being it the notorious kind (of course, the Godfather) and the more low-level and oddly intimate (Rumble Fish). It's a story, as with Rumble Fish, told in crisp black and white widescreen with flashes of color for flashbacks which may or may not be real, and as homage to operas like The Tales of Hoffmann. The title character, wonderfully and intensely portrayed by Vincent Gallo, is in a creative exile in Buenos Aires, a once promising writer living with his doctor-wife (Maribel Verdu, great as always) who is paid a visit one day by a young man, his brother Bennie (baby-faced newcomer Alden Ehrenreich) who hasn't seen him in years. There's secrets withheld by Tetro, not least of which about their parents, and soon an unfinished, longhand written play by Tetro (real name Angelo) is discovered by Bennie in a suitcase. He'll finish his brother's play, but at what cost?

The damaged, almost bi-polar writer, the insistent and impressionable brother, the strong but uncertain woman, these characters are fully realized by Coppola, and then on top of this comes a sort of terrific puzzle that is constructed through Tetro's unfinished play: what about their father, a famous composer (Klaus Maria Brandeur) who split them apart, possibly, or possibly not? What about their mother, who died in a car accident? What about the bond between Tetro and his former mentor, "Alone", the dubbed "most important critic in South America" who has created a pretentious empire around herself? Questions arise, and Coppola rises to the challenge of giving the audience answers but not spoon-fed. It's first and foremost a story of family, of brothers who love but have to find ways to contend with their damaged selves(inspiration being Rocco and His Brothers mayhap), and it's here that it's just about classic, on par with Rumble Fish if not even deeper and wiser about the effect of parents, or lack thereof, in lives spent and possibly wasted.

The writing is immensely interesting, always, even when Coppola may fall into over-indulging in his fantastic self-indulgence as an artist, such as with the operatic flourishes towards the end (this may not make sense, but compared to the WAY over indulgence of the hard-to-defend Y. W. Y it will). If anything the little imperfections, those brush strokes that go so high with the colors and shadows and impressionistic lighting that he and DP Mihai Malaimaire Jr engage in (one who hopefully will be getting more work following such spectacular work on a mix of 35mm and HD) along with Walter Murch's dependable editing, make it an even stronger work. It should feel a little messy here and there, because its subject matter is about finding a sense of purpose, in each other and in one's art. One feels Coppola working through a history of close but torn family ties, of losing loved ones (i.e. His own son), and at the same time a love of them all and of cinema peeking through in nearly every scene, even the ones where it doesn't look like much is going on.

Tetro is the antidote, basically, for this month's Transformers sequel. If you need to find the polar opposite of a picture based practically on just making money and reeling in the crowds with its dumb giant robot battles and preposterous and shallow theatrics, look no further than a picture which cares about its characters, its multi-faceted story and themes, and about projecting a technique that hearkens back to cinema of the 50s and 60s while sticking to an originality by its filmmaker. This will likely stay with me for a while, which is what Coppola's most profound works have done.

I can see a lot of connection between Copolla's 1983 Rumble Fish and this 2009 Tetro. Firstly there's that same inky black monochrome that's as dark as night and with the occasional splash of colour. Then, there's the brotherly relationship, here between Vincent Gallo and Alden Ehrenreich.

It's a while since I last watched Rumble Fish but the brothers there were Mickey Rourke (a rare good film for him at that time) and Matt Dillon. It's about street gangs and pool halls and how an older brother can be very impressionistic on a younger sibling. I'll say no more, except it's a blinder of a film and better than this.

I would have to say that the monochrome cinematography here, though, that everybody drools over is just too dark and contrasty, for this subject and film. I'm a photographer, so hopefully know and whilst Rumble Fish looked superb, that was full of geometric angles and angular paradoxes. Here, the screen is often plunged into almost darkness much of the time.

There is a balletic beauty to much of it though and we veer away from Rumble Fish and on to his works of epic greatness. The Godfathers and Apocalypse Now all share with this, an operatic build up of artistic and emotional tension that is mesmerising. Tetro has this toward the end at the Festival and we start anticipating something big and great. Do we get it? You'll have to see it yourself...

Others have touched on the actual storyline and I'm going to leave that to them. That said, the cast are all good but oddly, Vincent Gallo, as Tetro seems to short-change us. Not performance wise but in that we just don't seem to get to know him, which is part of the whole story, of course. Clamming up into a shell is nature's way of protecting us, emotionally, which is what Tetro did - and still does.

One major plus to this, very bog-standard DVD, was the sound quality - I 'felt' the sound as much as heard it. It prickled my eardrums with a tactile clarity, certainly Hi-fi standard, plus. OK, it was through separate amp and speakers but is as all my TV watching is.

Is Tetro a film for you? That's a difficult one. Art-house cinema lovers probably will and those who like a drama that is quite complex also but those who want action and something akin to Apocalypse Now, no. It is long, visually rich and dark (like plain chocolate) and accordingly, not for everybody but for those who do, it holds many strengths.

Thousand of miles away from Hollywood, the great Francis Coppola confronts something personal as a human being as well as a filmmaker. The story a young man looking for his older brother under the crippling shadow of a famous father. Hummm. Compelling, absorbing, mesmerizing at times. The younger brother is played with real magic by newcomer Alden Ehrenreich but for some inexplicable reason the older brother and title role is played by Vincent Gallo. He's an interesting guy but not at all the pivot that, clearly, the part required. I needed to feel things that Gallo didn't provide. He's just weird and even in the enormous emotional scenes (like the final one) he's not really there. I wonder why Coppola made this bizarre casting decision. The rest of the cast is fabulous and Buenos Aires breaths a life of its own even if, it didn't feel like Buenos Aires - I know that city pretty well - it looked at times like a border town in Mexico. Buenos Aires has an old fashion, seductive kind of elegance nowhere to be found here. I'm sure there is reason for it and I hope to discover it in my next viewing because this is a film I know I'll see many, many times. Another thing to cheer about, a strange and haunting score (it reminded me of "Apartment Zero" in more ways than one) and a sensational black and white Cinemascope screen. To be seen!

After a career that has consisted of the "Godfather" movies, "Apocalypse Now", "The Outsiders", Bram Stoker's "Dracula" and "Youth without Youth" - to name just a few - where would Francis Ford Coppola go next? He directed "Tetro", about the secret history of an Italian-Argentinian family.

Benjamin Tetrocini (Alden Ehrenreich) arrives in Buenos Aires and goes to visit his brother Angelo (Vincent Gallo). The embittered Angelo is now going by the name Tetro. As the movie progresses, a series of important topics about the family gets revealed, and how it has always affected the relationship between the two brothers.

Coppola uses one of the most unusual devices to tell the story. The present is filmed in stark black-and-white, while the past is shown in a slightly grainy color. It's as if the past was supposedly apparent - to show that the characters thought that they knew everything that was going on - while the present is supposedly unclear (to show that there are things to be discovered). I read that the movie pays homage to "The Tales of Hoffman", but I don't know that one, so I have to take the movie at face value. And what I saw certainly impressed me. I definitely recommend this movie.

Also starring Maribel Verdú, Carmen Maura, Klaus Maria Brandauer, and Rodrigo de la Serna (who co-starred in "The Motorcycle Diaries" and is a relative of Che Guevara).