Reviewer Flickchart rating: 1,637 / 5,229
The ever present Gael García Bernal is again because the groundbreaking luchador phenomenon, “Cassandro.” The Amazon Studios’ movie takes a centered strategy to the biopic, with director Roger Ross Williams telling the story of a selected interval in Saúl’s life. We’re launched to Saúl as a working class younger man, residing together with his mom in El Paso and acting at night time because the masked luchador “El Topo.” Saúl is a petite man and is usually solid because the “runt” in matches with bigger, extra imposing wrestlers. He longs for the love of the gang.
Outdoors of the ring Saúl helps his mom mend garments. Saúl is the kid of an affair; his father’s second household and deserted them completely when Saúl got here out as homosexual. We’re launched to the idea of the Exótico in luchador wrestling. The Exótico is a flamboyant male wrestler who clothes in traditionally-feminine costumes. They at all times lose, the heel to the macho hero. Williams exhibits us how vehement the hatred is within the viewers for the Exótico, as boos rain down and homophobic slurs are slung all through the arenas.
Williams challenges us to see how even in our most frivolous entertainments we search to affirm the social order. The Exótico overtly flaunts an alternative choice to the established views of masculinity and femininity, competing in fight with societal conventions. Saúl decides he desires to be an Exótico who wins. Williams’ sports activities movie a few skilled wrestler turns into greater than that, because the coaching montages, bodily transformations, and full emergence of Saúl’s new “Cassandro” persona turns seemingly-vicious crowds into ardent supporters. This isn’t one other story of the person pursuit of the American dream, however these sequences turn into metaphors for the general public reconstruction of self that many in marginalized communities interact in to search out acceptance in mainstream society.
Bernal’s efficiency is superb, and he brings a silent depth to Saúl. He isn’t merely an enthralling, unhappy, longing, joyful, flamboyant, or quiet character; as a full human, he’s all of them. Saúl contemplates, performs, needs, loves, seeks acceptance, and finds his personal means in a life that seeks to comprise him. We see all of it in Bernal as he takes us on Saúl’s journey to Cassandro.
