I was given Tetro on Blu-ray as a Christmas present but I was late in watching it as with the previous release of Francis Ford Coppola Youth Without Youth I was actually hoping to be very disappointed in it thankfully this was not the case and it is clearly , her best completely original screenplay since The Conversation and her most personal film since Apocalypse Now, I got so involved with it that I wished it was another 30 minutes long.
Tetro’s premise is actually very mild. Bennie, a waiter on a cruise ship, decides to search for his long-lost older brother Angelo while he is on shore in Buenos Aires. He discovers him living with his wife Miranda (Maribel Verdú), only now he calls himself ‘Tetro’ and claims that he no longer wants to have anything to do with his royal family. Angelo and Bennie are the children of a famous concert director, although they had different mothers; Angelo’s was an opera singer and was killed in a car accident while behind the wheel and that, along with another incident between him and his father by a mutual lover, has left him mentally and emotionally scarred.
What immediately struck me about Tetro is how good it looks, I was skeptical because I knew it was shot entirely digitally, but Mihai Malaimare Junior’s 1080p / 24 source HDCAM photograph is impressive, shot predominantly in monochrome with a 2.35: 1 aspect ratio but choosing to use a lower ratio for 1960s home movie style, washed out color flashbacks, and full “Technicolor” for Powell and Pressburger inspired fantasy ballet sequences. Obviously, there is no loss of quality when transferring this to Blu-ray and the images in the film are demo material and further proof that there will be life after celluloid on this medium.
Newcomer Alden Ehrenreich is a revelation like Bennie, there are not many young actors who can defend themselves in his screen debut against the force of nature that is Vincent Gallo, who embodies the damaged Tetro with equal measure of selfish and stern charm. self-loathing. ; The acting across the board is impeccable, as with most of Coppola’s productions, he insists on a great deal of reading, rehearsal and improvisation time before filming and it always pays off on camera.
Bennie can’t understand why Tetro seems so cold to him, especially after leaving him a note saying that he would come back to find him in New York at some point. Both brothers have aspirations to become writers but Tetro along with his past has abandoned his great work, an unfinished play about his father, but when Bennie discovers it in a dusty suitcase he sees not only an opportunity to finish the story but to stage it in the cafe. Local theater where Tetro turns on the lights can force him to face his demons.
In the few scenes in which Klaus Maria Brandauer appears, he brings great presence to the double role of the older brothers Tetrocini and Coppola reveals just enough for us to understand the dynamics between the rival brothers; as Maestro Carlo is effortlessly charismatic, his fame and fortune seduce his son Angelo’s girlfriend, and as Alfredo you see an older man forced to live in the shadow of his younger brother’s success. These themes are echoed in the future generation of Tetrocini brothers with Angelo envying Bennie’s acclaim when his finished version of his work titled “Wander Lust” is shortlisted for first prize at the Patagonia Festival gaining approval from the mysterious critic. ” Alone “played by Pedro Almodóvar’s La muse Carmen Maura; Tetro had once been his protégé, but they had a fight over artistic differences.
I will not spoil the film’s climactic twist that occurs in the extended Patagonia sequence that many critics have flatly dismissed as self-indulgent without one of those I have read bothering to comment that a Federico Fellini homage is very obvious stylistically and without doubt. aware of its unreal quality. I mean Tetro might as well be the best film of the decade, but I know I would stretch it, however, it is hands down the best Francis Ford Coppola film in a long time and as such should be regarded as him. one of the true artists working in cinema today.