A medley of love, crime, art, politics, revenge, humour, and western, with a condor on top, this two-hour long adaptation of Antonio Skármeta’s novel of the same name by well regarded Spanish director Fernando Trueba has it all and suffers for it. Set in Santiago following the fall of the Pinochet regime, a nationwide prisoners’ amnesty has been granted. Amongst those to benefit from early release are the ageing master safecracker Nico Vergara Grey (Ricardo Darín) and the seemingly simple-minded but enthusiastic petty thief Angel (Abel Ayala). Vergara Grey now wants nothing more than to find his wife and son and live out a quiet trouble-free life. By way of contrast, though, Angel is hopelessly enthusiastic about his future and has several major plans that he wants to set in motion.
In possibly the film’s most charming few moments, though, Angel firstly runs into Victoria (Miranda Bodenhöfer), a mute and poorly-dressed girl, who has been standing outside of an adult cinema. Gaining her attention initially with a babbling mixture of bluff and bluster, she casts a spell over him by her magical dancing ability. From then on, Angel is utterly smitten, whilst the serious-looking Victoria is clearly beginning to reciprocate his feelings for her. However, she has a troubled past and her impoverished background makes it seemingly impossible for her to become a professional dancer. Meanwhile, Angel hopes to persuade Vergara Grey to do this one big job with him that will allow them all to realize their dreams.
Frankly speaking, there is no need to adjust the resolution on your monitor – you have, indeed, heard all of this somewhere else before now and this film adds little that is new to such familiar themes. Moreover, despite its length, there are several badly underdeveloped subplots here – from Angel’s beef with the sleazy prison warden (Julio Jung) to the relationship between Vergara Grey and his wife (Ariadna Gil) to the decidedly hammy robbery scene. When taken together, they make for a contrived and hackneyed series of scenes that are loosely linked together by Angel’s relationship with the other two main characters. Moreover, what he is doing wearing a Trilby and riding a racehorse around central Santiago is anyone’s guess!
Yet, for all that, there is a warm and pleasant tone to this film that does offset some of the harsher criticisms of it. In part, this is due to the many splendidly composed and photographed scenes that can be enjoyed here. In particular, the final few images make for a very beautiful and evocative ending. Moreover, there are some interesting and undeniably dark undertones to this film that allude to the country’s terrible recent history. They seem to say that as much as Chile is a country reborn and its citizens have all manner of new opportunities and freedoms available to them, there are still the tentacles of an appalling past wrapped around the legs of so many people. Still, as symbolized by the permanence and splendour of the Andes, all of these things will pass in time, even if this can never be soon enough for some.
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