EL ANGEL/THE ANGEL
Argentina, 2018, 118 minutes, Colour.
Lorenzo Ferro, Chino Darin, Luis Gnecco, Cecilia Roth, Mercedes Moran, Daniel Fanego.
Directed by Luis Ortega.
The Angel is a disturbing film in its way. It is based on an actual character, a true story.
In 1971, Carlos is a 17-year-old, still at school. His parents care for him, serious people, and want the best for his education, transferring them to a technical school. He looks particularly young, slight in build, curly blonde hair, a rather angelic face. However, immediately Carlos communicates to the audience that he was born to be a thief, that it is his destiny, and it appears that he has no conscience at all. Carlos is played by Lorenzo Ferro in his first screen role.
We see him take a bike, pretending it is a gift, his parents disapproving. He takes a local girl for a ride on the back of the bike and then abandons it. Then he is shown invading houses, taking his time, dancing, then stealing. At school, he has a fight with a fellow-student, Ramon (Chino Darin) but this becomes an opportunity for them to become friends, for Ramon to take him to his home, his father a drug addict who has been in prison, supported by his mother. They become a team for robberies.
In one of them, an elderly man is at home and Carlos shoots him. Later, Carlos will have no scruple in shooting people who stand in his way.
Ramon takes Carlos to a nightclub with a lot of the stolen pictures stored at his home and to an art dealer, a gay man, with whom he has a sexual encounter, but who provides him with an audition on television, a song and dance routine which is screened.
Carlos seems to be attracted to Ramon but also seems to be somewhat a-sexual.
Ultimately, he is destructive of Ramon and his family, going on the run, his parents disturbed, his phoning his mother who then lets the police know where he is and they surround the house. And the film ends. In fact, Carlos was imprisoned and is the longest-serving prisoner in Argentinian jails, for almost 50 years of the time of the making of the film.
1. A true story? The impact for the Argentinian audience, the central character known? For a non-Argentinian audience, observing?
2. Carlos, his criminal activity, at a young age, psychopath, sociopath, and the longest-serving prisoner in Argentina, almost 50 years?
3. Buenos Aires, the early 1970s, home life, school and education, class and wealth, lavish homes, drug addiction, crime, robberies and murders? Investigations? The police?
4. The portrait of Carlos, the performance of Lorenzo Ferro, his first film? The title? His appearance, his face, so young, toussled hair, the touch of the angel? His external manner, his behaviour with his parents, with associates? His explanation of himself, born to be a thief, his destiny? This guiding his consciousness? And, so, no conscience?
5. Carlos and his swagger, clothes, his dancing? Stealing the motorbike, his parents caution, an alleged gift, saying he would give it back? The twin girls and his talking with them, on the bike? His going to homes, the empty homes, wandering, invasion and being at home, stealing, the jewellery? The money? His not being caught?
6. The encounter at school, the laboratory, the cigarette, and, provoking Ramon, the hostility, the fight? At the principal’s door? His walking off, leaving Ramon? This forming a bond between them? His going to Ramon’s home, meeting his parents, the addicted father and his prison experience, his wife and her support, the criminal mentality, attracted to Carlos, his explanations of robbery, their forming a team? The guns, Carlos and the thrill of firing the gun?
7. The plan for the robbery of the gun shop, Carlos going in, taking so many guns, going back for the ammunition? Hector and his disapproval, Carlos has a wild card, the plans?
8. The continued robberies? Taking the room in the hotel? The further plans?
9. Hector, his addiction, the criminal mentality? His wife, coming on to Carlos, his not being interested? Her support of the robberies?
10. Carlos’s parents, earnest, proper, their concern, going to visit Ramon’s mother? The later discovery of the truth, their shock and the repercussions?
11. Ramon, with Carlos at the club, the art dealer, gay, their planting the stolen pictures on him, Ramon and the sexual encounter, the art dealer getting him a television audition, the song and dance on television, Carlos imagining he was dancing with him? The off-hand reaction of his parents? The phone call?
12. Ramon and Carlos, the twin girls, flirting, taking them for the bike ride, the sexual provocation?
13. Sexual issues? Carlos sexual? A-sexual? The attraction to Ramon? Breaking it off? Ramon and his ambiguity?
14. The episode in the house, the old man present, his looking at the painting, Carlos shooting him, the old man with no money, his going off and dying? Carlos taking the painting? Hanging it in his room?
15. The continued killings? 11 in reality? And Ramon? Carlos remorseless?
16. The setup, in the house, the phone call to his mother, her telling the police where he was, the house surrounded, his dancing? And the film ending?
17. A portrait of a conscienceless sociopath? Seeing him in action? And the consequences and his imprisonment?
