Many people have asked if other countries besides america have made noir films, and the answer is yes. Argentina shows how you don't need a huge, multibillion dollar studio such as hollywood to produce an enjoyable movie. Sadly, Los Tallos Amargos (The Bitter Stems) is virtually unknown outside of argentina, and I myself have never heard of it until TCM played it a few weeks ago. The story is original by noir standards, even though it does involve a murder. If it didn't, it simply wouldn't be noir. It starts with a journalist named Alfredo (Carlos Cores) who is disgruntled because his job isn't getting him enough money. He decides to approach a bartender named Liudas (Vassili Lambrinos) and the two men start an illegal advertising campaign for a journalism course. This leads to them becoming extremely rich very quickly, but now there's a problem. Liudas has relatives in europe and he wants to use his newfound financial assets to resettle them in argentina. Alfredo says he is allowed to do that, but secretly plots to get rid of his partner before him (and his relatives) ask for ever increasing amounts of money. Alfredo starts to wonder if Liudas' children are even real people and not just ones he made up as an excuse to receive free money. Alfredo hits Liudas on the back of the head one night with a metal object and kills him, but it's too late. Liudas' son Jarvis has already arrived from europe and is introduced to his father's business partner soon after. Now Alfredo has to somehow hide Liudas' corpse in addition to making up various false statements to Jarvis as to why his father is suddenly missing. Eventually, Alfredo manages to bury Liudas' body in a shallow ditch and cover it up with dirt. Soon, Alfredo starts to slowly lose his mind, being forced to live with himself after what he did to a man just trying to give his family a place to live. Towards the end, Jarvis starts poking around in the approximate area of their father's burial site, and Alfredo has to frantically shoo them away. Jarvis says there's a special type of plant growing on the exact spot, and he wants to move it somewhere better. Alfredo is unable to convince him to stop, and begins to run aimlessly as fast as he can, knowing what is about to happen. He eventually comes upon some train tracks, and jumps onto them right when a train is about to pass. Meanwhile, Jarvis didn't move the plants after all, so Liudas' corpse remains undiscovered and Alfredo killed himself for nothing. This movie has one of the darkest endings I've ever seen in the noir genre. I can't really think of anything comparable. The film also features the obligatory female character that ends up being nothing but bad news for the "protagonist". Susana (Julia Sandoval) serves this purpose, but she doesn't feel as important as other noir women playing a similar part. She isn't really given much to do and removing her from the story wouldn't make much difference. Alfredo already kills his partner without her help after all. Another interesting fact about this movie is that its cinematographer was Ricardo Younis, a protégé of Gregg Toland, who shot Citizen Kane. It really does show in this movie, since it features a lot of shadows, dream like sequences, and an overall dark atmosphere. You can almost say this movie is Citizen Kane but noir. The long and the short of it is Los Tallos Amargos is a great noir film with a grisly and disturbing ending that american filmmakers would be afraid to replicate. It's sad how barely anyone knows about this film.
Review of The Bitter Stems
