Nazareno Cruz and the Wolf (1975)

 

Director: Leonardo Favio

Screenplay: Leonardo Favio and Jorge Zuhair Jury

Based on a radio programme by Juan Carlos Chiappe

Cast: Juan José Camero as Nazareno Cruz; Marina Magali as Griselda; Alfredo Alcón as The Powerful/Mandinga; Lautaro Murúa as Julián; Nora Cullen as The Lechiguana; Elcira Olivera Garcés as Damiana; Saul Jarlip as The Old Man Pancho; Juanita Lara as Fidelia; Yolanda Mayorani as The Powerful's Godmother; Marcelo Marcote as The Child

Ephemeral Waves

 

Based on folklore, Nazareno Cruz and the Wolf tells the story of the seventh son, the last surviving son, of a widowed mother who is said to be cursed by the Devil into becoming a werewolf. He managed, with the witch who warned his mother during her pregnancy as his loving godmother, to lead a happy life into his adulthood, to the point he is a popular man in the village despite the constant jokes about full moons. His love for the maiden Griselda (Marina Magali) however brings the Devil, or Mandinga (Alfredo Alcón) to him, warning him that, now with love in his life, Nazareno (Juan José Camero) will turn at the next full moon, even attempting to bribe Nazareno with wealth beyond his means to attempt to sacrifice Griselda's love. Based on the Guarani legend of the Lobizón, where the notion of the seventh son becoming a dog-like creature comes from if different here, Nazareno Cruz... is also, in Argentina, one of its most acclaimed and successful films. Alongside Argentina's official entry for the Foreign Language Oscar at the 48th Academy Awards, but this is held as a high mark from Argentinean cinema within the country,

It is also, however, a film extremely difficult to see outside of nefarious means, which is incredibly annoying. Nazareno Cruz... is not pulpy enough for a traditional genre label, closer to drama even with its fantastical story and a soundtrack by Juan José García Caffi that evokes Italian genre cinema's own, but it is startling and idiosyncratic in beautiful ways. Its director, Leonardo Favio, is a director I was lucky enough to see a few films of through with help, but his work is generally difficult to see. This disappoints as, even going by memories, his was a very diverse series of films as a filmography, many which were just as distinct as this. Also managing to be a well regarded singer-songwriter¹, as much as an acclaimed director in his homeland, Favio could go from a traditional historical film like Juan Moreira (1973), based on the titular folk hero and outlaw, to the very strange and utterly idiosyncratic El Dependiente (1969), to Chronicle of a Boy Alone (1965), a realistic tale of a titular young boy and troublemaker in an entirely different aesthetic style. The only reason his career was shorten at one point at all, just after Nazarene Cross itself, was Argentina's civil-military dictatorship of 1976–1983, where he understandably became an exile and fled the country¹.

A film of its era of the seventies, it however contrasts the obvious aesthetic touches of this time in cinema with its attempt, like many from this period, of retelling a fairy tale in a grounded reality even when it is fantastic, within a rural setting possessing a tone which stands out for such a simplistic tale. One which is a tragedy which will unfold, idiosyncrasies stand out, notably a trip to Hell as represented by caves. It does avoid wearing out its premise, folktales better off as very short length works due to their concise natures unless a filmmaker can elaborate on it carefully, which is to its advantage. The film does not attempt to depict a wolf-like humanoid, but sticks to an actual wolf, something of note as, among all the idiosyncratic side characters who steal scenes, among them include an old female witch (and apparent mother-figure of Satan himself) who is a shape shifter. The tone is enough with the film to shows a clear grasp on a folklore that is lost in a lot of Northern American cinema, unless it can escape internally or set itself in a minority community or the countryside, this film set in a part of some older period but timeless in appearance.

The personality itself, when seen from a script co-written by Favio, really does add so much to an already haunting tale. The witches, seen throughout including a young girl, future heir and student of the arts as a mere child, fascinate as dominant female figures, onlookers to this story where, in terms of any villains, Griselda's father is the closest even near the Devil himself, in his ill-advised decision to keep Nazarene from her despite their love for each other, which will lead to further tragedy in the end. The simpleton, for a lack of the politically correct term, waving in the fields gets his own idiosyncratic moment where, abruptly, suddenly he has a monologue in his ramblings about war being good, clearly going off memories of a past in conflict among soldiers, which raises so much in terms of background for him and this simple tale, a tale outside this one's scope, which feels meaningful. Even Satan himself, in his crisp black hat and erudite voice, gets to be more than the tempter. It says a lot of the film's attitude when, warning Nazareno of the curse of the full moon as is found in many films, he and Satan end up laughing together until it hurts, even if doomed to transpire as the Devil still warns. That is even before, adding an abrupt bow of real emotion to the film, Satan will eventually show humanity, bored and despairing of his lot, even wising for Nazareno, in the fate before him, to ask God Himself to talk to his fallen angel in an act of reconciliation.

Even in terms of having a fairytale magic, and some surrealism such as fishermen in the caves of Hell among other background details, within this much grounded aesthetic tone the presentation really stands out and adds to the haunting nature of Leonardo Favio's film. This, if you look into it, is legitimately to Argentina like another box office smash like Titanic (1997) was to the rest of the world in what high regard it was as a popular film as much as for their cultural cinema, which does emphasise a deeply troubling amnesia to how much individual countries, and their cinema, do not get attention and need to be taken into consideration. For obvious reasons, not doing so means you cannot see films like this, something which looks and acts very different from a film decades later in tone, even in terms of its contrast in grounded nature with a cinematic style almost the equivalent of Romanticism in context. It does come from an era, especially with the Eastern European and Czechoslovakian fantasy films from this decade or earlier, where attempting to depict these worlds in practical methods lead to tones like this Argentinean film's, with its own tonal choices in its use of close ups, of its lush score including an emphasis on vocal chants which does evoke the Italian films, and its melodrama story in its centre. A romantic scene even gets strangely more erotic in what is not seen through Nazareno and Griselda, with a female friend by them talking about how she will look after their child as she overlooks the pair, kissing in an exaggerated tone on a river with water splashing over them which implies much more happened in the scene than shown.

My knowledge of the late Leonardo Favio, who passed in 2012, only with the films I was lucky enough to see had enough effect for me to keep him close to the heart with great interest, likeminded figures like me able to get these films briefly available online and leaving their impressions on me and for those across the world too. His style could alter per just memories, pure ghosts, of those viewing experiences of the films mentioned, but they stick out, and with this one, you see someone here with this kind of honesty and reverence for traditions, one that does not extend well to a mainstream mindset that has to be assessable for everyone, and has the current and the future in its mind only, but is instead something which has to be digested with contemplation, which can also be gregarious and even profane. Satan here can be human, and there is even humour of the old men related to the witch godmother who thinks he is dying but for her, (in mind to the translation I had), is being a "fucking bum" and just lazy for many years watching on. It is a folktale that is told well in less than ninety minutes or so, and is better for it, and again this has to be a review which is designed to bring more attention to a film which should have been wider reaching beyond its homeland, long before I was writing this, but I am glad to bang a drum for.

 

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1) Obituary for Leonardo Favio, written for The Telegraph and published on November 18th 2012.