This supposed crime film doesn’t turn out at all the way in which the opening suggests. The credits roll over loud music and a virtually static head-on image of two guys on a motorbike. The rider is wearing a black helmet and visor and the pair look menacing. When the narrative lurches into action they run a bag snatch on a middle-aged woman who refuses to let go of her bag and is dragged along the pavement until she rolls over, clearly injured and possibly dead.
The two men take her money and ditch the bag, but the rider and owner of the bike first takes the purse and finds an ID. The next morning he goes to the local hospital and finds the woman, who without an ID and suffering from amnesia, can’t be identified by the young doctor who is in charge of her treatment. From here on we are in a different movie in which Miguel (Sergio Prina) pretends to be a family friend of Elena (Liliana Juarez) the injured woman and moves into her small apartment and in effect becomes her carer as she recovers.
The narrative is set in Tucumán province, one of the poorer areas of Northern Argentina and the home of writer-director Agustín Toscano. Most of all this is a character study of Miguel, a father with a six-year old son, a difficult family background and no employment who is used to sleeping on the street and seeing his son a couple of times a week. As he continues his ‘caring’ role, Sergio Prina seems to soften, he smiles more and becomes ‘humanised’. There are moments of comedy and at first this looks like a familiar genre narrative of two seemingly mismatched people learning to live with each other. But Elena turns out to be a more complex character and someone who shares some of Miguel’s problems (and secrets). Elena’s dark apartment becomes an almost expressionist mise en scène for the developing relationship.
The central narrative is also set against a local strike by police officers which sees outbreaks of looting, giving a social realist edge to Miguel’s criminal acts. Not everything in the film works and the young female doctor’s role seemed odd to me. The final part of the film also seemed as if the director wasn’t quite sure whether he needed to add another genre element in the form of a chase sequence. What actually occurs is entertaining but not necessarily plausible. I was also left wondering how Miguel had managed to keep hold of his bike for so long.
But overall this is an absorbing drama which has been well received on the festival circuit and deserves wider attention. It’s the director’s second film and its appearance in the Directors Fortnight at Cannes and its subsequent festival success with critics suggests that Agustín Toscano (and his two leads) have a future on the international circuit and hopefully at home too. I should also mention the music by Maxi Prietto, a heavy blues guitar sound.
The Snatch Thief screens again at ¡Viva! on Wednesday April 3rd.
The Case for Global Film 