The Source: Alone against everyone

The film premiered in Chile 25 years ago. Alone Against Everyone (1998), by the Franco-Argentine director Gaspar Noé. It was basically the story of a poor man, a butcher recently released from prison who was trying to rebuild his life in vain and was rejected in every job interview he appeared for. Resentful against society, the rich and immigrants, the protagonist gave a final meaning to his existence in the most brutal way.

The film was the chronicle of a proto-fascist, but it also told the inexorable journey of a man cornered by circumstances. The history of cinema has presented this character in different flavors and colors, particularly in the bleak ’70s with classics like Taxi Driver (1976), massive hits throughout The Anonymous Avenger (1974) or police versions of the subject in question such as Dirty Harry (1971).

The narrative materials of those crossroads are fertile in dramatic terms. What does someone do for whom ordinary justice does not work? What motivates you to continue living if not even your own family supports you? Who is wrong? Is it a mistake to have been born?

In The Sourcea film inspired by the case of the owner of the former Fuente Alemana, Carlo Siri, we have the Chilean version of a character who seeks justice by his own weak hands. He is played by Luis Gnecco, who is capable of giving the role enough “gravities” so that we take the matter seriously and do not laugh at the first dialogue.

It is very difficult to sustain a story based on the contingent local reality (in this case, the social outbreak), without losing a certain balance and making what is seen credible. The case of the recent The Wavewhich was inspired by the feminist university movements of 2018, was an example in this regard. Maybe she was ambitious, if that’s a sin.

The SourceOn the contrary, it is more modest. It is limited to Siri’s case and develops a different family story to deliver more levels of anguish and despair to the central character, who is now called Luca Barella. The poor man not only must defend his Plaza Italia premises with knives (literally) and teeth, but he is also deceived by his wife and fails to connect well with his university daughter, who feels an obvious connection with the protest movements.

He only finds peace in the martial art of iaidō, which is the control of sheathing and unsheathing the katana, the samurai sword. The nod to Japanese codes of honor may be somewhat obvious, but they serve the dramatic purpose of the story.

Where things tend to go off the rails is on the hue scale from black to white. The range of gray tends to disappear many times in this story and there, of course, it does make you want to laugh. An example is the love interest of Barella’s wife (Paola Giannini), who could not be other than a government official. Or the leader of the Plaza Italia gang, Mirko (Roberto Farías), an almost one-dimensional thug. Or Luca’s own daughter (Josefa Quiroz), prototypically millennial and committed to the “cause,” at least initially.

Even so, The Source It is an interesting film for its attempt to represent individual agony and despair in the midst of collective chaos. That new monsters emerge from that affliction and anger is part of another story. One that is also already known.