SAN DIEGO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2023 REVIEW! You will be thunderstruck by writer/director Alison Murray’s incredible drama, Ariel: Back To Buenos Aires. Based on true events, it opens in 2014 with a close-up of what may be the dirtiest kitchen sink in cinema since Withnail and I. Laying on the floor under the sink is Davie Vega (Raphael Grosz-Harvey), limp like a rag doll. How did this man in his mid-30s end up in the s**t house?
“…Diana and Davie head straight there and discover people doing something outrageous right in the street: tangoing.”
Flashback to him sulking on an airplane with his big sister Diana (Cristina Rosato), flying from Canada to their birth country Argentina. Diana then springs on him that part of the trip is to try to get Davie’s birth certificate, as their mother said she didn’t have a copy. Diana cannot remember her mother being pregnant with him and suspects he may be adopted. Their parents emigrated to Canada because of their father Daniel’s (Gerardo Romano) job with Ford in the 80s and were never taken back to Argentina to visit. This all freaks Davie out, as he already struggles with alienation and depression on a serious scale.
Their mother, Silvia (Cristina Banegas), warns them to stay out of a certain area of Buenos Aires, saying it was dog s**t and should be avoided. So Diana and Davie head straight there and discover people doing something outrageous right in the street: tangoing. They are slipped an invitation to a club where you can see some real tango that isn’t for tourists. There they see the famous Josefina (Eleonora Wexler) dancing the tango like no other. They sign up for lessons from her as they investigate Davie’s roots. So as they surrender to the seductive excitement of the tango, their quest for answers sinks them further into a past much darker than either ever imagined…
