Zapa is a young locksmith who works in a quiet sleepy part of Buenos Aires. Life is slow and the hours pass slowly untill one day he is sent on a job opening a safe in an office only to find that the next day he is arrested for robbing the establishment. His uncle bails him out and suddenly he has a new job a new love interest and his life has become stranger than fiction....
El Bonaerense is the tale of an Argentinian country bumpkin locksmith known as "Zapa" who manages, through nepotism, to escape the trouble he has found himself in in the country; and makes it all the way to the capital to join the Buenos Aires police force.
The film's pace is slow and languid, and at times achingly so; but this aptly mirrors the sweltering and stifling heat of the Argentine capital; the hours of ennui passed in a police porta-cabin; the sense of frustration at an impossible job, made even more impossible by the ineptitude of new recruit Zapa; not to mention Zapa's own disinterest in the job.
Throughout the film Zapa is as reticent as a character can be. We witness him silently let the scenes of corruption pass him by; he has no interest in morality, not that his fellow police officers are above bending the law, but Zapa is a fish out of water: and when a fish finds itself out of water should it judge the law of the land?
El Bonaerense is a quiet an unassuming tale of a man who is both morally and existentially stagnant; a tale of a man who prefers the simple country life, but, thru familial favours alone manages to grow and make some noise.
Left to his own devices Zapa the country locksmith would forever remain Zapa the country locksmith - instead he returns a man of means in uniform: el bonaerense....
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Brooding drama with a dash of jet-black comedy written, directed and produced by Argentinan filmmaker Pablo Trapero. Zapa (Jorge Roman) is a small-town locksmith with a quiet and monotonous life. When his boss, Polaco (Hugo Anganuzzi) sends him out on a call to open a safe in a local office, he is arrested for robbery and imprisoned. But his uncle Ismael (Roberto Posse), a retired policeman, pulls a few strings to bail Zapa out, and finds him a job with the police force in Buenos Aires. Hurled into a hostile and unfamiliar urban environment, Zapa is quickly initiated into the brutal and corrupt city police force. The film was premiered at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.
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