El Bonaerense

El bonaerense is a 2000 Argentine, Chilean, French, and Dutch drama film. It was directed and produced by Pablo Trapero. The screenplay was a joint effort of Nicolas Gueilburt, Ricardo Ragendorfer, Dodi Shoeuer, Pablo Trapero, and actor Daniel Valenzuela, and partly funded by INCAA. It features Jorge Román, Mimí Ardú, among others.
The movie deals with the corruption of the Bonaerense Police in the Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, and the lives of those involved in it.
Plot.
Zapa is a locksmith apprentice living a simple life in Corrientes with his family. After the locksmith Polaco breaks open a safe and uses him as a scapegoat, Zapa is convicted and sentenced to imprisonment in the Buenos Aires police jail, which is pictured as notoriously corrupt. This takes him to the "La Matanza" barrio in Greater Buenos Aires. Here, Zapa is taken in as the "protégé" of his superior Gallo and begins to climb the ladder of corruption. At the same time he has an affair with instructor Mabel. His journey through the political underworld as he frames and bribes ultimately takes him to the edge of innocence, and a final confrontation with Polaco.
Distribution.
The film was first presented at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival on May 21 in the "Un Certain Regard" section. It opened in Argentina on September 19, 2002.
The picture was screened at various film festivals, including: the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Czech Republic; the Toronto International Film Festival, Canada; the Chicago International Film Festival, United States; the Bergen International Film Festival, Norway; the Stockholm International Film, Sweden; and others.
Reception.
Critical response.
"New York Times" film critic Stephen Holden lauded the film and wrote, "There are no crusading moralists to clean up the mess in "El Bonaerense," Pablo Trapero's grim, dispassionate drama of police corruption, set mostly in contemporary Buenos Aires. This powerful sweat-stained swatch of Argentine neo-realism, filmed in harsh high contrast that throws its characters' faces into deep shadow, follows the initiation of Zapa (Jorge Román), a naïve police recruit, into a labyrinth of sleaze...[the film] is all the more disturbing for refusing to act as an exposé. It just throws up its hands and says that this is the way it is. And its pointed detachment lends certain scenes an almost farcical sense of the absurd."
Awards.
Wins
Nominations