Young Hunter [El Cazador] *** (2020, Juan Pablo Cestaro, Lautaro Rodríguez, Patricio Rodríguez, Juan Barberini) – Classic Movie Review 12,407

Marco Berger’s thoughtful 2020 Argentine drama film Young Hunter [El Cazador] stars Juan Pablo Cestaro as a teenager who meets a boy at the skatepark, and is caught in a pornographer’s chilling trap.

Writer-director Marco Berger’s 2020 Argentine drama film Young Hunter [El Cazador] stars Juan Pablo Cestaro as 15-year-old gay teenager Ezequiel, who is left alone at home when his parents travel to Europe for a month. He is looking for love, and one day he meets Mono (Lautaro Rodríguez) at the skatepark, and falls for him. But Mono is using him and involves him unwittingly in a pornographer’s chilling plot.

Against expectations, El Cazador is neither a thriller nor an exposé, though it has elements of both. It is not ‘about anything’ in particular, though the parents’ neglect of their duty of care to their young children could be one of them. It’s about growing up, and the awful time kids can have going through it. But mostly, it’s just one boy’s story. The boy is strong, and mature for his age, but some of the people around him are dangerous and he hasn’t seen it. He’s caught in a trap, and there looks like no way out. He involves the 13-year-old Juan (Patricio Rodríguez), who sees him as a surrogate for his lost father. The two seem like James Dean and Sal Mineo in Rebel without a Cause. How can the obviously nice Ezequiel betray Juan?

Marco Berger follows his regular pattern of film-making for this very different subject for him. He tip-toes through this risky situation extremely carefully and delicately, looking for his usual art film results, and achieving them. He takes time to survey the environment, catch the nuance of the moment. The film has tension, and it is griping, but it also has a slow and steady pace that may frustrate some viewers, and its open ending will no doubt provide as much frustration as its intended food for thought.

[Spoiler alert] There is as much passion as pain in the story. It is a deeply sad one, even depressing one, with little love on show. In desperation, Ezequiel finally turns to his father for help, but his father doesn’t really love him at all, so he isn’t going to be any true help. Life goes on, but it is a slender thread, though just maybe there is hope.

The acting, as usual with Berger’s films, is natural and convincing. Juan Pablo Cestaro has a difficult task here, and he can do it, strongly and powerfully, and Patricio Rodríguez is just right too.

The films of Marco Berger: Plan B (2009), Absent (Ausente) (2011), Hawaii (2013), Butterfly (2015), Taekwondo (2016), The Blond One [Un Rubio] (2019), and El Cazador (2020).

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,407

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