‘The Man Who Loved UFOs’: San Sebastian Review

Dir. Diego Lerman. Argentina 2024. 107 minutes

The reality is on the market – nevertheless it’s not strictly dependable in extra-terrestrially fanciful media satire The Man Who Beloved UFOs. Competing in San Sebastian, the newest characteristic from Argentinian writer-director Diego Lerman (All of a sudden, The Invisible Eye) follows a infamous real-life episode within the profession of the late José de Zer, a well-liked journalist and TV reporter.

 All the pieces hinges on Sbaraglia’s efficiency as a likeable if self-serving and faintly sleazy determine

Musing on questions of creativeness, actuality and the standing of fact within the pre-digital media world, this whimsical Netflix dramedy is a definite departure from the more durable realism of Lerman’s earlier movie The Substitute. Whereas Argentinian viewers may beam nostalgically on the references, the broader world is prone to reply with a shrug – aside from Spain and different territories the place lead Leonardo Sbaraglia is a draw.

Argentinian actor Sbaraglia – whose current European collaborations embody Olivier Assayas’s Wasp Community and Almodóvar’s Ache And Glory – seems with bleached hair as de Zer who, when the story begins in 1986, is an leisure reporter for a Buenos Aires TV channel. He’s first seen making a backstage go to to Monica (Monica Ayos), a middle-aged showgirl and chatshow host who can also be his occasional lover. He later collapses whereas filming her – apparently having sighted a mysterious flash within the sky – and experiences a flashback to a imaginative and prescient he acquired within the Sinai Desert whereas engaged within the Six Day Struggle.

On waking in hospital, José is approached by a mining firm government who needs him to report on alleged UFO exercise within the mountain city of La Candelaria, in order to supply a lift for native tourism. Simply persuaded, José units off along with his trustworthy cameraman Chango (Sergio Prima) – “Observe me, Chango!” apparently being a catchphrase beloved by all who keep in mind De Zer. 

In La Candelaria, there’s scant proof to counsel something unusual, however José – spurred by an ambivalent mixture of visionary enthusiasm and bare urge for food for publicity – manages to spin out his skimpy, trumped-up reportage over a number of weeks, changing into a hero to residents solely too glad to be on the map ultimately. The protection additionally enhances his private profile – he’s even seen sharing a shower of faux plastic bubbles with Monica on her super-tacky TV present – however he faces scepticism from colleagues at his channel, from his ex-wife and from their teenage daughter Marti (a properly spiky characterisation from the director’s personal daughter Renata Lerman). Finally, starvation for a very good story – even when it’s a preposterous one – leads him into hazard and eventually, it’s prompt in an altogether crazy climax, some kind of transcendental redemption. 

Shot in widescreen with expressionistic touches of distortion at fringe of body, the movie has simple sweep in its panorama imagery, capturing the mountainous territory of Argentina’s Córdoba province. It additionally judiciously downplays the visible references to 80s know-how and vogue, so usually exaggerated in interval motion pictures. With a surfeit of sketchily-limned supporting characters detracting from the story’s focus, all the things hinges on Sbaraglia’s efficiency as a likeable if self-serving and faintly sleazy determine. The actor adeptly balances the weather of naivety and cynicism – on one hand, a semi-visionary offered on his personal myth-making, on the opposite a huckster in love along with his energy to steer. 

Dramatically, nonetheless, and by way of the comedian ironies that this story might probably pack, the movie lacks chew, its building not fairly maximising the twists and turns of José’s unbelievable progress. The ending additionally directs too cutely gratifying a wink to the viewer – and, lest we expect that is all a trumped-up story, makes use of the ever-popular machine of displaying archive footage of De Zer’s precise broadcasts. All through, use of fuzzy TV and video textures will please techno-nostalgists craving for the times earlier than digital smoothness ironed out the crunchier digital grit.