Cinema Releases - Rojo

★★★★

"This eerie period think-piece captures the darkness of mid-Seventies Argentina

Rather than mouthpiece politics, Rojo goes for conscience-pricking metaphor…"

Tim Robey, The Daily Telegraph

"…this is a newly made and clever period mystery from Argentinian director Benjamin Naishtat. It’s full of cryptic dead ends, many of which allude to historical events.

Naishtat’s message is clear. Claudio is a flawed but redeemable man, but Argentina is broken. The director knows his subject matter: Naishtat’s grandmother was one of the disappeared and his father had to flee their home, which was later burnt to the ground. Perhaps that’s what makes this insightful black comedy about a lost time so poignant and precise."

Greer McNally, Time Out

★★★★

"There is a quiet, thrilling tension to this film…Every polite sentence is a metaphor for something worse, and the magnificent plains of Argentina make the human action seem disturbingly small."

Kate Muir, Daily Mail

"There is a sense of menace underpinning Argentine director Benjamin Naishtat's brilliant third feature, a disarming allegory about middle-class society turning a blind eye to the excesses committed in the name of so-called peace and stability."

Maria Delgado, Sight & Sound

★★★★

"It's powerful material, deftly delivered."

Kevin Maher, The Times

"Benjamín Naishtat’s crime-and-corruption tale is quite a hoot. It starts like Patricia Highsmith, with a bizarre quarrel and a death by misadventure. It continues like Highsmith, or possibly Borges, with bodies bunged in deserts, a sombre gumshoe with a surreal name (Alfredo Castro as “Detective Sinclair”, drafted in from reality TV) and a climax reaching for the metaphysical by way of the Maeterlinckian."

Nigel Andrews, The Financial Times

★★★★

"This subtly disturbing, queasily tense satirical nightmare."

"A disquieting parable of iniquity."

Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

★★★★

"An elegant but disjointed thriller unravels a tale of personal guilt in the political dark days of 70s Argentina..."

"…leave(s) us with the ominous crackle of a storm about to break."

Wendy Ide, The Observer

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★★★★

"Rojo offers an effortlessly emotional journey into the dark heart of compromise. Embrace this little masterpiece before it disappears.

Naishtat’s team simulate the period  to perfection, as well as offer up authentic artefacts that defy belief."

Charlotte O'Sullivan, Evening Standard


★★★★

"With each subplot reinforcing the simmering sense of unease, this compelling recreation of a pernicious period soberingly exposes the ease with which morality can become a casualty of human nature."

David Parkinson, Empire

"A slow burn piece but peppered with moments of rich humour and real tension…"

Alison Rowat, The Herald



"When a country falls under a dictatorship, who is guilty — or, rather, who is not? That’s the question that beats a steady rhythm — tap, tap, tap — throughout the striking moral thriller “Rojo,” a vision of everyday life in mid-1970s Argentina.

Working at the intersection of the cinematic mainstream and the art house, Naishtat oscillates between the obvious and the ambiguous, all while avoiding overt political messaging.

It’s a brutal trip, though Naishtat smartly balances the heaviness with moments of levity and absurd comedy. (Some much-welcome relief is provided by the wonderful Chilean actor Alfredo Castro, a familiar presence in the movies of Pablo Larraín, whose influence is evident here)."

Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

"Benjamín Naishtat’s Rojo is a mystery thriller of sorts. That is, it comes across like a thriller, but remains fundamentally mysterious throughout, weaving a texture of loose ends and tantalizing enigmas...

Rojo is a highly commercial film, relatively speaking: internationally known actors, polished retro stylization, a coolly detached thriller format that recalls vintage Claude Chabrol in its forensic dissection of the moral compromise of a pampered bourgeoisie.

Rojo uses both familiarity and distanciation to depict a society that never appears that different from the world we know, a mystery thriller of sorts that's both about its moment, and disturbingly timeless."

Jonathan Romney, Film Comment

Chuck Bowen, Slant Magazine