Il cittadino illustre

The story is worth watching, and if you are from some small places like me, you can feel related if you understand that it's not trying to be subtle, and if you have found some of those bizarre characters in little towns, you are going to find this not surreal at all. Writing is good and I suspect the only reason (besides the leading actor) this have got some prices. But sadly but the movie it's badly directed, and the worst part for me it's photography, I don't care if they didn't have a huge budget, you could do much better with a decent director of photography. The feeling of cheapness comes from a poor and amateurish use of camera and lighting, not from the equipment used.

You know the excitement of life: the Nobel Prize from the Royal Family, and the Outstanding Citizen Award from the Mayor. You all know the embarrassment of life: sitting on the plane and hearing your name on the radio, recording a TV program suddenly inserted ads. Inexplicable in life, you all know: you have to buy a wheelchair for fellow teenagers, and you have to go to the invitation of strangers. The cemetery where the former residence was used for other purposes is deserted: you just don't know where this homesickness is placed.

This is a perplexing story from Argentina about fame and the fact that as Thomas Wolfe advised, you can never go home again. A pampered writer, in fact, a Nobel prize winner, impulsively decides to return to his native village which he left half a century ago without ever returning. He longs to revisit where it all began and our sympathy is with him because who hasn't longed to retrace the paths of life to see what might have been? The provincials in his home town pull out all the stops to curry favor with the man, lectures are scheduled, there's a parade,, he asked to judge the local art contest and they erect a hastily improvised statue of him. But instead of understanding their jealousy of his fame mingled with their genuine pride in his accomplishments, he pompously mocks their country ways and their longing to escape from the monotony of provincial life. Suddenly the tables are turned; we see the the bumpkins as honest and fallible human beings even if they lack the will and talent to escape, and the writer is revealed to be the pompous ass he probably has always been. This transformation is very skillfully done in a film that is at once funny and sad. Highly recommended.

Predictable, for sure, but there were quite a few funny moments throughout the film that managed to win me over. I commend the lead (Oscar Martínez)for the subtlety he brought to this role in order to make the part(and the situations)convincingly amusing. Understanding or navigating the nuances of a foreign culture, even when the culture is from one's own childhood, can be a tricky task.

Few movies have achieved to be as visceral and deep as this one. Without failing to keep your eyes on the screen until the last scene, besides making you laugh, panic and hold your breath countless times, A Distinguished Citizen questions the role of the artist, his ethics and his commitments. Mantovani, the main character, confronts his origins and his own creatures face to face, outside the artificiality of his new life as an European and a very well-succeeded writer. What comes from there is the source of his art emerging again: in the mediocrity of the Latin American little town's facts (and his repercussion on them), the whole system of art comes into question. Is the writer really able to stand for what he believes in and what has earned him a Noble prize? Should the artist violate real people in order to make his art relevant? This movie proves itself consistent with its plot by providing sturdy answers instead of falling into mere nihilism or sarcasm.