Review: ‘Tetro’

In case you’ve forgotten the name of one of America’s most talented and under-appreciated auteurs, let me reintroduce you to Francis Ford Coppola. Forget about APOCALYPSE NOW, THE GODFATHER TRILOGY and BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA for a moment. We all know and love those films, including those of you who don’t No need to raise your hands and make yourselves look silly. Coppola is so much more than these films, but they’re the only ones he ever gets remembered for.

Let me first take you back to 1974 and a little film called THE CONVERSATION starring Gene Hackman, perhaps one of the most under-rated films of all time. Next I would like to fast forward a bit to a pair of little films from 1983 called THE OUTSIDERS and RUMBLE FISH. After having first read the 1967 book “The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton in school, I fell in love with it and did once again after seeing Coppola’s wonderful adaptation.

I also ask, at least for the time being, that you forget about JACK (1996) because, hey… no body’s perfect. Instead, I would like to focus on how utterly and unmistakably close Coppola’s newest film TETRO has come to perfection. (Remember, that’s a relative and subjective term, and one that can never truly be achieved.) Coppola wrote and directed this film, clearly throwing all his cautions to the wind and saying to the world, “I’m an artist, God damn it! I’m gonna make movies I want to make.”

I applaud you, Mr. Coppola, and whole-heartily thank you for making such a thoughtful and honest movie with a truly engaging human story. Vincent Gallo (BUFFALO ’66, THE BROWN BUNNY) stars as the title character. He’s a troubled man with a tormented mind and an unclear family history. Alden Ehrenreich makes his feature film debut as Bennie, the significantly younger brother to Tetro, whom shows up in Buenos Aires one day to visit his brother, who had up and abandoned his family years ago.

Bennie is working on a cruise ship, which happened to be docked his engine trouble for a number of days in Buenos Aires. Tetro is reluctant to reconnect with Bennie, or to even acknowledge him as his brother. Tetro comes off down right cold and uncaring, causing Bennie to question Tetro’s motives. In the midst of this brotherly quandary is Tetro’s live-in girlfriend Miranda (Maribel Verdu, PAN’S LABYRINTH) who first met Tetro at the asylum in which she once worked. Miranda is compelled to encourage the mending of this sibling divide, despite being largely unaware of their family history.

Little pieces at a time, Bennie manages to reassemble his connection with Tetro while also attempting to make some sense of the family he never knew. Bennie has very little knowledge or understanding of his father and never had a chance to know his deceased mother. He hopes to glean as much as he can from Tetro, but ultimately ends up secretly deciphering most of his past from an unfinished play by Tetro, written in military school code that Bennie decodes over time without Tetro’s knowledge.

The underlying mystery of TETRO is that Bennie’s family has a secret. Bennie suspects Tetro has a reason for not opening up to him, but what he doesn’t realize is that the truth may be more than he can truly handle and could change his life completely. TETRO is brilliantly written, sustaining the mystery and intrigue of a family’s past and the possibly unstable mind of the one person who can shed light on the empty pages of Bennie’s life.

The drama in the film is compelling. It’s difficult not to become engrossed in the relationship between Tetro and Bennie. The film flows seamlessly from moments of anger and sorrow to laughter and rekindled joy. Gallo delivers a remarkable performance, compensating for an otherwise lackluster career, but I feel Coppola must be given equal credit in finding a way to tap an inherent talent within Gallo that hadn’t yet peaked.

Ehrenreich’s performance isn’t perfect, but it is a stellar debut, especially in the final scenes, which are sure to thoroughly blow audiences away. Verdu maintains a glowing, magical onscreen persona. Coppola showcases this quality of Verdu’s enticingly well, particularly during a beautifully shot scene with Tetro and Miranda lying in bed, having a minimally sexual but wholly intimate moment of two human beings enjoying one another.

This brings me directly into the sights and sounds of TETRO, a film shot almost entirely in black and white. TETRO was photographed by relative newcomer Mihai Malaimare, Jr. (YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH) and fills the screen with a carefully consistent middle tone of grays, painted methodically with rich black shadows. The only scenes shot in color are those of flashbacks and fantasies, done so with a vividly saturated palette. Adding depth and emotion to this is the mesmerizing original score by Osvaldo Golijov (THE MAN WHO CRIED), another relative newcomer who also worked with Coppola on YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH.

TETRO is not long or boring, despite it’s 127 minute running time. It’s clear that Coppola is entering a new stage in his filmmaking career and a welcome one at that. While the film is unlikely to receive a wide release, I urge supporters of art house cinema to seek out TETRO, see it, experience it and enjoy it for all it has to offer from a marvelously accomplished filmmaker who has worked long and hard to earn the auteur status I feel he deserves.

TETRO opens in Saint Louis at Plaza Frontenac Cinema on Friday, September 18, 2009.