For the Money (2019) - full transcript
A miserable Argentine troupe of actors, dancers, musicians, filmmakers and a girl embark on a theatre tour to some country, probably in Latin America.
presents
A tragedy in three acts
What time was this reported?
Around seven thirty, Colonel.
Seven thirty?
What do you think, Osvaldo?
A small tragedy, isn’t it, Osvaldo?
Yes, Colonel.
This seems like a small tragedy.
Would you like to end up like this, Osvaldo?
No, Colonel.
No, stupid.
Nobody would like to end up like this.
A young couple.
Young, Colonel.
And where are the other footprints?
If you may, this way, Colonel.
Size thirty, thirty-one,
write it down Osvaldo.
Approximately some
years old, Colonel.
Five years old.
Five, slash six, Colonel.
And this other one seems to
be a big guy, right, Osvaldo?
Yes, Colonel, sir.
Our fugitives are a child
and a big guy, Osvaldo.
How long do you reckon
for these footprints
Around twenty minutes, Colonel.
Factoring in the wind.
Factoring in the wind, Colonel, yes.
And the other one hasn’t said a word yet?
He spoke, Colonel.
What did he say?
He doesn’t speak Spanish, Colonel.
He doesn’t speak Spanish?
No, Colonel.
What does he speak?
He speaks the French language, Colonel.
My goodness!
He speaks the language of Richelieu!
Yes, Colonel.
Get moving, Osvaldo!
Yes, sir, Colonel.
Get moving!
FOR THE MONEY
I hear you, sir.
I hear you, sir.
I hear you, sir.
Your name, sir.
Your name, sir.
Perpoint.
P - E - R - P - O - I - N - T
Did you know, Mr. Perpoint,
the two dead people on the beach?
Yes, sir.
And the ones who escaped?
Did you know those two?
Yes, sir.
And the bodies,
did you know their names?
Yes, sir.
What were their names?
The ones who escaped through the beach:
Obelix and “The little one”.
And the bodies…
Do you know the names of the deceased?
Mrs Acuña and her husband.
All Argentines.
Continue, I’m listening.
The first time I met Mrs Acuña
was ten years ago.
I lived in France back then,
with my Argentine wife.
We both worked as dancers
in a very important dancing company.
Then we moved to Buenos Aires.
My wife was pregnant,
she wanted her children to
be born on Argentine soil.
When I arrived in Buenos Aires,
I made a living as a French teacher.
And it was right there
when Acuña and her
husband contacted me
to make a theatre play with them.
ACT 1
The voices…
Keyboards, guitar…
Do they come out in the three?
Let’s see, turn it down a bit.
Up, up.
Just turn on the feedback.
Only the monitors now.
Try with the whole PA.
Is that all?!
I can’t hear a fucking thing!
I don’t know why I took it.
Maybe because I missed
going on stage.
Let’s do one thing, or the other one.
Or I’m out of here!
Maybe what I missed was
the thrill before a function.
Maybe it was simply because
I was born to dance.
And if I was born to dance,
why was I making a living
as a French teacher?
How can a dancer not dance
and teach French?
Who talked to the charter driver?
How can a dancer who made a living
travelling around all theatres in Europe,
Who used to eat out in
restaurants every night,
Someone used to being applauded
two or three times a week,
How can he get used to a new life sitting
correcting an idiot so that he speaks better
the language of Molière and Victor Hugo,
Light!
cycling across town to make it
on time for the next lesson,
always late, always nervous,
Light!
always tired, always
stressed and dispirited?
Are you ok?
Are you ok?!
That was me at the time when
Madame Acuña and her husband
Light!
offered me work in a theatre play.
and I…
said yes.
And that was the beginning
of what happened.
That’s how it was done in Buenos Aires.
They called it “Off”
or “independent”
In the “Off”, we all covered all
roles in the theatre play.
We moved the instruments around,
we invented the stage,
we set up the rehearsals,
we got the costumes.
We financed
what – who knows –
what needed financing.
And – finally –
we got together
once or twice a week and we rehearsed.
Then the functions at the
Off theatres were packed.
But the borderaux was barely enough
to pay for dinner that night.
That’s what they called “pin money”.
And that pin money was no
good business for anyone.
Nobody got a penny out of the “Off”.
On the contrary: they invested
their time and money there.
Me, who, before that,
made a living dancing in France,
now in Argentina, I was giving my life
and my money to the “off” theatre.
And I was happy the same.
Everyone did the same.
Everyone lived of something else.
Not just me.
There are two sounds in French.
The sound ‘Dzzzzz’...
...and the sound ‘sssss’...
So…
Do like this.
Do like this, use your hand.
Madame Acuña taught choreographic
composition at University.
Her husband made a living directing
or editing institutional films,
documentaries, ads
or whoever gave him money.
And Obelix
when I met him,
he was making the music
for some chips’ ad.
It starts with the strings,
we’d talked about strings.
The chello sings the melodies
following the rhythm,
set by the other strings.
Enters the piano melody, moving.
Now the second phase,
the moving violins,
all slushy, super slushy.
And now: tic, tic, tic… Playful.
It loosens, it’s like the fun
part you asked for.
And now tension rises, tension, tension.
and the angelical.
And the choir sounds great.
It’s a choir that would cost you,
I don’t know, a fortune.
Coda.
Glorious ending.
You cannot have more glory than this.
They all lived of something else.
It was an outrage
that they had taken as natural.
And they had already forgotten
that it was an outrage.
They were soldiers who forgot
what or who they fight for.
They just fight.
Because it’s the only thing
they know how to do.
And they recruited me for that fight.
They saw I had an income
as a French teacher
but I was also open to light
myself up on stage,
and that made me fit for the fight.
They told me there wasn’t any money.
But they told me that probably
at some point some money would appear.
They said:
“If the reviews are good,
there will be festivals.
And if there are festivals,
there’s money”
they told me.
That’s how,
also for the promise of money,
I got on board with them.
First we started rehearsing.
Then it was opening night…
in a small “Off” little theatre in Buenos Aires.
Hold me, hold me, hold me….
Months went by.
Reviews were good.
Very good.
We got an “Excellent”.
But there were no festivals.
And no money.
The irony:
Our play, which earned praise
but no money, was called, precisely,
“For the Money”.
Madame Acuña’s husband started
having serious financial troubles.
He had financed part of a film
of his with his own money.
The film had some English producers
and other Danish ones.
But nor the Danish, neither
the English paid on time.
And as he’d paid for many
of the film’s expenses with his credit card,
he needed two thousand, five hundred
dollars to pay off the American Express bill.
Race!
So he asked Obelix for two thousand,
five hundred dollars.
Obelix refused to lend him so much money.
So he asked me.
But I didn’t have such money.
A French teacher doesn’t have two
thousand, five hundred dollars in a trunk.
We won.
We end in a tie.
What is this theatre piece
about, Mr Perpoint?
The play is called “For the Money”.
And let’s say it’ a reality show.
about the role money
played in our real lives.
The play started like this:
from his computer,
Madame Acuña’s husband
projected the video of an economist
who explained the expenses
of the Argentine middle class.
In the second scene,
we compared all our bills:
Gas
Electricity
Water
Etcetera…
Then,
we did a silly dance.
Then, we drunk wine,
whiskey,
once we had champagne.
Madame Acuña spoke of her life
from the point of view of the salaries
she had earned
in the last fifteen years,
while I improvised some absurd dances.
Then I had to dance with Madame Acuña
the “Pas de deux” from “Swan Lake”.
Then, Madame Acuña
and the father of her daughter
performed an Argentine folklore dance,
given that Madame Acuña’s parents
had devoted their lives to Folklore dance.
Then came the scene
where my life was told.
My father’s death.
The military service
with the fire brigade in Paris.
The fires.
Then my life as a nurse.
And then, my initiation as a dancer
in the Maguy Marin company.
Then my arrival in Buenos Aires.
The odd-jobs.
The French lessons.
Every time, mentioning
how much I’d earned for each job.
It was the father of the little one
who said it all,
While I sang a song
whose chorus said:
'How awful, the money!'
How awful, the money!
Then we played some very punk melody.
Then I acted like a clown.
People laughed.
Then we read an email exchange
between the father of the little one
and the producers of the film that caused
the debt of 2500 dollars.
'I have another idea for the film financing...'
End of the show.
Applause.
Dismantling.
What is this nonsense?
Someone asks for photos in HD!
We don’t have photos in HD!
Who asks for the photos in HD?
The Colombians!
What are photos in HD?
What are we eating?
I don’t know!
What are they?
Lentil casserole.
Oh, nice.
Did you get parsley?
Oh, yes.
Give it to me.
What are photos in HD?
Where did you put my hair gel?
Can you explain to him,
what are photos in HD?
Are these yours, Gabi?
Yes, look.
This is an HD photo. See?
Take one, take one of me, then!
No, Gabriel, they are group photos,
not individual photos.
So what?
Are you sure about that?
I’m part of the group!
But they can’t be individual photos.
I can call and ask.
But we are a group.
Hello, Osvaldo, I have a question.
It’s silly thing, really.
The photos we had to take in HD,
are group photos or
individual shots
Can you ask him about the plane tickets,
and not about the group photos?
Hello, Osvaldo, I have a second
silly question, but…
When are you going to send us the tickets?
Because we need to buy the ticket
for our daughter, Cleo,
And for us it’s better, the sooner
you do it, the cheaper it’ll cost us.
Can you stop it?
What’s better, sitting or standing?
It was then that, like a life jacket
in the middle of the ocean,
a festival in Colombia came up.
They asked for two functions of our play
in two different theatres in Cali.
And they offered 6,500 dollars for that,
which divided by the four in the company
plus the gaffer and production,
meant
one thousand, five hundred dollars each.
I need to ask you for a loan.
Madame Acuña’s husband asked
Obelix for the money, again.
to pay off his credit card.
I need you to lend me two
thousand, five hundred dollars.
And i’ll pay you back with my fee,
at the festival in Colombia, get it?
No, no.
It’s two thousand, five hundred dollars,
you get one thousand, five hundred.
Who pays the other thousand? Wait!
My fees plus her fees.
Our fees.
And as a guarantee for
the reimbursement of the loan
he gave the fees that he and his wife would
get a month later at the festival in Cali.
That was clear, wasn’t it?
More or less.
Let’s see, Gabriel, we get paid our fees
and they can not go through our hands
and it goes all directly to you.
Obelix felt cornered
and accepted the terms.
Okay.
He took 2,500 dollars he
had inside his piano, hidden
and he gave Acuña´s husband
the money he needed.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,
nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen,
Fifteen, sixteen, twenty, twenty-one,
twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four,
twenty-five.
Here it is, take it.
Two thousand, five hundred dollars.
with this, you pay your card.
And your fees from
Colombia are mine to keep.
Anyway, there’re five hundred
that are ours, right?
One thousand, five hundred plus
one thousand, five hundred is three thousand.
Two thousand, five hundred are yours,
five hundred are ours.
You can give them back to
us in Colombia, if you want.
I’ll give it back to you if it pleases me!
I’m gonna cook the casserole.
Who wants it hot?
Me.
Not me.
Hello, Luciana, well the photos, I think
it’d be good if they are of the four.
The four of us, Gabriel!
As regards the tickets,
I think there was a misunderstanding there.
You pay for them there and you
get reimbursed directly
from the money, the six thousand,
five hundred dollars we pay you here.
Who wants it hot?
Any other thing, we are at your service.
What?
They deduct the tickets from
the fees they pay us in Colombia?
Who wants it hot?
Play it again.
Hello, Luciana, well the photos, I think
it’d be good if they are of the four.
As regards the tickets, I think there
was a misunderstanding there.
You pay for them there
and you get reimbursed directly
from the money, the six thousand,
five hundred dollars we pay you here.
No, it can’t be done.
Any other thing, we are at your service.
No tickets, no trip.
Hot? Yes or no?
Yes, yes!
No!
Yes!
We have to pay for the tickets?
No, but…
We can’t give the money back to Obelix.
Wait, how much is a ticket?
We can’t give the money
back to Obelix!
Obelix!
What?!
We can’t give the money
back to Obelix!
I’ll make it all hot!
What do we do?
Fuck it!
The water fell.
In the blink of an eye, this news
came across this slap in the face.
Paying five plane tickets
dropped our fees shamelessly.
We went from making 1,500 dollars each
to making barely 500.
But Madame Acuña’s husband asked us
not to tell Obelix of this situation.
He and his wife would try to
solve it in any way.
They had to pay American Express
that same day
And they already had the money
in their hands!
If Obelix found out the news he
would ask for the money back.
And that wasn’t possible.
Where are you going, son?
Second floor.
Go ahead.
Madame Acuña started to pull
strings to get the tickets.
She asked in the Argentine Foreign Office.
They refused.
She asked in the Culture Secretary.
They refused.
She asked a millionaire
who used to support Off theatre.
He also refused.
She finally got a meeting
in a government tv channel.
The channel still had no name,
and it depended of something called:
the “Federal System”.
Acuña, hey!
Hello, hello…
I thought you wouldn’t make it.
Am I too late?
Did you let them know you’re here?
Yes, I think so.
Don’t tell me you are doing a show too.
I think so.
Over there.
Ready for the meeting?
Yes, it’s them. They’re coming.
Did you talk to them?
But is the tour confirmed?
With everything?
Well, yes.
Or they won’t give you a thing.
Well, yes. Yes.
Well, yes.
The tour is confirmed, isn’t it?
Yes.
Do you have a signed contract?
No…
What did they offer you here?
Well, the money and…
Plane tickets.
The thing is we already
had a tour confirmed
in Italy for a long time.
With which play?
No… A thing, a new thing I wrote.
It’s called “The End of Europe”.
Good thing it came through
because the Italians didn’t pay a lira.
Are there liras still in Europe?
Huh?… in Italy.
...Gold standard, lira...
-Guys, ready for the meeting?
...then they translate
everything to Euros.
Guys, we’re leaving, bye.
Anyway, they didn’t pay a thing.
Well, good luck.
No, no, they didn’t pay anything.
Switch to four.
Well, basically, this is a show
that supports and publicizes
our artists’ activity abroad,
which is unknown, completely!
Circus! Dance, ballet, music, theatre.
You know that Argentines
do things that are awesome!
Super awesome!
So true!
Javi, Saint Petersburg in five.
And nobody finds out!
So what we do is a small production.
Not so small. A production.
Basically, we can offer
money for fees, food
Javi, Island scored a goal.
And plane tickets.
And what are we supposed to do?
Shoot.
Give me a minute.
Make a tv show.
You go, you shoot yourselves,
bring the material, we edit it.
A docu.
A docu-reality.
A docu-reality?
Yes, yes, yes.
I mean, you go, you arrive,
you shoot yourselves,
you shoot the staging, you shoot the people,
you shoot the trip in and out.
The exchange.
Okay?
But, you must have
an invitation to the festival.
Or no deal.
Without that, there’s nothing.
We do have an invitation to a festival.
Oh, do you?
Awesome. United States or Europe?
Colombia.
Colombia?
Cali.
Does Cali count?
We paid American Express.
We hired a photographer
and a sound engineer,
and we boarded towards Colombia.
A miserable troupe of actors,
dancers,
Musicians,
Film-makers,
and a girl.
Yes, a girl.
Madame Acuña and her
husband had a girl.
And they couldn’t travel without her.
The expenses for her ticket and
the expenses for her nanny in Cali
were covered with the extra after
paying their debt to Obelix
and the extra fee they got for acting
in the docu-reality for the TV channel
where we all had to act.
Me, on top of performing in a theatre play,
I’d become an actor
in a docu-reality
for Argentine television.
We have just arrived.
Fine,
just a bit tired,
but fine.
ACT 2
Yes, look. I called you because
we have an issue here at the hotel
with the bedrooms.
We came with two more people, but…
four.
On stage, we are four…
Plus the gaffer…
Plus the gaffer, five,
plus my daughter, six.
Two. Two technicians.
But we’d agreed that we came with…
...that, yes.
Yes, with the people from the tv.
So they know.
Yes, from Argentina.
Of course, it’s us.
Ehm…
…a camerawoman and a sound engineer.
But there’s no reservation here.
What floor did you get?
Seventh.
Continue, Mr. Perpoint.
The following day, we started to work.
We still didn’t know what to shoot.
We had to work in two or three
things at the same time.
We were workers of luxury.
And nobody was rich enough to pay us.
We had to be at the same time
the actor and the documentarist.
We had to be at the same time
the painter and their muse.
The poet and the landscape.
The rifle and its prey.
Cali, viewpoint, first day. Zero one.
The rider and the horse.
The client and the lawyer.
Don Quixote and Cervantes at the same time.
...and then Beethoven,
enraged when he finds out...
We learned about docu-reality shows.
Suddenly, well, dinner is over.
Beethoven disappears.
We were told of one in Colombia
...And they look for him, this
“what’s-his-face”
prince comes...
where they take participants to
a wild island and they have to survive.
Nobody said it that day,
Well, they searched, searched...
but none of us was quite satisfied
with what was shot.
So at some point, I don’t know
where they found him.
In a library, see?
The palaces…
Obelix was the only one who talked.
He locks everything.
He locks with the key...
He engaged in a long and confusing
monologue about Beethoven.
Everyone’s yelling, right?
All the other ones come,
they break the whole door,
and the guy appears
throwing chairs at the prince.
Such a mess…
and he left, he left.
He walked away. He left.
He left and didn’t play, a mess.
He was offended.
And he had grants,
because he did get money.
But he was…
The difference is that he
knew of his talent,
he knew his worth,
and the time when the Crown,
or the Church paid was over.
He said. Oh, look, now I remember:
“Princes like you, who are what you are
through chance and birth; there’re many.
There is only one Beethoven."
So they guy knew his worth,
he charged you, of course, and it’s true.
He charged a fortune.
Everyone, everyone.
That thing about musicians
being poor, who?
Let’s see, name one poor musician.
Tell me, from the big ones,
the ones the youth admires, right?
Come on, tell me, tell me.
What? U2
His theory.
Beethoven was a merchant of melodies.
Money was his only concern.
We didn’t need to worry about the art:
he knew he was a genius.
The Kreutzer Sonata,
the first theme in Appassionata,
the first two bars in the 5th Symphony,
those were the ways Beethoven
had found to make a living.
Three, thirty-nine.
That night, I realized Obelix
was the only one in the troupe
I didn’t really know.
Our theatre play,
in a documentary theatre style
very much in fashion those years,
showed the economic
realities of all of us.
But strangely enough,
it didn’t show Obelix’s.
When, in the morning, I asked
Madame Acuña’s husband
-Are you recording?
why that happened…
-I’m recording.
He told me it was Obelix’s decision so that
he didn’t have to give explanations to Treasury.
Is that good?
Cut, cut, cut, cut…
Cut, cut.
He had many properties
and black money,
and he didn’t want to tell the world.
How much black money
would Obelix have inside that piano?
Camera?
And how many properties?
So I used our new complicity:
Gabi...
Quiet…
Hey… Quiet!
How long will it take?
I heard you had a 300 square metres
apartment in Palermo, is that true?
Okay, but this scene and what else?
I don’t know, until the sun goes down.
Can I leave now?
Yes.
No, no, after this we shoot.
And what do we shoot?
I don’t know.
I also heard that you went on holidays
for three weeks last summer,
...to Italy,
to Portofino.
Is that true as well?
Yes.
Wait, not now, Lu.
Give me a minute.
That you bought a power generator
for your house in Buenos Aires,
Is that true?
Yes.
Do you get that noise?
Yes, but I need you to be
quiet for a while.
I also heard that you have...
Well, I can’t!
...a house at the seaside,
on the beach,
overlooking the sea.
Is that true as well?
Yes.
So are we recording… shout it.
Gabi, how do you make a living?
Cali, three, zero, two!
With music, what else?
But… Music for films?
- Silence…
Yes.
Theatre too?
Yes.
For the Colón Opera House?
Yes, but I don’t make a
damn dime of that.
Well, but then, how do make a living?
Advertising.
Like him, for instance.
I don’t make a living with advertising.
Oh, do you make spots?
Let’s see...
...can you play something?
- I did only one spot.
Telecentro.
Telecentro 500 megas
Fifty thousand pesos.
Is that good?
Do I record?
Record.
I’m getting the gunfire.
Pan, pan…
Pan until you reach the valley.
As you wish, from left to right.
Slow and descriptive.
Very descriptive.
Slow.
Hey, but a gunfire broke out.
Quiet.
This is Ambient Gunfire downtown.
Obelix never told me how much money
he’d made with that jingle.
But the thing with the bombs sucks.
They will edit later and we’ll see.
It’s edited later.
It was for an advertisement
for the Bank of the City of Buenos Aires.
You can send it without the bomb-throwing
and have them edit later from what is left.
I’ll send it, they edit later.
It was a stupid advertisement
created by the State’s advertising agents
which listed all the neighbourhoods
in Buenos Aires,
naming them with visual
metaphors of doubtful taste.
It was the same State
and the same creative agents
that had invented the television show
our docu-reality was part of...
...that were paying us.
CHOOSE A PLACE
Your house is in Bank of the City.
The following day, our work
at Cali’s Festival started.
Me, I decided to act better
and win the audience
of our docu-reality.
Here is all the money for travel expenses
for the whole group
for the days you are here in
the festival. Okay?
Thanks. Count it.
Breakfast is included in the hotel’s bill
so you don’t have to pay breakfast,
it’s at our expense.
You will take responsibility afterward,
count it or you’ll be responsible.
Can you sign here, please?
Kelly, please, the gifts.
These are the festival’s gifts.
Oh, great, thanks.
-Wait, the fees are missing.
-Two fourteen, applause.
That’s the Cristo Rey hill,
a replica of the Corcovado in Brazil.
Over there to the left, we have the Pascual
Guerrero stadium, around that neon lights sign.
The roof you can see there,
is the Coliseo El Pueblo,
and where you see those two lights,
there on the roof, that’s the bullfighting ring.
-Oh, you are rolling.
-But, are we going in?
-The money!
-What’s that?
Per diem.
What’s per diem?
The money the festival gives
you per day to live.
There’s also T-shirts in L size.
-That doesn’t exist in film
festivals, right?
-No, no... What Film-Festivals?
Madame Acuña’s husband decided
to make use of this trade as film director
to take the reins of the reality show.
He told us:
“If we are in Cali,
we have to shoot Cali.”
Ambient Storm
Thunders and Lightening.
Cali.
Van Gogh, in Auvers-sur-Oise,
painted the fields and corn fields.
Gauguin, in Polynesia,
painted the bodies
of the Polynesian women.
We, in Cali,
must shoot the city,
the lights and the mountains.
We will make views of the valley.
We will go up the buildings.
We will shoot the skies.
We will shot the thunders
and the volcanoes.
We will shoot the sound of the lightening.
We will shoot the Cali valley
as if we were defending it
from an attack.
And when we take shots of us,
let’s make sure we have gorgeous
views in the background.
Think about that:
Figure…
… background.
In TV they call it “production value”.
Never take that of your heads.
But we will also shoot
our exchanges with the festival,
each time we step
into the festival’s production office,
we will plant the tripod and the camera.
We’ll shoot the contract,
and the handing over of the money.
We’ll shoot when they hand
over the sad per diem.
We’ll do dance steps on the stairs
to make the images slenderer.
We will ask everyone in the festival
to be our actors,
our stars.
We will shoot the play.
We will shoot the audience.
And we will make a great film for TV.
That's what we did.
'He declares he has shot
documentary images of the city of Cali.'
Sound… sound.
You have to sing like this,
with this level of serenity.
That’s what I do.
Very small, see?
Is this light this white?
-Just a second…
-Me?
Yes.
Let’s go ahead with all that’s linear.
It all triggers off here.
Hello. Is that you, Lu?
Yes.
So that you please sign here.
For the fifty per cent advance,
before the performances…
Oh, the fees.
-In cash.
-Yes.
Oh, great.
And the other fifty per cent
after the two functions.
What is this?
In cash, so that you don’t
have to go to the bank…
Oh, and now it’s a public holiday.
This is a passion fruit.
-And what is it for?
-And my name here?
-Eating.
Look, look how it opens. How strange!
It’s like a little egg.
ID number?
Wow, look, it looks like fish eggs.
Fish eyes.
Let’s see.
Just sign.
And you then sign this other one,
for the Bancolombia prize.
Wow! The texture!
This one is for the prize.
Prize?
What prize?
You don’t know about the prize?
What? Money?
Yes…
Prize, money!
Bancolombia is a bank
that has been sponsoring
the festival for a while now
and they give an award
to what they consider to be the best play…
-So, if there’s a bank,
there’s a bunch of money.
...to the one they think is
the best play in the festival.
-But there’re a lot of plays in
the festival, like eighty.
Error:
there weren’t eighty,
but three were the plays
competing for that prize.
...just three groups...
Three groups!
I mean that only two groups had
to be defeated to keep the loot.
There's 'Cheap weed', from Ecuador!
'Cheap weed', from Ecuador!
Latin-American pathetic theatre.
The easy rival.
The tough rival was a hero
in Colombian theatre.
That low-life was the only one
who could take away our money.
-I don’t know, maybe the
other ones are very good.
You have to be terrible.
There, signed.
And they’ll also give a statuette.
A statuette of what? Gold?
Golden!
No, it’s an Oedipus.
An Oedipus?
Tearing out his eyes!
Hello.
Hello.
Is that you?
It’s me.
Do you have a second?
Yes.
Look, I’ve just came from
seeing 'Mala Yerba'. See?
A play...
From Ecuador?
... I see it, my jaw dropped.
It’s produced properly, with
plenty of dough, costumes...
In the end, they play a super piece,
very well recorded
through the loudspeakers in the theatre
which is good,
and peoples’ jaws drop.
They stand up.
Their jaws drop.
They stand.
And what do we have?
It’s impossible to win the prize,
do you see that?
This play, which is one
of the many that come,
and we come with
this which is a…
There it is.
What?
…ridiculous.
that won’t beat anyone.
See?
There, in the red shirt
There’s nothing wrong with being professional.
You put things properly,
polished…
Is that you over there?
Yes, yes, it’s me…
In the red shirt?
I’m the one in the red shirt.
The same old story, see?
It looks as if we were those
in those minor plays, see?
A documentary,
everything very black and white,
from here, Almagro,
where nothing happens,
and only a few people understand.
We have to reach
the wider audience, see?
We have to reach the cabaret!
“Cabaret?”
What a bore, the cabaret!
I told you,
You make fun of me?
You can’t learn
that all you want
is to have your back patted
by some mean highbrowed critic.
The promise of those 20 thousand dollars
sparked Obelix's greed
… I know advertising,
I’ve worked for banks.
He started to think of strategies
to seduce the Colombian Bankers
that had to hand over the prize.
using his expertise
with businessmen.
…and then comes the part with the stanza
“and I leave, lala…”
“For money…”
“For money…” dancing rumba-style…
one after the other,
I don’t know,
we sing
it’s all a guitar composition…
Stanza.
We keep adding.
We put some old ladies.
We put a girl choir.
When the play ends,
people stand up.
They applaud.
We play the song…
and people go back home happy.
They don’t kill themselves
at the theatre entrance.
August, 2018.
Electricity.
Winter months.
Electricity.
Edenor, right?
Yes.
Seven hundred forty, pesos.
Seven, forty.
One thousand, twenty-four and eighty cents.
One thousand, twenty-four dot eight.
Gas.
Gas.
Six hundred and forty pesos.
Six hundred and forty pesos.
Eight thousand, six hundred.
Eight, six hundred.
Electricity.
Eight thousand, six hundred pesos?
I’m not from here.
Eight thousand, six hundred.
I don’t have love.
For money!
I’m from Bahia.
For money!
From San Salvador.
For money!
I’m not from here.
For money!
I don’t have love.
For money!
I’m from Bahia.
For money!
From San Salvador.
For money!
Sailor, sailor.
For money!
Who taught you to sail?
For money!
Did you fall from the ship?
For money!
to the high tide
For money!
Here comes the sailor
For money!
cocky sailor,
For money!
all dressed in white
For money!
-...queer sailor.
For money!
Why am I here?
Internet without cable tv.
Why are you there?
For money!
Why am I dying?
For money!
Two mobile phones...
...Since you are not here.
For money!
I don’t even know my name anymore
I don’t even know the place,
where I’ll drop dead,
you are not here anymore.
Farewell to ship life.
Goodbye to the blue sea.
Say goodbye, sailor
One hundred fifty..
Let's close that chapter.
Goodbye to the waves,
to playing poker by the sea.
Goodbye to the mermaids,
to the moon,
of Oxalá!
For money!
goodbye to the night.
Sailor! Sailor!
Goodbye to sailing
Sailor! Sailor!
goodbye, young sailor,
Sailor! Sailor!
your paths will burn,
Sailor! Sailor!
Goodbye, sailor,
your ships will burn.
For money, sailor.
For money, the blue sea.
For money, sailor.
For money, the blue sea.
Let me put it this way.
In the Matacandelas theatre,
which is a group that’s been
working for thirty seven years,
there’s a concept:
we work more or less twice
as much as a workman,
I’m talking about the time intensity
and the intensity of the activity,
we are very good working, slogging.
We work twice as much as a workman,
we earn half of what a
workman does,
and we live three or four times
better than a workman.
It’s a paradox, but it’s true.
It’s strange, I’ve been in really fancy hotels.
I was greeted and hugged by ministers,
named by the press,
recognised, applauded.
We sometimes leave at night
with that self-centeredness
of the applause.
A terrible thing, true.
But the economy of our
group is made up of, it’s..
We, on the other hand, decided
to pass to a phase of espionage:
get to know our enemy.
The Maestro Cristobal Pelaez was
a prominent figure in Colombian theatre.
A cultural hero in his country.
He had managed to combine
an impeccable political attitude
with an avant-garde theatre.
He embodied the artistic and
social left at the same time.
The kind of bastard who
always gets the prizes.
Gentlemen, hello.
Are you nominated for
the Bancolombia award?
Yes.
That prize has already been fixed
so that Cristobal wins it.
It was a subsidy from Cali’s Festival
for the great sniper
in Colombian theatre.
We got the tip from a bellboy in our hotel.
That’s how Obelix,
the one who needed the
money the least,
decided to change the plan.
And that’s how the tragedy began.
And there our tragedy started.
Continue, Mr. Perpoint.
The following day,
we had to perform without
having slept a wink all night.
Guys, in five minutes they’ll open the theatre
and we have to go on stage.
I’ll come for you so that we go, okay?
Merde.
Merde!
Well guys, i’ll go to the booth, okay?
We’ll talk over the radio.
Hang on, I’m going with you.
Do you want me to talk to you?
Shall we talk over the radio?
So I tell you: booth over to Adrián,
and you answer me, okay?
Will you test, Luli?
What is he telling me?
How is it?
I just press and talk?
You press the button and talk.
Attention…
What’s he saying?
Booth over to Adrián.
Hello, Adri.
Attention.
Dressing room over to Adrián.
Booth over to Adrián.
No, 'Adrián over to dressing room.'
Adrián over… but I’m not Adrián.
Give it to Matt.
Matt over to Adri, Matt over to Adri.
No!
Adrián over to Mattt,
Adrián over to dressing room.
I’ll come for you so that we go, okay?
I copy you.
That’s an A, isn’t it?
Adrián over to dressing room.
Ask him how much longer.
No, no, dressing room over to Adrián.
How much longer, Adrián?
...'for the dressing room'
It was then that it happened.
What's this? The poster?
Stop!
It’s the prize!
What do you mean it’s the prize, Gabriel?
It’s the prize!
What do you mean it’s the prize, Gabriel?!
It’s the prize!
Where did you take it?
It's not your business.
Leave it.
Booth over to Adrian.
We’ve just crossed the line.
I don't know!
We were lawbreakers.
Prizes are won, not stolen!
The die is cast.
Ambient, fire.
Any given time, we would be discovered,
they’ll get us,
we’d go to jail
and probably to the gallows.
Good bye bohemian life.
Good bye innocence.
I don’t agree with what we are doing.
Merde.
It's showtime, guys.
Good morning, sadness.
We are out, guys!
And to close the festival,
Merde!
the Argentine company
Acuña-Moguillansky,
with a very peculiar
blend of languages…
Guys, I was coming to…
… you’ll see it now.
“For the Money”.
How awful, the money!
How awful, the money!
How awful, the money!
It was impossible to win that prize.
-...and you become a nurse.
Impossible.
And right there…
… the festival’s security team
waiting for us backstage.
The situation resembled a scene in a film
where the police’s waiting
for a tennis player
in the final match in Washington,
to catch him.
And he has to escape
because he is a suspect in a crime.
Change the stations and hospitals
for better theatres in France.
The player must win so that
the audience gets euphoric,
and in the chaos of
celebrating his victory
he can finally escape.
…4000 Euros, in three months.
These were the kind of things
we thought during that performance.
We did the performance
automatically.
Obelix seized every
opportunity he came across
to devise an escape plan.
… when you don’t earn that figure,
the State compensates the difference.
There are two security guys at the door.
There was only one access
that wasn’t blocked by the police:
the theatre’s main door.
When you are cornered,
you can only leave
through the main door.
During the performance,
I argued with myself
whether to follow suit with Obelix
or betray him and hand him
over to the authorities in Cali.
At some point, I made up my mind:
I would blame him,
…get my fee…
… and go back to Buenos Aires in peace.
But for some reason
when he said:
“Let’s flee”
I started running with the rest,
and I became a fugitive.
How awful, the money!
How awful, the money!
How awful, the money!
Ready?
One, two three...
Let’s flee!
ACT 3
We went down the rivers, unaffected,
not worrying about all the luggage,
the redskins had made us their target,
and in the raging spills of the tides,
the tempest blessed our sea awakenings.
We run!
And the frenzied peninsulas knew no racket
more triumphant than ours.
And since then, we bathed
in the Poem of the Sea,
devouring the aquamarine colours,
watching the skies bursting out in rays,
and the hurricanes and the hangover
and the currents,
watching the night,
the sublime dawn
like a kit of pigeons.
Every moon was unbearable
and every sun was bitter,
until our keel burst
and we got lost in the sea.
'He declares they have got shipwrecked and
reached a deserted island somewhere in the Guajira.'
We had left it all behind.
Absolutely everything.
Our work, our friends,
our luggage.
Was it called “The chick”?
Yes, the chick.
How was it?
For money, the monkey does his dance,
and for bread, if they give him some,
I dance all night, just to look at you.
I dance all night, just to look at you.
Cluck - cluck
how was it?
Little hen, little hen,
I don’t sing with cluck – cluck.
Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck…
Suddenly, there’s a chick,
who follows you just like I do.
I don’t get fooled by the pampa,
as I learned his language,
if your big eyes look at me,
I feel they say yes to me,
if your big eyes look at me,
I feel they say yes to me,
Hello, hello…
if your big eyes look at me,
if your big eyes look at me,
I feel they say yes to me,
little hen, little hen,
sing no more, cluck, cluck.
Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck.
…just to look at you
…just to look at you
Time at the sea goes by
through the waves.
Is this charging?
Yes.
But, what would this be, exactly?
It’s a long story.
"Long"...
"It’s a long story, Mat."
"It’s a long story, Mat."
"You know, Mat? It’s a long story."
"You know, Mat? It’s a long story."
And what’s its name?
'Little Sun'.
'little sun'.
It’s pretty.
And then, there was a
point that’s hard to pin,
when our little civilization
started its decline.
Days went by.
Weeks and months.
And we remained there, shipwrecked.
Outside Colombian law.
Away from social media.
Away from the authorities
of the television channel that had hired us…
Now we did look like four assholes
in a survival docu-reality.
Although we weren’t even shooting anymore.
Four assholes, throwing
coconuts at each other,
waiting in the rain, for what exactly?
What?
That’s how I spent the days,
I was saying,
and the nights at sea
inventing stories that
amused who knows who,
perhaps,
...a little five-year-old girl.
Asterix castaway
-¡Obelix!
-What?
-Have you seen the
birds that just went by?
Yes
-I’d say they are pelicans.
No
-There aren’t any pelicans at home.
'Pericón'
-Pelicans.
There aren’t any pelicans at home.
Obelix, what do you prefer:
the sea or the river?
¿Do you prefer the sea …
...or do you prefer the river?
-The sea.
-Obelix,
What?
We will build a raft.
You will help me
and we will build a raft,
with your physical skills,
...we will build a great raft!
And we will go back home!
And we will eat altogether
with our friends.
We will cross the Atlantic.
Oh my God!
For Toutatis!
Obelix!
A woman!
For Toutatis!
It’s Cleopatra…!
…accompanied by a centurion!
Your majesty.
Asterix.
My friend,
Obelix.
Here!
Here!
I want you to build a pyramid here!
Obelix.
May I?
A Roman.
Can I thrash him?
Until one day,
in some way
maybe in some exploration
maybe not even that,
maybe because of some tourist
who turned up walking along the beach,
just like that,
we found out that our island,
was not a deserted island,
it wasn’t even an island.
And that a few metres away
from where we were there were roads,
signs,
telephones.
And that we could leave there
as soon as we wanted to.
Obelix split the loot in four,
But he was unyielding when the time came
to collect the loan from Madame Acuña’s husband,
who had to pay it back
with that same stolen money.
twenty, twenty-one,
two, three, four, five…
Twenty-five hundred.
Well, we are even.
And you? What will you do?
I don’t know.
That way, I guess we are going that way.
You?
I’m going that way.
Okay.
And what’s that?
So each one chose a
different direction.
That day
...before parting each one
to their own destination,
we read one last scene
from our play,
to remember that at some point
...we had been artists.
For some reason, the girl left with Obelix.
Maybe he took her with him
because Madame Acuña and her husband
knew that at some point
they would run out of money
and they wouldn’t be able
to hold as a family.
Madame Acuña’s father
did Folklore Dancing.
But he worked painting
posters of ads in the streets.
Madame Acuña’s husband
also made a living with television ads.
With these ads, Madame Acuña and
her family survived for a long time.
First, with her father;
then with her husband.
None of them…
could reconcile…
…love…
… and money.
And so, who killed Mrs Acuña
and her husband, Mr. Perpoint?
Obelix?
I don’t think so.
I think they died because of …
…because of the money.
Yes.
How awful, the money!
How awful, the money!
Hurry up, Osvaldo!
Up to the border, Osvaldo!
Yes, sir, Colonel
We are coming!