In Andreas Fontana’s Azor, a sinister look at the culture of silence that lets evil thrive

The setting is Argentina in the years between 1976 and 1983, when the country was under a military dictatorship that killed or made “disappeared” tens and thousands of people it considered to be dissidents, including students, journalists, activists, trade-unionists, Leftists and suspected left-wing radicals. The military junta called this genocide the Dirty War.

Fontana’s film, however, does not unfold in the bloody streets. Written by Fontana and Mariano Llinás, Azor is concerned with Argentina’s moneyed elite at the time. What were they up to when the military government had unleashed a “purification phase”, as one character puts it, to remove “parasites”? And how did such crimes not face opposition and were tolerated by civil society’s most powerful members?

Naturally, staying silent even in the face of the most despicable evil is fundamental to Yvan’s profession.

Did René Keys stay silent, though? Azor begins with Yvan visiting Argentina, after Keys goes missing. Yvan is here to comfort their clients, who considered Keys very close, and ensure they stay with the bank. Accompanying him is his charming wife Inés (Stephanie Cléau), whose beauty and studied grace is useful to Yvan during meetings with clients.

These meetings in Azor are pregnant with ominous disquiet, as everyone is extra-careful about choosing the right words while speaking, lest they spill something that provokes the junta to seize their assets or make them “disappear”. Like the Hindi web series Paatal Lok, Azor is a thriller, the real purpose of which, is to lay bare the nation’s truth. The disappearance of Keys offers key to understanding not just the Argentine upper class during one of the country’s darkest periods, but also the circumstances that let evil thrive and grow in any part of the world at any point of time.

Azor also offers a ringside view to private banking. The private banker has to earn the trust of their rich and anxious client till they part with their money. According to every client Yvan meets, Keys happened to be a master at it. While some clients considered him a reliable and resourceful friend, others found him debauched and risky. But everyone agrees that he was a brilliant, unforgettable character.

Yvan, on the other hand, is cautious and more conservative. He is not keen on making grandiose promises or jumping into risky investments, which makes him unattractive to some of Keys’ clients. Perhaps, it is Yvan’s self-effacing disposition that successfully leads him to Lazaro, Keys’ secret client. Without spoiling the movie for readers, I will just say that Lazaro is something that is a natural consequence of any genocide. Did Keys get spooked and escape? Or was Lazaro his idea in the first place?

Thematic similarities to Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novel Heart of Darkness, and its 1979 film adaptation Apocalypse Now, have already been acknowledged by the director and noted elsewhere. Heart of Darkness uncovers the brutality of the Belgian colonisation of the Congo in the early 20th century through the eyes of Marlow, who seeks out the mysterious ivory trader Kurtz, not unlike Yvan’s search for Keys.

Azor also reminded me of Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman’s 2008 animated docu-fiction film Waltz with Bashir, in which he investigates his own role in the massacres of Palestinians and Lebanese Shia Muslims during the 1982 Lebanon War. While Fontana found inspiration for Azor from his grandfather’s journal written during his visit to the junta-ruled Argentina, he also wondered about the price of the comfortable life that he has live. “In Switzerland, we all benefit from the bank,” Fontana said in an interview to Filmmaker Magazine. “The health system comes from the bank; public school comes from here… [Azor is] a way to reflect on where I’m coming from.” The reflection offered at the end of 110 minutes of Azor is for all of us to ponder upon.