Azor

Captivating thriller in pure John le Carré style set in military junta-era Argentina.

Ivan de Wiel (Dardenne brothers favourite Fabrizio Rongione) is a discreet world man who represents a major Swiss bank, and who converses effortlessly in Spanish, French, and English. He arrives in the Argentine capital Buenos Aires with his wife Inès (Cléau) in 1980. He has come to the country to succeed his more flamboyant predecessor, who has mysteriously disappeared overnight, and to follow up a very important client belonging to the country's political left. In a country where the right-wing populist military junta rules brutally, de Wiel suddenly finds himself in a dangerous and intricate spider web.

Azor is a hugely impressive debut film, and like a good John le Carré film adaptation, much of the excitement lies in the uncertainty of the dangers lurking behind a slightly long gaze from a passer-by on the street or a conversation marked by polite but reserved conversations to people connected to powerful and dangerous actors in the Argentinian society. In 2021, the film was named the best thriller of the year by the renowned website Rotten Tomatoes. The acting is of the highest class, and the film appears as a more subtle variant of classic thrillers with a political background from the 1980s, such as Costa-Gavras’ Missing (1982) and Peter Weir's The Year of Living Dangerously (1982).

Jon Sæter

Director

Swiss Andreas Fontana (b. 1982) makes his impressive debut as a feature film director with Azor. He studied comparative literature at the University of Geneva and directing in Buenos Aires. In 2015, he directed the short documentary Pedro M, 1981.

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