Friday Dispatch - Airplane Cinema, The Delinquents Part One: A Bressonian Heist or the Agony of Waiting, The Delinquents Part Two: Four Adventures of Morán and Román
Airplane Cinema:
The prospect of watching a movie on a long flight is always daunting. I typically go for movies that I know I would never watch if I was in my ideal home viewing space, the sweet ground where my telly lies and not 30,000 feet in the air. These picks would be arbitrary and wouldn't necessarily be bad movies, but they aren't exactly my cup of tea and wouldn't typically give the time of day. They are, however, ideal and worthy for an in-flight entertainment; I am willing to be subjected to them in hopes that they put me to sleep, but with always the slight chance and hope for them to surprise. The other candidates are movies I've already watched and enjoyed; they're safe bets and also ideal for guilty-free naps. And then there are movies that have long been on my ever mounting watchlist; they are staring right at me, "feast your eyes on this" they say. But I typically try to resist the movies in this category and make a note to watch them in the not-too-distant future. I mostly fly Ethiopian Airlines and one out of every three screens is faulty, not to discount the audio which makes it seem like you're eavesdropping on the dialogue from another room. There is also the second guessing of whether or not you are watching an altered or censored version of the film. And lastly, the strange voyeurism of being able to see what other people are watching, or feeling a bit exposed when watching an unedited R rated movie and a love scene suddenly comes on. To put it simply, it is not ideal movie watching environment. All of this to say, I finally gave in right around the time I noticed that we had close to four hours to our destination. Challenge Accepted. The Argentine stunner, The Delinquents, seemed the perfect candidate with a runtime of a 190 minutes; it seemed out of place sitting in the European section, but it seems it is also a Luxembourg co-production (along with Brazil and Chile). I was meant to watch it on Mubi a couple of weeks back, but that runtime kept it from being my next watch so here we are now: hoping I don’t fall asleep and hoping the plane doesn’t land before I finish the film.
The Delinquents: Part One
A Bressonian Heist or the Agony of Waiting
The opening shot of The Delinquents is of a full suit without a body resting on a chair as the morning sun hits; it is as if someone was zapped by the aliens from War of the Worlds mere moments before the film started. It is one of the more striking opening shots that I've seen in recent years. The suit belongs to Morán, a banker who typically has access to the bank’s safe along with one other person at the same time for security reasons. You wouldn't guess it without having read about the film prior, but this is a heist movie that loves to settle in all the traditions of slow cinema which is so unusual for this subgenre. Normally, you would know when and how the heist is happening, the parties involved, and their motivation for taking such a big risk. In The Delinquents, Morán seems like he is having a normal day at work, but through a series of individual mistakes and absences from the staff, he finds himself left alone with the keys to the main safe. He puts an indeterminate amount of money in his usual work backpack and casually walks out without anyone noticing him. The whole heist stays in first gear, probably the slowest heist in all of cinema if you consider the possibility that Morán has been fantasizing about this heist for years. But a heist is still a heist, so even in its deliberately monotonous pace it is just the right kind of tense.
After a successful exit and on his way home, the look on Morán’s face is one of sheer joy and surprise that someone hasn't jumped him yet. Daniel Elías is so believable as Morán; he is very much human and relatable despite presenting a very dark side to him at a moment’s notice. Later that evening, he contacts one of his similarly disgruntled co-workers (Román) who unbeknownst to him was the catalyst for the success of Morán's robbery as he got off work early that day. At a cafe, Morán tells him in a very matter of fact way that he has a backpack filled with $650k sitting on the floor and breaks down the rationalization of his heist. It boils down to work boredom and time eating away at you while you are sat still. He feels entitled to take his future salary, for the next twenty years, well in advance. This would mean that he had calculated exactly how much he deems fair or appropriate making us question how long he has been ready to disappear and change his life drastically. His plan is to turn himself in and keep most of the money with Román until he gets out of jail in a couple of years. He manipulates Román so easily and viciously, convincing him to take on such a big risk with no way out. He goes to a distant town to stash whatever he has left, and he finally turns himself in.
The morning after the robbery is quite the scene. One of the bank tellers almost has a heart attack from seeing the video footage of Morán casually stealing well over half a million dollars. Román is amongst them keeping up appearances and looking disheveled and very much guilty; he is left with all the psychological fallout of Morán’s thievery. The old-timer bank manager, played by Germán De Silva (Wild Tales), tells them that no one can know that the robbery took place as the public would lose trust. He also mentions that there will be ongoing investigation to find the accomplice since the money wasn't retrieved following Morán's arrest. The conditions worsen for Román as the bank starts cutting some of the staffers’ pay and monitoring their every move. There is a scene where a new supervisor tells the other bank teller to take a break forcing Román to handle all the customers singlehandedly; Esteban Bigliardi (Román) is great in this scene as he channels Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times’ famous factory scene. At this point, it is almost as if Morán has it better in jail; his only concern comes from a fellow prisoner who is also a de facto warden who forces Morán to pay a fraction of what he robbed to survive in prison and reunite with his loot. In what is an ingenious casting decision, Germán De Silva, in addition to playing the bank manager, plays the warden driving home the point that whether it’s at the bank, prison or elsewhere, there will always be an authoritarian figure derailing your path to freedom. This leads Román on an arduous journey to the countryside to retrieve some of Morán’s stashed money. FIN.
The Delinquents: Part Two
Four Adventures of Morán and Román
Román’s entire life has been in turbulence mode ever since this robbery took place and his family life has suffered the most. On his trip to the scenic countryside Morán had pointed him to, he finds a different kind of freedom. After Román is left bloodied after completing his task, he goes for a swim to clean up. He runs into a group of young people with a town house nearby, and by merely accepting their food and interacting with them, the film takes a leap and goes full Rohmer. We learn that the group are there to film some footage that may not see the light of day and whose final form is unknown even to the filmmaker. They chat about their lives, upbringings and end up playing a fun game where one person names a city, and the next person must name a city that starts with the last letter from the last answer. This is not so much a subversion or a major downshift into full hang out movie mode, but it is a pivot into the rich inner lives of Román and Morán, especially of the former. Part one isn’t exactly propulsive, but it is slow cinema coded and more contemplative than your average heist film. But Part two is an entirely different film complete with funny twists and meandering but ultimately rewarding scenes. Román falls in love with one of the girls from the group, Norma played by Margarita Molfino (also in Wild Tales), and he has now invited her to the city where he is living in a two-star hotel after his partner left him. The twist comes in the form of a record, Pappo’s Blues self-titled Argentine blues rock album. Sometimes movies justify their existence by introducing you to a piece of great music; although the film has a lot more to offer and should be savored in all its idiosyncratic, brooding delights. I am not going to turn this into an album review, but it is a fantastic listen.
The film finds its deadpan humor in the unlikeliest of scenes, or in some of the ways these actors deliver curious bits of dialogue in an otherwise serious scene. The two lead performances are strong, and the cinematography is the highlight, making use of the leisurely paced second half with scenic settings. The film will require patience and time itself is a big part of the film, but it is genuinely refreshing to see a film that seems like it can confidently tangent into any territory and without a clear ending in sight. The director, Rodrigo Moreno, is in his wheelhouse and doesn’t seem to want to finish his own film, evident in the beautiful, last static shot of Morán on a horse. It is reminiscent of the ending of Haneke’s Caché but with less detail and probing. There is one seemingly trivial detail in the film that goes unsolved that has been eating at me. In the opening minutes of the film, an old lady gets flagged by the bank for having the exact same signature as another unreachable client. This is the first time that this bank has faced such an incident, and the old lady rightly defends herself by saying that she can’t help that someone else has her signature. The bankers are all confounded by it, and one of the bank tellers tries to dismiss the whole thing by claiming that some people have the same handwriting, even the same life. This also plays into the main characters’ names being anagrams of each other, especially in that ending (Shawshank Redemption gone wrong). The characters’ actions and decisions reminded me of Richard Linklaters’ recent Netflix movie, Hit Man, where personalities and identities are prone to change or can be entirely abandoned in sudden, dramatic fashion in search of true liberty. The Delinquents is a marvel, even when it stumbles and meanders its way into its inevitable ending. FIN.
For those curious, the “safe bet” re-watch on this flight was, of course, Game Night and it was even better than I remembered. I am mostly obsessed with Jeffrey Wright’s delivery of “Shut up, all of you!”
And for those wondering how I fit a total of five hours viewing on the same flight, it was a 15 hour flight. But also I have done more damage on shorter flights.
Happy Viewing.