KVIFF 2023: Argentina’s ‘The Delinquents’ – A Slow Burn Heist Parable
by Alex Billington
July 3, 2023
What would be worse – the overwhelming pressure of having so much money you don’t know how to handle it correctly, or the overwhelming anxiety of waiting to soon receive so much money that will allow you to never have to work again? Something to think about watching this film. I caught up with this outstanding Argentinian film at the 2023 Karlovy Vary Film Festival after it first premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May in the Un Certain Regard section. The Delinquents, also known as Los Delincuentes in Spanish, is a slow burn heist film that plays out over a grand total of 180 minutes – it’s exactly 3 hours long. Don’t write this one off yet! Don’t skip it if you have an opportunity to watch it on the big screen! If you can sit with it and appreciate the way it takes its time to breathe and let the story unravel, you’ll be rewarded with a rich, compelling and cinematically intelligent film about how money imprisons us all. And the filmmaking, oh my goodness, the filmmaking is to die for! It’s consistently striking and clever and patient and gorgeous.
“Where is freedom?” This is the invigorating question at the core of this film. The Delinquents is written and directed by “Argentinian New Wave” filmmaker Rodrigo Moreno, his fourth feature film so far. The story follows two workers at a bank in Buenos Aires. Daniel Elías co-stars as Morán, who quietly decides one day to rob the bank he works for in the most casual way. Knowing he’ll go to prison, he convinces his co-worker / friend Román, played by Esteban Bigliardi, to take the cash and stash it and make sure it’s safe for the years he’ll be locked away. The rest of the film is about “what happens next” and, of course, a simple plan is never so simple. It quickly begins to fall apart and they quickly realize that waiting nearly four years until everything blows over is not exactly that easy. We’re all cornered by money whether we like it or not. This is only the beginning, as the narrative splits and follows each down their own distinct paths. They’re not exactly criminals as we know, they’re just people who want true freedom escaping from the boring, mundane work that we all must to do to keep making money so that we can live our boring, repetitive lives.
There’s so much about this distinct film to admire and get lost in even if it does takes its time to move along, letting scenes casually sprawl. Perhaps it’s a subtle reminder that there’s freedom in letting time pass, too. The Delinquents is a modern Hitchcockian heist film that turns into a parable about liberation and money and what it means to truly escape and live free. The transitions in this film are stunning holy smokes, so many beautiful slow fades. The split screen shots used a few times are also brilliant. I loved the score, loved the cinematography, loved the characters. I could talk about this film for hours. It’s absolutely worth sitting through, exactly the kind of engaging film you need to discuss with friends after watching it to analyze what was going on and the story and the point it’s making. The filmmaking is really something special. Of course, yes, my only criticism is it could be trimmed down and tightened up a bit. But that’s about it. This ultimately turns out to not be a heist film, no matter how they’re selling it; it’s a film about how we’re drawn to heist stories that slowly fades into a film about how money controls us. A nightmare we all need to wake up from.
Alex’s KVIFF 2023 Rating: 9 out of 10
Follow Alex on Twitter – @firstshowing / Or Letterboxd – @firstshowing
