Review
FRANCISCO LOMBARDI RETROSPECTIVE
Calgary International Film Festival
Ojos Que No Ven
Friday, October 3
Plaza
Red Ink
Saturday, October 4
Globe Cinema
Captain Pantoja and the Special Services
Sunday, October 5
Globe Cinema
Over the past 26 years, Peruvian director Francisco Lombardi has amassed a prolific body of work concerned with the ongoing battle between idealism and corruption.
While Lombardi’s films are little known outside of his homeland, the Calgary International Film Festival hopes to change that by showcasing a retrospective of his three most recent pictures. While the first of the three films is a ridiculous and overlong sex farce dressed up as a satire of the military, the other two prove that Lombardi is indeed deserving of the festival’s spotlight.
The less said about Captain Pantoja and the Special Services (2000), the better. In this bawdy romp, Lombardi tells the story of a Peruvian army captain whose impeccable military record leads him to be promoted to the rank of procurer, in charge of delivering prostitutes to soldiers in outposts throughout the Amazon. While the film cleverly exposes the hypocrisy inherent in military hierarchy, it’s much too long to sustain its comic impact and too often resorts to chauvinist stereotyping to carry its message.
On the other hand, Red Ink (2000) and Ojos Que No Ven (2003) are much more accomplished in their respective portrayals of corruption in the news media and in politics. Red Ink chronicles the descent an idealistic young journalist (Giovanni Ciccia) into a morass of depravity through his apprenticeship at a sensationalist tabloid newspaper. A frank look at opportunistic, "if it bleeds, it leads" news coverage, Red Ink revels in ironic situations and in the moral degradation of its central character – an anti-hero whose corruption seems only natural in such an immoral professional environment.
Lombardi’s latest film, Ojos Que No Ven (2003), also calls the Peruvian news media into question, but primarily as an accessory to the fraudulent behaviour of Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori’s government. Here Lombardi places the dissolution of the ruling leader’s regime against a backdrop of a society in decline. It’s an epic tale, somewhat reminiscent of American director John Sayles’s masterpiece City of Hope in the way it shows the complicity of all parties – the electorate included – in the ultimate success or failure of any democracy.
Lombardi’s films may be set in Peru, but with their relentless pursuit of truth and justice in a corrupt world, they are nevertheless relevant to North American society, and anyone who has even a passing interest in current events. |
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