A Poet
**9/10**
The romantic idea of the poet is that he suffers because the world cannot understand him. *A Poet* proposes a less flattering possibility: perhaps the world understands him perfectly well, and is simply tired of lending him money.
Oscar Restrepo was once a promising Colombian writer. Several decades later, he remains devoted not so much to writing poetry as to remembering that he once wrote it. He is unemployed, alcoholic, financially dependent on his mother and largely absent from his daughter’s life. Yet he continues to regard himself as a martyr to art, as though failing to wash one’s clothes were evidence of spiritual seriousness.
Ubeimar Rios gives a remarkable performance as Oscar, transforming him into something more complicated than either a fool or a tragic hero. He is vain, irresponsible and frequently absurd, but not entirely without decency. His belief in poetry may be ridiculous, yet it is also the only belief he possesses that has not been completely corrupted by practical life.
When Oscar discovers Yurlady, a teenage student who writes simple poems about sunlight, flowers and her bedroom, he imagines that he has found both a great artist and an opportunity for personal redemption. Unfortunately, he cannot merely encourage her to write. He must make her into a symbol. Soon the respectable literary establishment begins advising her to abandon the subjects she actually cares about and write instead about poverty, racism and suffering, because these are the misfortunes that wealthy festival audiences prefer to admire.
This is where Simón Mesa Soto’s satire becomes especially sharp. The film does not deny poverty or prejudice. It asks something more uncomfortable: why do supposedly enlightened institutions grant disadvantaged people attention only when they perform their disadvantage in the approved manner? Yurlady is welcomed as an artist only after others have decided what her art ought to mean.
Oscar believes he is rescuing her, the poetry establishment believes it is representing her, and her family sees the possibility of money. Everyone wishes to use her for a virtuous purpose. The fact that the purpose is called virtuous does not make the exploitation less real.
The film is extremely funny, but its comedy is never merely cruel. Oscar is ridiculous because human beings are ridiculous whenever they confuse their self-image with their actual conduct. He speaks nobly about art while behaving disgracefully in ordinary life. Yet the successful poets around him are hardly superior. They have learned to convert morality into professional advancement, which is perhaps a more respectable form of failure, though not necessarily a more honest one.
Shot on grainy 16mm, *A Poet* has the rough, faded beauty of something rescued from an old drawer. Its visual imperfections suit a story about people who are forever trying to turn failure into mythology. Rios and Rebeca Andrade, both extraordinary, give the film the uncomfortable texture of real life. Their relationship contains affection, vanity, paternal longing, class condescension and genuine misunderstanding, often within the same scene.
The film’s wisest observation is that art is not a social identity one adopts but an activity one performs. To call oneself a poet is easy. To write a poem requires discipline, attention and the temporary abandonment of one’s own legend. Oscar has spent much of his life loving the idea of poetry because the practice of poetry might reveal that he is ordinary.
*A Poet* is a comedy about artistic failure, but also about the larger human habit of preferring noble appearances to difficult actions. It mocks the failed artist, the successful artist, the liberal patron and the romantic spectator with almost perfect impartiality. Its final achievement is that, after exposing Oscar’s absurdities, it still allows us to hope for him.
He may never become the poet he imagined himself to be. He might, however, become a slightly better man. This is a smaller ambition, and therefore perhaps the more difficult one.
The romantic idea of the poet is that he suffers because the world cannot understand him. *A Poet* proposes a less flattering possibility: perhaps the world understands him perfectly well, and is simply tired of lending him money.
Oscar Restrepo was once a promising Colombian writer. Several decades later, he remains devoted not so much to writing poetry as to remembering that he once wrote it. He is unemployed, alcoholic, financially dependent on his mother and largely absent from his daughter’s life. Yet he continues to regard himself as a martyr to art, as though failing to wash one’s clothes were evidence of spiritual seriousness.
Ubeimar Rios gives a remarkable performance as Oscar, transforming him into something more complicated than either a fool or a tragic hero. He is vain, irresponsible and frequently absurd, but not entirely without decency. His belief in poetry may be ridiculous, yet it is also the only belief he possesses that has not been completely corrupted by practical life.
When Oscar discovers Yurlady, a teenage student who writes simple poems about sunlight, flowers and her bedroom, he imagines that he has found both a great artist and an opportunity for personal redemption. Unfortunately, he cannot merely encourage her to write. He must make her into a symbol. Soon the respectable literary establishment begins advising her to abandon the subjects she actually cares about and write instead about poverty, racism and suffering, because these are the misfortunes that wealthy festival audiences prefer to admire.
This is where Simón Mesa Soto’s satire becomes especially sharp. The film does not deny poverty or prejudice. It asks something more uncomfortable: why do supposedly enlightened institutions grant disadvantaged people attention only when they perform their disadvantage in the approved manner? Yurlady is welcomed as an artist only after others have decided what her art ought to mean.
Oscar believes he is rescuing her, the poetry establishment believes it is representing her, and her family sees the possibility of money. Everyone wishes to use her for a virtuous purpose. The fact that the purpose is called virtuous does not make the exploitation less real.
The film is extremely funny, but its comedy is never merely cruel. Oscar is ridiculous because human beings are ridiculous whenever they confuse their self-image with their actual conduct. He speaks nobly about art while behaving disgracefully in ordinary life. Yet the successful poets around him are hardly superior. They have learned to convert morality into professional advancement, which is perhaps a more respectable form of failure, though not necessarily a more honest one.
Shot on grainy 16mm, *A Poet* has the rough, faded beauty of something rescued from an old drawer. Its visual imperfections suit a story about people who are forever trying to turn failure into mythology. Rios and Rebeca Andrade, both extraordinary, give the film the uncomfortable texture of real life. Their relationship contains affection, vanity, paternal longing, class condescension and genuine misunderstanding, often within the same scene.
The film’s wisest observation is that art is not a social identity one adopts but an activity one performs. To call oneself a poet is easy. To write a poem requires discipline, attention and the temporary abandonment of one’s own legend. Oscar has spent much of his life loving the idea of poetry because the practice of poetry might reveal that he is ordinary.
*A Poet* is a comedy about artistic failure, but also about the larger human habit of preferring noble appearances to difficult actions. It mocks the failed artist, the successful artist, the liberal patron and the romantic spectator with almost perfect impartiality. Its final achievement is that, after exposing Oscar’s absurdities, it still allows us to hope for him.
He may never become the poet he imagined himself to be. He might, however, become a slightly better man. This is a smaller ambition, and therefore perhaps the more difficult one.
Mini Review: **9/10** The romantic idea of the poet is that he suffers because the world cannot understand him. *A Poet* proposes a less flattering possibility: perhaps the world understands him perfectly well, and is simply tired of lending him money. Oscar Restrepo was once a promising Colombian writer. Several decades later, he remains devoted not so much to writing poetry as to remembering that he once wrote it. He is unemployed, alcoholic, financially...