Cinema: Film “Problemista”: Unabashedly idiosyncratic

“Only those who know their destination can find the way,” wrote the philosopher Laotse in the sixth century BC. At that time, he certainly did not yet have the seemingly insurmountable hurdles of US immigration policy in mind.

Alejandro, an immigrant from El Salvador who lives in New York, actually knows his goal exactly: He wants to become a toy developer at Hasbro. But the Kafkaesque US immigration system makes it almost impossible for Alejandro, played by director, writer and co-producer Julio Torres, to achieve his goal.

Like a fairytale aunt, Isabella Rossellini tells his story captured in magical-realistic images from offscreen:

At the beginning, Alejandro works for a company where you can let yourself be frozen in order to hopefully be thawed again in a technologically more developed future. Alejandro is responsible for the unsuccessful painter Bobby (RZA), who has undergone this procedure because of his cancer. But when Alejandro trips over the refrigerator cable and briefly interrupts the power supply, he is mercilessly fired. He now has exactly one month to find another employer before he is deported.

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Bobby’s wife Elizabeth, an exuberant art critic, played brilliantly by Tilda Swinton, hires him as her assistant and wants to co-sign his visa; but only if he manages to work with her to organize an exhibition of her misunderstood artist husband’s 13 hideous egg paintings.

But you wouldn’t wish a boss like Elizabeth on your worst enemy: hysterical, paranoid and extremely rude to others, she keeps the sweet, shy Alejandro on his toes.

An extremely opposite pair, which works in many films, but Alejandro’s aloofness and expressionlessness gets on your nerves after a while and reinforces the impression that the film is sometimes treading water.

But perhaps the millennial Torres is being done a little injustice; perhaps his good-natured, dreamy Alejandro will be better received by a younger audience. In any case, he has already enjoyed considerable success in America with his laconic humor, which he also indulges in as a stand-up comedian on “Saturday Night Live”. The innovative horror-comedy series “Los Espookys,” in which Torres plays one of the protagonists and also co-wrote the script, also sparked a storm of enthusiasm among many.

And Torres’ debut film has some pretty nice ideas and great moments: Alejandro imagines an hourglass that symbolizes his dwindling residence status. At the immigration office, the imaginative Alejandro once observes how a woman whose residence status has expired disappears into thin air. The confusing marathon of bureaucracy that Alejandro has to complete is also attractively illustrated by a step-shaped labyrinth that is reminiscent of Terry Gilliam’s film “Brazil”.

His job experience at Craigslist, an online classifieds website, highlights how degrading most job opportunities are for immigrants. In desperation, Alejandro even cleans windows half-naked for a fetishist. Unfortunately, this scene, like others, seems as if the humor had been cut off.

It’s hard to make sense of Torres’ protagonist, who flounders through life with a spring in his step. Even his backstory, which is told to some extent in flashbacks, with an artistically ambitious mother who created a dreamlike environment for him, hardly provides any deeper insight into his character. The flashbacks Elizabeth was granted with her husband, whom she sincerely loved, work better; here Swinton is allowed to show her gentle side so that her character doesn’t degenerate into a caricature.

But unlike Bobby, Torres doesn’t need to allow himself to be frozen in order to look forward to a more promising, artistic future. His unabashedly idiosyncratic indie comedy has interesting approaches, but sometimes fails because of its humor, which isn’t for everyone, and because its ironic portrayal of American immigration regulations should have been more pointed.

Nevertheless, one can definitely understand the trust that the film production company A24 has in him. Those in charge usually have a good nose for exceptional directors and productions. For example, great films such as the science fiction comedy “Everything Everywhere All at Once”, the romantic drama “Past Lives” and the action film “Civil War”, set in the near future, are credited to her.

“The journey is the destination,” as another Chinese philosopher wrote more than two and a half thousand years ago. So one can definitely look forward to Torres’ next film.

»Problemist«: USA 2023. Director: Julio Torres. Mit: Julio Torres, Tilda Swinton, RZA. 98 Minuten. Start: 13.6.

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