Tetro Reviews

You’ve got to give major respect to Francis Ford Coppola for deciding to follow his muse this late in the game and continuing to make films like he’s fresh out of art-school. Do these films always work? No, but there’s a sense of adventure about his latest period of film-making that’s refreshing. These films are self-financed, so at least we’re confident in knowing that they’re exactly what he wants and meant for them to be.

And with Tetro, I think it’s safe to say that Coppola has made another solid feature film. No, it’s better than that. It might reach the heights of some of his masterpieces, but it’s pretty great.

Primarily filmed in black-and-white, color flourishes are reserved for fantasy sequences, Tetro marries Coppola’s two primary story-telling modes: big, operatic pieces and miniature character-focused pieces. Occasionally this marriage of the two styles gets away from him at the expense of the narrative, but he makes up for it with images that are consistently beautiful, bordering on ethereal at times, and heavily influenced by noir in others.

The story concerns the reunion of two long-estranged brothers in modern day Buenos Aires. This intimate bond, and the long-buried secrets that have kept them estranged, concerns much of the plot of the film. It unravels at a leisurely pace for the first hour or so, until the third act blows the entire roof off the joint in its operatic styling and revelations.

Coppola’s cast is game, and the three major players all deliver solid work. Alden Ehrenreich makes his debut here, and does solid work. Maribel Verdú stars as Tetro’s wife, and much like her work in Pan’s Labyrinth, she brings a soulful and supportive maternity along with a free-spirited nature. But it’s Vincent Gallo’s performance in the titular role that lingers the longest in the memory. His large eyes project a haunted and manic nature, and it’s his performance that ties together the earlier chamber pieces with the later excesses that threaten to overcook the material.

Despite being a little uneven in spots, Tetro holds out interests because it manages to invest us so deeply in the emotions and secrets of these three characters. The third-act reveal makes everything that has come before it shine in a different light, and things that once seemed oblique make perfect sense. It’s a strange, intoxicating blend of material, yet Coppola is clearly doing exactly what he wants to artistically. That kind of commitment is to be applauded, as is his penchant for still crafting small, independent art house fare while so many of his peers simply kick-back and cash in on grand, blockbuster entertainments.

F. Coppola said about Tetro (according to imdb.com): "I think Tetro (2009) is the most beautiful film I've ever done in terms of how it was made". Apparently a little bit earlier, he said that his favorite movies from his own personal filmography are The Rain People (1969), The Conversation (1974), Apocalypse Now (1979), Rumble Fish (1983) and Youth Without Youth (2007). Note that the most popular and acclaimed "The Godfather" trilogy is missing from this short list, and only one big production is present, Apocalypse Now. But even "Apocalypse Now" is not a big studio production. It was produced by his company "Zoetrope Studios". "The Godfather" movies were produced by Paramount Pictures (starting with the second part, Zoetrope also participated).

Moreover, F. Coppola claimed that Tetro is the kind of film he set out to make as a young man, before he was sidetracked by fame and fortune.

All this should be taken into account. If you are a fan of "The Godfather" movies, then it would be only natural to respect the opinion of their creator, and watch his own favorite movies.

As a result of browsing the web, I watched recently The Rain People. I was stunned. It happened to be much better than I expected, simply perfect and terrific, a true diamond gem (while "The Godfather" movies, if compared to "The Rain People", look like monstrous skyscrapers out of steel and glass). I turned to other small Coppola projects. First of all, I watched Rumble Fish for the 3rd time, and concluded that I hardly understood it for the first two times (would I grew up in a place like Tulsa, Oklahoma, I, probably, would understood the movie at the 1st viewing). The next one was Tetro.

Watching “Tetro” was as spellbinding as watching “The Rain People”. It is a wonderful movie. Right after watching, I gave him 12 stars out of 10. Now, few days later, I agree to 10 out of 10. The movie tells a rather mysterious and twisted story of a family, but it does this not in the “epic” style, but rather through a very tense interaction of two estranged brothers. The story is twisted, but entirely realistic. Even if nothing like this ever happened, the story is possible and tells us a lot about the human nature. The excellent acting, cinematography, and directing turn this story into a highly emotional experience for a viewer. Vincent Gallo (playing the main character, Tetro) is superb. Not too many Oscars-winning performances are up to his one in “Tetro”. I must admit that I underestimated him. But so did and still does almost everybody.

As of now, I value “The Rain People”, “The Conversation”, “Rumble Fish”, and “Tetro” orders of magnitude more than any other Coppola movie I had seen (which include, of course, all “The Godfather” movies and “Apocalypse Now”).

I wonder how any movie by such an acclaimed director can get so limited release as, say, “Tetro”. Of course, it is not summer blockbuster and not a blockbuster at all. Still, most of the movies on the screens of any multiplex are not blockbusters either. But the studios, or, in this case, the distributors and the owners of the movie theaters have their own idea of what is allowed to be seen on the big screen. They believe that the target audience of every movie should be teenagers. S. Spielberg discovered and promoted (his choices of what to film are quite sufficient) this idea. Fortunately, the Blu-ray technology ameliorates this problem substantially. Still, the quality of a presentation in a movie theater is about 10 times higher than of a Blu-ray disc on a Full HD TV.