curated by Vera Viselli
Truman
Cesc Gay
Spain – Argentina, 2015
What to do facing the upcoming death of a friend? None would face it, maybe one could try to avoid and escape it in every possible way, as says Cesc Gay, the director of Truman, the best movie of the year.
Julian (Ricardo Darín), ill since a long time, has still a few months left to live and decides to set up all his matters before the illness won’t let him do it anymore; to help him, for four days, his old friend Tomas comes (Javier Cámara) and manages Julian’s biggest worry: to find new owners for his dog Truman, his partner against solitude.
I said it’s a movie about death but it’s more a movie about the consciousness of the last goodbye, both from Julian and Tomas side. Tomas reaches it step by step: the movie begins at Tomas’ home with his wife almost forcing him to go to Madrid, because if he wouldn’t have decided to go in that moment, he would have regretted it later. With such a hard theme, we could figure out a movie with a deep insight in the pure drama, but here’s the surprise: thanks also to a couple of the best Spanish actors (maybe not just among the Spaniards) and to the bittersweet mood that alternates comedy moments to a clearly more tragic spirit, the movie finds a perfect balance without becoming too silly or too dramatic, making smiling at some points and giving small kicks in the guts in other moments.
Obviously it is a movie about courage and friendship (sometimes it reminds The Intouchables, even if it’s narratively different from Truman), it’s not about the departed, it’s about who remains. In the end it is a movie about Tomas, that could be anyone of us: about how he relates himself to the ill person and about how he can – or cannot – express his feelings.
