Chronicle Of An Escape (2006/Spain/Genius/IFC First Take DVD)
Picture:
B- Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Film: B-
In
countries that fall between the first and third world, the wrong people get in
and it becomes like a third-world dictatorship and in Argentina, that means a
torture state. This was certainly the
case in Buenos Aires, 1977 when young soccer goalie Guillermo Fernandez
(Nazareno Casero) is seized in an almost Kafkaesque situation and taken away. What follows is years of torture and imprisonment
in Israel Adrian Caetano’s Chronicle Of
An Escape (2006) doing its bets to capture the event and make a solid
record of it.
I was not
expecting Pasolini’s Salo, but hoped
for something even more thoroughly blatant and even graphic, but the makers were
trying to portray the situation without being exploitative or wallowing in what
it is portraying. The writing and acting
is top notch, but the makers may have been too careful in parts and are frankly
not hard enough on the captors or government, which would have given the film
extra edge, power and punch. However,
despite some reservations, I was reminded of Roman Polanski’s underrated Death & The Maiden in dealing with
some of the same politics, though that film found a way to have more impact and
was more complex. Still, Chronicle Of An Escape manages to hold
together to the end and deserves to call itself “based on a true story” where
so many other such projects fail.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image looks very good despite some of the darker
stylings, with good detail and depth for the format. The Dolby Digital Spanish 5.1 mix is well
recorded, but is not as consistent in soundfield, sometimes front-heavy and has
some small flaws. Extras include text
cast/crew bios, deleted scenes of interest, A
Trip To Stockholm interview featurette and making of featurette, all worth
seeing after the film.
- Nicholas Sheffo
