Institute History
Description
Mario and Pablo, the petty thieves of Palermo Hollywood—Eduardo Pinto's fatalistic, high-speed urban tragedy—are unlikely best friends. In the aftermath of Argentina's financial collapse, they stay afloat by dealing dope and running small-time jobs in the seedy, but trendy, Old Palermo neighborhood of Buenos Aires. Pablo steals to support his girlfriend, Jimena, and their young child; Mario's life of crime is more an act of rebellion against his middle-class family and politician father. Meanwhile, in addition to their money problems, Pablo struggles with his commitment to Jimena, and Mario starts up an affair with Pablo's strictly off-limits younger sister. Naturally, when the kidnap-ransom job the boys pull for a local gangster goes south, their friendship follows suit.
Though Pinto has fashioned a genre film from familiar elements (young hoods in over their heads), his appetite is clearly for the meat of the relationship between his two main characters—the fascinating nuances of their friendship: the insecurity, underlying friction, and class division. Brian Maya and Federico Finkielstain's smart, unaffected writing yields fully dimensional, fully flawed characters.
A longtime music video director, Pinto infuses his first feature with visually charged, high-contrast photography, an energetic modern tango score, and a surprisingly sensual aesthetic. Palermo Hollywood is full of vitality and, despite its overtones of Shakespearean tragedy, never feels weighed down by design.