We first meet Remo Manfredini in a rundown Buenos Aires bar, nursing one too many drinks. As a champion jockey once feared on the racetrack, Remo now finds himself in a downward spiral. Alcohol and debts to the local gangsters have him firmly in their grasp. Into this gloomy scene emerge the thugs, who come to haul Remo to his next race. Though talented in the saddle, his drinking makes winning a losing bet.
This sets the stage for Luis Ortega’s genre-bending drama Kill the Jockey. Ortega proves himself a director to watch, weaving together elements of sports movies, gangster thrillers, and magical realism. When an accident leaves Remo badly injured, he awakens changed, embarking on an unexpected journey of self-discovery.
Led by a committed performance from Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, Kill the Jockey takes us on a shape-shifting ride. Through colorful visuals and a surreal soundtrack, Ortega explores identity and what it means to truly know oneself. While some find the story’s direction unpredictable, its exploration of transformation leaves an impact.
This review will look closer at Remo’s troubled world and changing face and consider what the film says about life’s unexpected detours. Buckle up for a strange and fascinating look at a man learning to embrace life’s mysterious twists and turns.
Taking the Reins
Right from the start, Remo battles personal demons. Once a champion jockey, he’s spiraled into drinking to numb inner turmoil.We first find Remo numbing out in a grimy Buenos Aires bar. But the local gangs have him on a short leash as their prized moneymaker.
Led by the intimidating Sirena, they haul Remo to his next race even as he’s still got liquid courage flowing. His lover Abril watches with concern as Remo struggles to hold it together in the saddle. Time on the track is all that keeps the gangsters off his back. Though talented, his addiction threatens the career, providing his only sense of purpose.
In what seems like a final race, Remo pushes his luck but hits spectacular failure. As his horse veers wild, Remo collides with the fence at full gallop. Lying unconscious, it seems risk has finally caught up to the daredevil jockey. Yet Remo awakens, changed in mysterious ways. Now adrift in a vast city, unfamiliar edges have blurred around his fractured identity.
As Remo wanders Buenos Aires’ luminous night streets, experimenting with makeup in fragmented storefront mirrors, a new self begins to take shape. Renaming himself Dolores, Remo blossoms outward in discovery of untouched sides. Even hardened Sirena accepts Remo’s transitions. Through tremendous performances, we journey with Remo on an unpredictable path of self-rebirth. Though personal reinvention brings him closer to truths long suppressed, Remo stays untamed at heart.
Bringing Remo to Life
Right from the start, Luis Ortega brings Kill the Jockey to pulsing life through vivid style. With influences like Almodovar and Kaurismäki, Ortega crafts a surreal visual dreamscape to match Remo’s shifting journey.
Central to this is Nahuel Pérez Biscayart’s incredible performance as Remo. Through remarkable costumes and lighting, Remo transforms before our eyes like a character straight off a painter’s canvas. As a drunk jockey and later testing new identities, subcouncious and femme, bizaare looks emerge.
Complementing this is Aki Kaurismäki’s DP Timo Salminen. Using heightened contrast, he treats Remo almost impressionistically. Strange silhouettes enter liminal spaces that blur reality. Whether jockey silks or stolen lady’s fur, costumes tell Remo’s tale as deeply as words.
Memorable are dance scenes where racing silks meld Remo and Abril in hypnotic spirals. Just as colorful are locker rooms evoking fetish clubs where jockeys showcase physiques in pulsing electronica. Like Remo, style shifts from grit to glitter and back again.
It’s here Ortega’s surreal flair emerges. Strange beats and haunting tunes drift through neon streets. Characters interact as in fever dreams. Reality blurs into a sensorial frontier where identity forms and reforms.
Through every technique, Ortega and his team resurrect Remo before us, reviving his splintering soul on screen. Their visual dream pulls us deeply into Remo’s untethered journey, discovering humanity in life’s uncertain metamorphoses.
Committing to the Chaos
At the center of Kill the Jockey’s unpredictable voyage is a tremendous performance from Nahuel Pérez Biscayart. Shouldering Remo’s splintering identity takes skill, carrying the character with depth through shocking transformations.
Early on, Biscayart perfectly portrays Remo half-alive through alcohol. Eyes shielded, he floats through motions but lies inert within. Yet beneath numbness, reminders of Remo’s daredevil spirit stir—hints Biscayart captivatingly captures.
Grueling rigors shape a jockey’s body into a work of living art. As Remo saddles up, scrawny muscles coil under the skin. Biscayart incarnates both beast and rider as one, communicating through sinew what words leave unsaid. Watching Remo hurl himself from the stall astounds with its charge of reckless abandon.
But most striking is what occurs after. Awakening changed; Remo putty in Biscayart’s deft hands is reformed yet familiar. Exploring womanhood brings discovery, not confusion, in Biscayart’s assured navigation. Facial contours shift through subtle gestures, crafting newness from within known depths.
Regardless of guise, Remo’s volatility remains. Biscayart maintains energy’s unpredictable current, channeling its potential to uplift or overwhelm. Never showy, his understated talent anchors Ortega’s diffuse work. Absent glib motivations, Biscayart’s presence renders ideas visceral, grappling with life’s unsolvable riddles through flesh alone.
In Biscayart, viewers find not answers but fellowship in uncertainty. His chameleonic conduit to Remo’s chaos turns abstraction into shared human experience—a rare artistic triumph deserving the highest praise.
Rethinking Identity
Luis Ortega’s film poses intriguing questions about life’s perpetual reinventions. Chiefly, it ponders the fluid nature of identity and how rigid definitions often fall short.
Through Remo, we see identity as exploration rather than destination. Awakening changed after accident; Remo blossoms outward, testing new shores. Renaming herself Dolores, she slips with ease between modes while discovering untapped facets of her inner complexities.
Nor does the film force conclusions, instead observing identity as a shape-shifter. Gender proves another spectrum, presented naturally rather than through statements. Remo navigates multiple selves seamlessly—for isn’t fluidity our nature?
Beneath surface labels, an inner multiplicity endures—peeled through hair and clothes yet distinct from either. Remo shows identity to contain multitudes, wavering yet coherent. Like life’s surging tides, selves ebb and flow yet share the same soulful depths regardless of outward appearance.
By the film’s end, questions linger invitingly. Yet its compassion remains—for life’s mystifying changes and accepting ourselves alongside them. Through inquiring eyes, Ortega reminds us that rigid walls too often crumble. While definitions bring fleeting comfort, freedom flourishes by embracing uncertainty and life’s rich, restless refrains.
The Unexpected Journey
Kill the Jockey takes audiences on a shape-shifting ride that defies expectations at every turn. Through Luis Ortega’s vibrant direction and a phenomenal lead performance from Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, Remo’s unpredictable transformations ring deeply human.
Ortega crafts a vivid dreamscape pulsed with Latin melodies, surrealist flights, and formal beauty. Yet for all its stylistic bravura, the film stays grounded in feeling. Biscayart manifests Remo’s unraveling identity with captivating grace, imbuing metaphysical musings with fleshly emotion.
While some found narrative flow elusive, Remo’s border-crossing quest resonates on impactful thematic levels. Identity proves less rigid definition than ongoing discovery—a lifelong improvisation accepting life’s surprising revisions. Gender also shifts beyond labels, accepted as natural fluctuations of our multifaceted selves.
Kill the Jockey leaves interpretation refreshingly open. But through compassionate artistic expression of life’s riddles, it reminds us that answers matter less than fellowship in uncertainty. For open-minded cinéastes, Ortega’s arresting oddity rewards with thought-provoking magic.
In closing, Kill the Jockey rides off doing its rebellious thing. But through Biscayart’s tour-de-force portrayal of one spirit’s metamorphosis, it gifts viewers their own, inspiring us to embrace existence’s rich unpredictability with steadfast courage and grace.
The Review
Kill the Jockey
With Luis Ortega's visionary direction and Nahuel Pérez Biscayart's transcendent lead performance, Kill the Jockey takes audiences on a surreal, touching journey of discovery. While its narrative loses cohesion at times, the film resonates deeply in its exploration of identity's fluidity and life's capacity for reinvention. Ortega's vivid dreamscape draws viewers with artistry into Remo's unpredictable transformation, inviting thoughtful reflection on uncertain human experience.
PROS
- Imaginative direction and visual style from Ortega
- Mesmerizing lead performance from Perez Biscayart
- Thought-provoking exploration of themes like identity and gender
- Surreal atmosphere and captivating soundtrack
- Memorable dance sequences
CONS
- Narrative loses focus at points and feels overly metaphorical.
- Some underdeveloped supporting characters
- Pacing drags in parts
- Ambiguous endings may frustrate some viewers.
