Truth and fiction are about equally strange in director Diego Lerman’s The Man Who Loved UFOs (now on Netflix), an Argentinian film about a real-life oily TV journalist who ventured to the sticks in the mid-’80s and stirred up nationwide interest in some alleged UFO sightings, which makes it a rather unusual BOATS (Based On A True Story) movie. Leonardo Sbaraglia plays Jose de Zer, whose sensational approach to “strange phenomena,” for Americans like myself, is reminiscent of Geraldo Rivera’s famed live-broadcast failure to find a damn thing inside Al Capone’s vault besides dirt and rocks – except Geraldo didn’t make shit up out of whole cloth like Jose did.
The Gist: Right off the bat, we get a sense of what kind of journalist Jose is: He interviews Buenos Aires stage and TV star La Monica (Monica Ayos) with his pants at his ankles. I guess it’s allowed, since they occasionally schtup each other. But his lack of journalistic boundaries and professionalism in this instance is nothing compared to his pending enterprise – a pending enterprise that’s perhaps inspired by a strange occurrence where he seems to witness a strange light in the sky, then collapses, convulsing and foaming at the mouth. While unconscious, he dreams of the time he fought in the Six-Day War and ended up lost alone in a vast desert for hours. In this particular version of the story, he at one point looks up toward the blistering sun and sees a vast disc-shaped object that enshrouds him in a shadow; whether this actually happened or is just added-value dream-nonsense is left up for our interpretation.
While in the hospital, reps from La Candelaria, a rural town in the state of Cordoba, pitch him a serendipitous story: Some weirdness happened in the mountains that might make for a good story on news program Notidiario. Lights in the sky, awestruck locals, scorched ground, stuff like that. So Jose grabs his trusty cameraman Chango (Sergio Prina) and they trek out to the mountains, where they assemble a goofy piece about the phenomenon, which includes a bunch of sketchy speculation and includes drecky lines from Jose like “what do you think?” and “draw your own conclusions.” Classic.
Whether Jose actually believes it or not isn’t made clear. But he is certain that it’ll draw viewership, so he used-car-salesman hard-pitches the story to his skeptical, reluctant bosses as “what has not been proven yet, but everyone believes,” gets the piece on the air, then drinks in celebration with those very same bosses when the ratings spike. So of course, he’s sent right back out to investigate further, and that’s when he starts planting artifacts, “casting” locals to do “interviews” about UFO sightings and interpreting random “findings” as evidence of alien visitors – and telling his daughter Marti (Renata Lerman, director Diego Lerman’s daughter), who’s getting bullied at school because of her famous-slash-infamous father’s dopey quasi-journalism, that his stories are absolutely true, but he’s just reenacting the truth. Does he believe his own bullshit? Yes, no, I don’t know. I mean, that’s the question, isn’t it? What do you think? Draw your own conclusions!
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: It’s called The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vaults. It’s the highest-rated syndicated special ever. Don’t watch it – the buildup is lousy and the payoff is even worse. Total dud. Two thumbs down!
Performance Worth Watching: I liked Sbaraglia’s amusing take on an essentially impenetrable personality who’s caught in a nether-zone between delusion and reality. His best moments aren’t when Jose’s grandstanding, though – Sbaraglia’s interactions with Renata Lerman, whose character functions as her father’s conscience.
Memorable Dialogue: Jose pauses for a moment of self-reflection with his trusted compadre Chango:
Jose: Listen. Do you think I’m a…
Chango: A phony?
Jose: No. I know I’m a phony.
Sex and Skin: A randy commingling between Jose and Moni backstage at her goofy talk show.
Our Take: The primary dramatic thrust of The Man Who Loved UFOs is the push-and-pull within Jose: Was his “encounter” early in the film real, or just the effects of, say, a stroke or panic attack? He fakes his stories, but does he truly believe extraterrestrials have visited Earth? Is he after the truth, or just attention, fame and ratings? There are no simple, easy answers to these questions. Part of the film’s allure is the slippery mystery of a man at its center. He’s a fascinating figure, but he doesn’t seem to truly know himself. So should we even try to understand him?
Despite all this, Jose still feels like a lightweight character leading a movie that he can’t carry for its heavy run time of 107 minutes. It takes a while for the narrative to rev up, and even once it gets going, its RPMs are low; this is definitely a movie that could be focused and sharpened dramatically and comedically with another pass or two in the editing room. It’s also provincial, and likely lacks appeal outside Argentina, where Jose de Zer is a cultural footnote – although a bit where Jose’s “interviews” keep being interrupted by a bleating baby goat is funny, I otherwise struggled to connect with the comedy due to lack of context.
Whether Diego Lerman is trying to say something about the current state of journalism and “fake news” is lost in the shuffle as he tries to play fancifully with his main character, trying to toe the line between silly and serious, in a quest to find Jose the Human amidst the absurd folly of Jose the Legend. Is he more clown than man? Draw your own conclusions.
Our Call: Despite some game performances and a high-ceiling true story as its basis, The Man Who Loved UFOs never quite comes together. Argentinians familiar with the subject may get more traction with it, but the rest of us would be wise to SKIP IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.