In the last edition of Cannes, Tarantino left off with one of those phrases that bear his stamp and it is never clear if it is a vindication of pure cinema, as the romantics called for unblemished art, or we are simply facing a new and shameless exercise in provocative cynicism. “Between exciting and being on the right side of morality, I prefer the former,” he said for that of shaking the tree of incorrectness and placing the fever of one of his favorite genres, that of revenge (or vendettamatic), outside of diatribes of an ethical nature: what excites heals, and piously enjoying the aesthetic vision of A massacre does not turn all Christians in the world into perverted sadists. What’s more, what Tarantino maintains is just the opposite. Amen.
And what do we do with ‘Sound of Freedom’ (Sound of freedom), Alejandro Monteverdeand ‘vengeful‘ classic that places at the center the most nefarious of crimes, the abuse and trafficking of children, and whose protagonist used the promotion to join the craziest conspiracy theory of the so-called QAnon about the existence of ‘child farms’ promoted by the rich ‘progres‘ to extract adrenochrome from them, a compound that – he said without raising an eyebrow – is “10 times more powerful than heroin” and that makes those who use it “younger”? What is relevant is not the degree of alienation of any actor, but to what extent this nonsense has made ‘Sound of freedom’ has arrived where it has or, more in line with Tarantino, if it is appropriate to profit from a tragedy by dressing it as spectacle, art or, for that matter, denunciation.
“We must keep in mind that six months ago, only six months, the film was completely orphaned. We had finished it four years ago and no one saw the slightest possibility in it. We were dead,” Monteverde says by way of prologue to mark , so to speak, the playing field. When the question comes, which will come, about whether it is not all the result of a carefully programmed campaign with the worst arts, half of the answer has already been given: “But if nothing else, we were on the verge of bankruptcy!” Next to him, the Spanish actor Javier Godino, with a prominent role in the film, supports his director’s motion: “There is a lot of talk about issues unrelated to the film, but what is relevant is something as simple as artistic quality, the place from which the film speaks to the viewer. The film is exciting and reaches us in a very direct way. It talks about something that everyone, in one way or another, directly or indirectly, knows. And it affects us all. Who can be in favor of child abuse, regardless of political affiliation?” It is clear.
Keep in mind, and because numbers are the language of reality, that since its premiere on July 4, at the same time as the last installment of ‘Indiana Jones’ and shortly before or shortly after the prodigy ‘Mission Impossible’, the box office figures have only grown to make an independent film the biggest phenomenon of the last decade. Nothing fits. Everything surprises to the point of easily surpassing the limits of simply the cinematographic phenomenon. A film that cost 15 million dollars has already raised nearly 250, which places it in position number 10 at the global box office. Of course, ahead of both Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise. It was recently known that it is already close to reaching ‘Reservoir dogs’, by the aforementioned Tarantino, and is finally on the honor list of the 20 most viewed independent films (that have nothing to do with the major studios) in history.
Could Caviezel be responsible for all this? “I can’t say that what Jim said bothered me because we are in a free country and everyone can talk about whatever they want from whatever ideology they want. What did bother me, a lot, is that his statement labeled the film. I I am the writer and the director, and “My ideology is not that, I am not an ultra,” the director answers and he does so forcefully and with his eyes completely open between surprise and a touch of indignation. Not far away, it is the producer and supporting actor in the film itself who speaks. Eduardo Verastegui insists on the idea that nothing was planned; that it is impossible for an eight-year project to attend to any program so meticulously. And nothing includes the film’s own promotion where Caviezel said what he said. “Jim’s thing bothered me at first, but then I realized that I don’t own what anyone says and writes. As long as things move forward…”, she says and leaves it there.