In the past decade, Benjamín Naishtat has emerged as one of the leading voices in Argentine film with works such as Rojo (2018), The Movement (2016) and History of Fear (2014). Influenced by the likes of Martín Rejtman and Lucrecia Martel — luminaries of the New Argentine Cinema movement — Naishtat’s films often deal with the intersection of public and private life in a political context of violence and paranoia, his works venturing into the dinner tables and bedrooms of modern Argentine history.
With the release of Puan (2024), co-directed with María Alché, Honi Soit sat down to ask Naishtat about comedy, time, existentialism, and their place in the ever-growing and perplexing canon of New Argentine Cinema.
Huw Bradshaw: I don’t know if it’s something you’d agree with because it’s a bit of a big label, but I sort of see you and your co-director, María Alché, as the second generation of new Argentine cinema.
Benjamín Naishtat: Yeah, you could say that.
Huw: I was wondering, [in New Argentine film] where do you see comedy — because Puan is a straight up comedy film — placing in that canon of film? Because it’s not particularly something you see often.
Benjamín: Well, you are right. You know, in general comedy — not only in Argentina — it’s perceived sometimes as a lesser genre, like a popular genre, but not the most sophisticated. You don’t find many straight up comedies, in the main festivals — in the big sections — for whatever reason. I enjoy comedy very much and I think it can be just as deep and profound and meaningful, and whatever you need, comedy has it. But in Argentina there was a very important filmmaker and he’s alive, Martín Rejtman, who was sort of the one of the patriarchs of new Argentine cinema back in the 90s. His first film was called Rapado (1992), and then he did another one which is more well known called Silvia Prieto (1999). And those are strange comedies, not your classical comedies, but they were comedies. And he was very influential. But I have to say, after him, you have very little comedy among my contemporaries and elders. I think that comedy, specifically now in this gloomy era we’re going through, comedies are more necessary than ever? To take things not lightly, but in a luminous way.
Huw: I don’t know if you’d agree but I found a very, very black, dry comedy in your last film, Rojo (2018).
Benjamín: Yeah, there is some comedy.
Huw: I see some of that coming through in Puan where obviously you have the very practical straight up comedy, but it also has some moments where there’s no joke, it’s just the fact that everything is so terrible and that’s the joke.
Benjamín: Yeah, in the script, you know, we have different layers of comedy. Maybe there’s the most obvious physical comedy, with Marcelo having all of these problems. And then, as you say, there’s this — in the background — social company, which can feel pathetic or miserable at times. You’re laughing at all of this decay but it’s a way to cope with things also.
Huw: Definitely. I was going to ask but I feel like you answered it a bit last night [in the post-film Q&A] but in your last two films, The Movement (2015) and Rojo (2018), both are set in the past with Puan, you’ve come to become very centred in the present. What motivated that movement?
Benjamín: Well, it was pretty organic. When we started co-writing (with Maria), we had two coordinates for a project. One was Marcelo (Marcelo Subiotto) the actor. We really wanted to write for him, because we were convinced that he’s just so good and he can really shine. And I think he does in the film. He’s getting a lot of awards and recognition now and I’m happy that we wrote the part for him. So he was starting point A. And then the other one was Puan, the place but also the identity. So it felt natural to write a present-time story. Having said that, there is a lot of influence of the past, specifically the 2000s, the last crisis, before this one in the country.
Huw: Because you have this very strong existentialist mood through the whole film, were there any particular authors, writers, or thinkers that influenced you?
Benjamín: They are out there in the film, I would say the thinkers and authors that I think we mentioned pretty much everyone, and there’s different topics. I think what’s interesting about a philosopher is that basically their subject of work is life and reflecting about the most essential things. And then of course, they can split into a variety of branches. Like what he teaches in university is the state, citizenship, so you have [Jean Jacques] Rousseau, [Thomas] Hobbes, Leviathan and so on. But then he teaches this old wealthy lady because she wants to have sophisticated conversations with her friends. So she learns French existentialism, and [Friedrich] Nietzsche and [Martin] Heidegger. And so for each of these scenes where these topics are briefly developed, we read, and we had interviews with actual philosophers that explained a lot of things to us. That’s the most interesting part of making a movie to me, learning things to jump into something new.
Huw: Did you shoot in the actual University?
Benjamín: Oh yea, absolutely. We shot in Puan, and each and every student you see in the film is an actual Puan student we hired for the film.
Huw: I was going to say that they seem very believable as philosophy students.
Benjamín: It’s a very particular species. You know, that faculty, Puan. I’m sure where you study there is an identity or not, but Puan has a strong identity and we could have not hired random extras. There’s an extras union in Argentina and usually when you do a film and you need extras, you call the extras union and then you say, okay, send me 20 young men and women. But you couldn’t do that for a Puan classroom. So we worked with a student syndicate in every university to hire some students to come and be real people in the film.
Huw: Thank you. It’s been a really interesting conversation.
Benjamín: Thank you for your interest in Argentine film.
Puan (2023) was part of the Official Competition at the 2024 Sydney Film Festival.
