Castro

From the unforgettable opening moments, featuring a gaggle of characters dashing about the streets of Buenos Aires as if their lives depended on it, Alejo Moguillansky’s sneaky, frantic film pounces on the viewer with a giddy energy. This cockeyed semi-comedy’s unlikely basis is Samuel Beckett’s 1938 novel Murphy, but it preserves only the book’s central conceit: a set of characters constantly in pursuit of the title character ready to check out of the rat race and sever all ties with his past. Moguillansky wrote, edited and directed, and in his clever story Castro (Edgardo Castro) is on the run from a bunch of guys whom his peeved wife Rebeca (Carla Crespo) has tasked with bringing her hubby back home. There’s nothing in contemporary cinema quite like Moguillansky’s absurdist high-wire act—imagine a postmodern Mack Sennett two-reeler filtered through Jacques Rivette’s Céline and Julie Go Boating. —AFI Film Festival