Berlin Film Festival 2021: Azure

Berlin Film Festival 2021: Azure | reconsidering

You might think that a movie showing the silent attempts of a private investment banker to retain clients of his company after his partner left without permission might have a hard time getting the audience’s attention. This assumption turned out to be correct.

In 1980, the Swiss banker Ivan (Fabrizio Rongione) arrived in Buenos Aires with his wife Ines (Stephanie Clio). He is there to collect coins after losing his mysterious partner the Keys, which has made local bank clients wonder how to hide the huge sums they obtained illegally. Evan and Ennis spend time in a variety of luxury hotels, luxury country estates and private member clubs where they assure some wealthy people that they will remain very wealthy.

I visit It might be an honest description of the mysterious and deceptive ways in which the Argentine elite managed their finances while the country was under the control of a military dictatorship, but that doesn’t give many tangible rewards to those who watch it.

Director Andreas Fontana took an odd path with his material, trying to create a sense of curiosity without providing enough contextual evidence. This results in an advantage that is largely impenetrable and doesn’t give your audience enough to make them want more in the first place. Frustratingly, potential elements of interest are left in the background, mainly the partner mysteriously absent.

The keys are described in crude and strong terms, with words like rotten, vile, manipulative, and dangerous towards them. This isn’t a passing fantasy either: the character is referenced a lot, and the menacing monsters pause for a moment and raise their eyebrows before they even say the name. It seemed that wherever the missing banker was, and whatever he was doing, he was more interesting than what appears on screen. The movie lost its keys, leaving the audience in good shape and really closed.

Oliver Johnston

I visit It does not have a UK release date yet.

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Watch the trailer for I visit Here: