With “Tetro,” director Francis Ford Coppola has finally found the sweet mix of form and feeling he has long been pursuing — from his eccentric and willful romance “One From the Heart” in 1982 all the way through 2007’s attempted comeback, “Youth Without Youth.”
The elegant but emotionally chilly “Youth” now seems like a necessary working out of artistic kinks.
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Beautiful to behold, “Tetro” is as deeply felt as “Youth” was tortuously reasoned. And while “Youth” was about a scholar obsessed with writing his masterpiece, the film wasn’t a masterwork. “Tetro” is.
Perpetually haunted Vincent Gallo is Tetro. The eldest son of a famous conductor, he long ago fled New York and his celebrated father for life as a writer in Argentina — only to stumble psychologically.
The action is set in one of Buenos Aires’ oldest neighborhoods, La Boca. But the city is known as a hotbed of psychoanalytic activity. Where better to locate a tale of patriarchal wounds?
When his younger half-brother, Bennie, arrives at his door, Tetro is not happy about the intrusion.
After all, he’s severed ties with his past. He’s even changed his name to Tetro. Though the shortening of the family name hints at the fact that the break with his maestro father is more complicated.
This saga of the sons of an artistic father aches with the pains that can come with trying to please and compete with that figure. Bennie’s arrival reopens wounds inflicted by their larger-than-life father.
Newcomer Alden Ehrenreich is a wonderful find as Bennie. Looking in one light like a young Leonardo DiCaprio and in another a just-as-fresh Matt Damon, the actor’s face is an open work in progress.
But Bennie has come to Argentina to learn things, to be shaped by family history.
Terrific Spanish actress Maribel Verdú (“Pan’s Labyrinth” and “Y Tu Mamá Tambien”) brings vital warmth as Tetro’s lover, Miranda.
In a flashback evocative of Federico Fellini, Miranda and Tetro meet at an asylum called Colifa (“colifado” means “nuts”). He clutches a sheaf of papers of hard-to-read handwriting.
An administrator encourages patients to produce a radio show. Taking the microphone, they are transformed. Talk about your talking cures.
Klaus Maria Brandhauer exudes the confidence of a man who has achieved celebrated status. As conductor Carlo Tetrocini, he is daunting, charismatic and not to be trusted.
The coded, scribbled manuscript Bennie finds is a roman á clef about their father, Bennie’s mother and Tetro’s first love. As Bennie begins poring over his brother’s unfinished novel the question arises: Who owns the family story, anyway?
Bennie adapts the story. It’s accepted into a prestigious theater festival, which leads to a crisis. The film hits notes of palpable torment even as it heaves itself at the operatic. It also can be very funny and dear.
Much of “Tetro” is shot in sumptuous black and white by Mihai Malamaire Jr. (“Youth Without Youth”). Tetro’s flashbacks, including that of a car crash that killed his mother, occur in a palette that evokes Technicolor fanfares.
It is a smart switcheroo: using black and white to articulate real vulnerabilities and color for memories, which are always fictions of a sort.
Carmen Maura plays the cultural critic Alone. Long ago she and protege Tetro had a falling-out. That she has a name befitting Dante can hardly be lost on anyone wondering how Coppola’s on-again, off again relationship with critics is going.
The eve before the New York premiere of “Youth Without Youth,” Coppola said he hoped the question asked of the film wouldn’t be “is it any good?” But instead, “Is it interesting?
“All I ask is that it be interesting,” he said.
“Tetro” is what the rest of us hope for from Coppola. It is interesting. Better, it is quite possibly great.
“TETRO.”
Not rated. 2 hours, 7 minutes. Written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola; photography by Mihai Malaimare; starring Vincent Gallo, Alden Ehrenreich, Maribel Verdu, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Carmen Maura and Rodrigo de la Serna. Opens today at the Chez Artiste.
