Official Competition
Directed by Mariano Cohn, Gastón Duprat
Running time: 1hr55 | REVIEWED BY CATHERINE BRAY
Antonio Banderas, Penélope Cruz and Oscar Martínez star in Official Competition
From Argentine directing duo Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn comes a comedy that begins by plucking some fairly low-hanging fruit (various forms of vanity), before stretching up towards loftier branches (the purpose of art itself).
We open with a wealthy old tycoon who has just turned eighty and is wondering how, as he stares down the barrel of his mortality, he can leave a truly meaningful mark on the world. Something he might be remembered for. Perhaps he could have a bridge built, and name it after himself? Or perhaps he could fund a prestige film, adapted from a recent literary smash hit, and constructed from the ground up to win awards and play at prestigious festivals? This is what he opts for, and naturally he chooses to have his film made by the finest artistic talents that money can buy.
The artistic talents in question are played with relish by three actors at the top of their respective games. Penélope Cruz plays Lola Cuevas, the hottest director in the biz right now, whose films are reviewed with the kinds of superlatives that press officers dream about in their dreamiest dreams, and whose flamboyant wardrobe is one of the best things I’ve seen on screen in quite some time. Antonio Banderas plays Felix Rivero, an A-list actor not overly burdened with grey matter, though possessed of a certain animal cunning. He’s the kind of guy whose face on a poster guarantees a healthy box office and who has a string of hot girlfriends at his beck and call.
Rounding out the trio, with my favourite performance (though it’s a close-run thing, all three are excellent) is Oscar Martínez. He plays Iván Torres, the most exactingly observed character: a man attempting to live an authentic life as an prestigious theatre actor who cares genuinely about his craft and eschews the trappings of success, but whose vanities are legion and essentially conspire to undermine any sense of purity in his mission.
With these three combustible elements in the mix, fireworks are inevitable, but I was surprised by the extent to which the film didn’t fully rely on the farce or whimsy typical of this kind of set-up. There are some wild set-pieces, mostly related to Lola’s rehearsal process, which involves putting her actors through various forms of psychological torment, the most exquisite of which is forcibly restraining them while she pops all of their most precious awards into a metal grinder. (In a neat touch, one of these awards is the Venice Film Festival’s Volpi Cup for Best Actor, supposedly won by Iván — in real life, this trophy went to Martínez for his performance in this directing duo’s previous film, The Distinguished Citizen.)
Despite these fun little stunts, it’s actually a more deliberate film, which builds inexorably to an unexpectedly savage climax which I won’t spoil here, except to say that it kind of snuck up on me. The set pieces are so much fun, it’s easy to find yourself waiting impatiently for the next one, while all along, a screw has been slowly tightening until the inevitable breaking point.
OFFICIAL COMPETITION (COMPETENCIA OFICIAL) (2021) Written by Mariano Cohn, Andrés Duprat, Gastón Duprat | Shot by Arnau Valls Colomer | Edited by Alberto del Campo
