Tetro (15)

Dir. Francis Ford Coppola , US/Italy/Spain/ Argentina , 2009, 127 mins, in English with some Spanish and French subtitled

Cast: Vincent Gallo, Maribel Verdu, Alden Ehrenreich

Review by Carol Allen

Still as powerful a film maker at the age of seventy as he ever was, Coppola returns here to the theme of The Godfather movies - family and family conflict in an Italian émigré context. - but in a totally different way.

17 year old Bennie (Ehrenreich) has not seen his adored older brother for over ten years, ever since he walked out of the family home in New York , where they lived with their symphony conductor father Carlo (Klaus Maria Brandauer) and returned to Argentina , where this Italian family had been raised. Bennie arrives in Buenos Aires in search of Tetro (Gallo), as his brother is now known, and finds him much changed. Moody, self destructive and semi disabled after a road accident, Tetro rebuffs him, but Tetro's girlfriend Miranda (Verdu) welcomes Bennie into their apartment and tries to heal the breach between the brothers. And when Bennie finds Tetro's half finished novel and turns it into a play, the reasons behind Tetro's disappearance are revealed and the various family skeletons come popping out of the closet.

The “present day” of the film, which appears to be some time in the late sixties or early seventies, is shot in crisp and often stunningly theatrical black and white, established in the opening scene of Bennie's arrival in Buenos Aires, shown here as a place of bright pools of light and deep shadows in the street, while the frequent flashbacks, which reveal the past in an imaginative and often oblique manner, are in fifties style Technicolor, making the dramatic point that in this case the past is more colourful for the brothers than the present. In these sequences too there is a strong theatrical element, drawing on both opera and ballet, in that Michael Powell's film of The Red Shoes plays an important role in Bennie's childhood and the brothers' history is played out in fantasy ballet sequences in the style of Rob ert Helpmann, along with extracts from that film and The Tales of Hoffmann . The theatrical motif is also carried into the present, in the theatre group in Buenos Aires, who adopt Bennie and ultimately present the play he has written at a literary competition in a riveting climax, which is reminiscent in some ways of the opera sequence in “Godfather 3”, as the revelation of the real secret at the heart of Tetro's malaise is intercut with the dramatisation on stage of the family story as perceived and written by Benny.

The performances are all very good. Gallo as an actor has shown a tendency in some of his previous films to let it all hang out explosively a bit too much, but here he's very powerful in his restraint and also shows considerable gentleness at times. Ehrenreich is a very talented young actor, totally convincing in his first professional role. He has something of the physical appearance and presence of the young Leonardo DiCaprio. Coppola has always had an eye for young talent. He gave a big boost to the young Al Pacino in The Godfather movies and to then up and coming actors Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Tom Cruise, Diane Lane and Mickey Rourke early in their careers and he has another find here in Ehrenreich. Verdu is perfectly cast as the supportive Miranda, demonstrating once again the gorgeous warmth she displayed in E Tu Mama Tambien , and there's an effective cameo from Brandauer as the father.

This is a complex piece of cinema, both in its structure and the way it draws on so many of the other performing arts to tell its story. It is arguably a little overlong but always crystal clear in its telling, dramatically satisfying and it never loses touch with the human situation at the heart of the tale. All proving that Coppola has not lost his master touch.