Porfirio dreams of a better life in minimalist film based on a true story
PORFIRIO (Alejandro Landes, 2011)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
February 8-14
Tickets: $12, in person only, may be applied to museum admission within thirty days, same-day screenings free with museum admission, available at Film and Media Desk beginning at 9:30 am
212-708-9400
www.moma.org
www.magic-lantern-films.com
Brazilian filmmaker Alejandro Landes’s minimalist Porfirio begins and ends with close-up shots of the title character, Porfirio Ramírez Aldana, taken slightly from below by cinematographer Thimios Bakatakis, focusing on the upper half of the man’s bare body, which is paralyzed from the waist done. Porfirio looks around as if he’s lost in a world that has let him down, and indeed it has. In the film, which opens theatrically at MoMA on February 8 for a one-week engagement, Porfirio plays himself, a Colombian father who was paralyzed by a policeman’s bullet and now lives a hard life selling minutes on his cell phone and needing the help of his eldest son, Lissin (played by his youngest son, Jarlisson Ramírez Reinoso), and neighbor/lover, Jasbleidy (real-life neighbor Yor Jasbleidy Santos Torres), just to get through every day. Landes uses natural light and sound and no score to add reality to the true story of a once-proud man now imprisoned in his wheelchair and getting the runaround from the state regarding compensation he feels he is owed. Landes (Cocalero) keeps the tale purposefully vague, never giving the details of the legal case or how and why Porfirio was shot, instead telling the story through Porfirio’s mesmerizing eyes, which are filled with a beguiling mixture of pain and mystery. “In one of the deepest moments of the film, Porfirio gazes out the window of his bedroom and, I dare say, we can peak into his very soul,” Landes, who spent five years with his subject, explains in the film’s production notes. “It was the second shot on the first day of the shoot. Although I think we captured many other fine moments, I must admit none matched a shining innocence I saw in his eyes that first day.” Landes was drawn to Porfirio’s story after reading about the extraordinary thing he did, which made him famous in South America and around the world, earning him the nickname the Air Pirate, but the director doesn’t delve into those details either. There’s no past or future for Porfirio, only the present for a compelling man desperate to regain his dignity. Landes will be at MoMA on opening night to participate in a discussion following the 7:00 screening of this small gem.