Azor

Summary:

The film tackles a theme rarely used by the cinema: the relationship of private banks with the military, businessmen, diplomats and officials of the last Argentine civil-military dictatorship. And he does it as a kind of thriller and noir (although it exceeds them) that portrays the elegant and above all discreet descent into hell of a Swiss banker who must frequent these estates in the early 1980s in Argentina. And the result is downright disturbing.

Review:

Ivan de Wiel, a private banker from Geneva (Fabrizio Rongione), arrives in Buenos Aires in the early 1980s with his wife Inés (Stéphanie Cléau) because they have lost contact with the partner in charge of the previous region, Kies, about whom they circulate various rumors. His role is to reconnect with the client portfolio and discreetly find out what happened to Kies to clear those rumors.

And what customers! De Wiel will undertake a tour that will include various members, houses and circles of the Buenos Aires upper class (with soldiers, prelates, landowners with stud farms, their wives and lawyers and some upstart), diplomatic personnel and some officials, in a kind of thriller and detective noir (although the film exceeds them), in the context of the military dictatorship.

The banker is faced with a framework in which at first it is difficult for him to position himself. He will act as an explorer in an elegant jungle where he must meet some sinister characters and a plot of things not said or half said, going down a descent into hell with "discretion as strategy" (in the words of its director), where the main objective will be to recover or preserve clients and businesses and where the title of the film, an expression of a Swiss dialect, will end up acquiring its full meaning.

The young Swiss director Andreas Fontana (who later trained in Buenos Aires) performs in his debut film a great reconstruction of the period (in every sense) in terms of the places that the protagonist must frequent, beginning with that Swiss marriage whom he hosts in the Plaza Hotel (and of course, not the Sheraton, a new rich Americans hotel) and tackles a topic rarely seen in the cinema: the relationship between private banks and the military, businessmen and officials of the last Argentine civic-military dictatorship. The film paints at the same time a portrait of this upper class in love with his possessions and proud of his silly Francophilia. At the same time, he makes powerful use of what is not shown, of "blind spots", of the off-field, resources that are very significant in times and contexts such as those he portrays.

And the result is downright disturbing.

This remarkable Argentine-Swiss coproduction is set in the early years of the Argentine rule-by-junta. The topic, though, is broader: the intersection of élite cupidity and brutal politics worldwide, cloaked under a veneer of high-class gentility and, of course, excruciatingly extreme discretion. The horrors endemic to the place and time in which the film is set are rendered obliquely and allusively, and all the more powerfully for that.

The film is wonderfully cast. Every character, down to the smallest non-speaking cameo, conveys worlds of meaning, often in a single frame. Most striking of all is a Catholic Monsignor who is brilliantly parodied while he acts as a searingly sinister fulcrum, lifting part of the veil that hangs over the plot, putting me in mind of the terrifying Grand Inquisitor in Verdi's opera "Don Carlos" who pushes Philip II of Spain to kill his rebellious son just as, in order to save the world, "God sacrificed his own". This sequence, set during a small gathering in one of the inner sanctums of the junta élite, tells you more about what was then going on in Argentina than could more explicit scenes set in a torture chamber or execution field, while at the same time making clear what the banker is really there to do, and what the film is really about.

The gentility and costly need for constant secretiveness (a lesson is even given in a secret argot used by Geneva bankers, including the meaning of "azor") are chillingly conveyed by the lead couple, played by Fabrizio Rongione and Stéphanie Cléau. He perfectly personifies the suave, ultra buttoned-down Swiss private banker, to the manor born, providing a master class in understated movie acting, conveying reactions with just the subtlest twitch of an eyelid or a small corner of his mouth. Her character is highly intelligent, ambitious, icily disciplined, both a judgmental antagonist and a tremendous resource for him, sussing out situations in which she is, even more (you sense) than usual in the macho world of the Argentine ruling classes (old and new), relegated to the sidelines, to the point of being more or less politely dismissed whenever serious business is to be discussed. (At one point, he is told to get rid of her prior to a key meeting: "no women".) She is perforce devoted to her husband yet bitter at the role she must play. Her greatest line, already widely quoted in reviews, comes when she is told by a tough-as-nails Argentine matriarch that she can see that "your husband loves you very much" (which is actually, you assume, a leading question), and Cléau, still smooth and icy but with just the subtlest flash of anger, responds., "Yes, he and I are but a single person. [Perfectly-timed pause.} And that person is him".

The film is in French and Spanish, with many of the Argentine characters (quite credibly, given their social standing) completely at home in French, while Rongione seems to have more than serviceable (though not perfect) Spanish. (Cléau seems to have almost none, which, if anything, serves to enhance the acuity of her observations.) The dialogue shifts constantly between the two languages, often in midsentence, none of which is flagged in the English subtitles even though, like every cue in this subtlest of movies, each shift conveys meaning.

Similarly, the film brings together two different, but intertwined and indeed interdependent, worlds. One is that of élites everywhere, but in this case of a post-putsch Latin American country among whom all are living in terror, though of what, or of whom, differs according to the person's social or political standing. The other is that of global private bankers, in this case Swiss, who provide vital services by protecting and processing wealth, whether gained by plunder by the current holders of power or inherited by established élites, presumably from plunder by their ancestors. Both worlds are scary, and their scariness is brilliantly conveyed, which is what makes this film so compelling. Though some of the in-jokes will be most amusing to Swiss viewers (outsiders will not necessarily spot the full contempt conveyed when one suave upper-class Swiss tells another that a third colleague is "from Zug"), the key structural role played by bankers worldwide in their dealings with the politically powerful and with the very rich, and the ways they help engineer mutations from one category to the other, could not be made clearer.

Without resorting to spoilers, I think it can be said that what's most striking about the film's final sequence is the sudden banality of the message it appears to convey. After all that intrigue and complexity, you wonder, it this really what it was all about? And the film's answer appears to be, "Well, of course, what did you think?"

The title, 'Azor' is translated as a code for, 'Be quiet'. The main characters rarely venture beyond the act of listening as they navigate through a maze of pretense and subterfuge that covers a world of arrogance, oppression and evil.

Fabrizio Rongione and Stephanie Cleau as the husband and wife strategize their pathway among the principals of a financial and political junta. Horrible crimes have been committed and an atmosphere of fear laps at the edges of every conversation. The particulars are never mentioned and studiously avoided. In the end we see that everyone who plays a part is fully complicit in a ruthless pursuit of power and greed.

A period piece that visually could have been made in the period that it portrays, the movie drifts from scene to scene, conversation and conversation in what feels like a dream. What is real is never spoken and everything important is hidden behind a curtain of appearance and language.

Sophisticated banker "De Wiel" (Fabrizio Rongione) heads from his base in Geneva to Buenos Aires to take over from his colleague who has mysteriously vanished. Now this story is set in the 1980s so his destination is still under the slightly anachronistic control of a military junta and the Catholic church. Rumours are abounding about the nature of the role his colleague had in some murky financial dealings and so aside from appeasing their clients, he is to try and find out just what happened to "Kies". Upon arrival he is quickly exposed to the corruption that prevails at just about every level of society and his job is to make them as much money a possible - regardless of the ethics or risks of any such transactions, whilst maintaining an high degree of discretion (aka secrecy). I could have done with just a little more pace from director Andreas Fontana here, but what he does provide is quite a compellingly presented assessment of just how venally menacing things were. His "associates" realising that the writing might be on the wall for them desperately trying to liquidate assets which may, or probably did not, belong to them to insulate themselves in an haven abroad. His encounters are not just with the upper class, but all with all strata of a community that had spent it's life turning a blind eye or being passively complicit. The photography works well with the limited amounts of dialogue, and this is quite an effective psychological thriller that leaves us to do much of the heavy lifting - and judging - ourselves.

I saw Azor a week ago. I have been thinking about it ever since.

The word "Azor" as used here is a French expression that means to remain quiet, to play one's cards close to the chest. On the surface, the film looks like a thriller, maybe something that Costa-Gavras might have made. However, like its title, the film is too quiet to be called a thriller.

In 1980, a Genevan private banker arrives in Argentina to do business. He is replacing a colleague who has a controversial reputation with the locals. In fact, there is some question about where this predecessor is currently, most believing that he has returned to Geneva. The banker, Yvan, and his wife, Ines, spend several days in the country trying to woo various clients, but the country's politics keep coming up. One of the clients (excellently played by Juan Trench) is grieving the disappearance of his daughter, who was involved in a political group. Her fate looks dire, but the client hangs on to hope.

Throughout all of this, Yvan and his wife, choose their words carefully and navigate the chilly political waters. The film builds to an ending that I initially thought of as too slight, but the more I think about it, the more I admire its true-to-life quality. There are no chases or shootouts like most thrillers would have for a climax. Instead, the film ponders a question. The story acknowledges that to get ahead one must often remain silent to horrible abuses, but should he do so?

Azor is a nicely shot, eye catching film, with good actors. I especially like Fabrizo Rongione, as Yvan, who has the difficult task of expressing a lot without saying much. I liked Azor a week ago, but I like it even more now.