IL RUBIO/ THE BLOND ONE
Argentina, 2019, 117 minutes, Colour.
Gaston Re, Alfonso Baron, Melina Irusta, Charlie Velasco.
Directed by Marco Berger.
Il Rubio literally means the Blond One.
This is a drama from controversial Argentinian director, Marco Berger. He attained some international fame and notoriety with his drama, Taekwondo, the gathering of group of men and some women at a resort, their time together – especially with homoerotic undertones and overtones. He repeated this theme to a larger extent, sometimes more graphically, often exaggeratedly, in his 2021 film, Horseplay.
By comparison, this drama is very quiet, more intense, more thoughtfully written and performed.
The subject is a gay relationship in the context of Argentina at the beginning of the 21st-century. It opens, with a touch of Taekwondo, with a group of friends, fellow workers, gathering together, watching television, football, the comments, gradually revealing some of the characters, especially Juan, who works on a building site, who is known to have a girlfriend who visits regularly. On the other hand, he is renting one of the rooms of the lodging to a fellow worker from another town, Gabriel, very quiet. He is the Blond One.
Berger relies for his communication of feelings very much on close-ups, all throughout the film, close-ups of faces, juxtaposition of faces, suggesting closeness to leave the school is in standing, travelling in public transport, the school is close-ups of fairly explicit sex scenes.
Taking this for granted, we explore the tentative, tentative touching, relationship developing between Juan and Gabriel, Gabriel taking something of a quiet initiative, Juan responding, both acknowledging their sexual orientation but Juan not wanting it to be known, continuing his relationship with his girlfriend who becomes pregnant, Gabriel rather silent, often withdrawn, moody.
Gabriel’s wife has died suddenly leaving him with his young daughter who stays with Gabriel’s parents in the town. The scenes between father and son, with his mother also, have a liveliness and vitality and charm.
When Juan entertains some visitors from his childhood, there is a suggestion of a relationship with one of them, disturbing Gabriel, who broods. While Juan wants to continue his double life, it is sometimes too much for Gabriel.
Ultimately, when Juan girlfriend is pregnant, he asked Gabriel to leave to make the room available for the baby, a parting, and the finale with Gabriel back with his daughter.
In terms of the dramatising of a gay relationship, this is a quietly intense film, illuminating the two personalities, their drives, helping us to understand the nature of the love, the psychological repercussions, the consequences for the men’s lives.
