Film Review: BIONICO’S BACHATA: Yoel Morales Creates a Zany Film That is Often Offbeat to a Fault [Locarno 2024] | FilmBook – The Global Tofay

Bionico’s Bachata Review

Bionico’s Bachata / La Bachata de Bionico (2024) Film Review from the 77th Annual Locarno Film Festival, a movie directed by Yoel Morales, written by Cristian Mojica and Yoel Morales and starring Manuel Raposo, Maria Tavarez, Ines Fermin, Yasser Michelen, Ana Minier and El Napo.

Bionico’s Bachata is a wild movie that plays like a calling card for its director, Yoel Morales, to do a film of a bit more substance. That’s not to say Bionico’s Bachata has no substance. It does. It just doesn’t have enough of it to fill its 81-minute running time. It often relies on crazy scenes of characters doing drugs or talking about sex. But, at its heart, it’s a love story between a man with shaggy hair named Bionico (the very distinct Manuel Raposo) and the girl of his dreams, La Flaca (Ana Minier). Morales film plays like a mockumentary in search of a place to point the camera. And, instead of pointing the camera at something interesting, it just continues to offer more of the same. The style is good for a midnight movie that people go to for sheer craziness but not so good for people looking for a movie to watch during normal business hours.

Manuel Raposo is well cast in the role any actor would want to play but any actor who would play this part would demand more of a script. Bionico is a sweet hopeless, middle-aged romantic who needs rehab to go straight and be there for La Flaca. Most of the time he’s in this movie, we don’t see La Flaca beside him but rather a bunch of guys and girls that Bionico associates with and most of them are pathetic. Colorful in many ways but pathetic. El Napo serves as Calvita and he is close friends with Bionico and his partner in crime, so to say. Most of the movie consists of them hanging out and getting into mischief. Bionico needs to soon be there for La Flaca and provide the life she wants but if you can guess where this movie is headed, and it’s not hard to assume, things won’t exactly work out as they should. Or will they?

Ana Minier is excellent as La Flaca. She wants children, money and romance, the whole dream, so to say. That’s the goal for Bionico to provide it to her. La Flaca may have never gone for an older guy like Bionico but that’s the whole basis for the movie’s premise so we run with it. She probably wants someone with a head on his shoulders and although Bionico knows what he wants, he often goes off-the-rails in the total opposite direction that would allow him to achieve his goals. Minier plays her role with great sensitivity and Raposo has some nice charisma beside her in the latter stages of the picture.

However, getting to the ending of this picture could be a chore if one doesn’t like movies with wild, crazy premises and a rather obvious lack of a compelling plot. This is a bare bones structure that, luckily, scrapes by on the charm of its star, Raposo, who could become a Borat or a Napoleon Dynamite type of weirdo if this new film were to get a big Hollywood re-working. Raposo has the requisite talent to play the role and Morales knows how to keep things interesting at times but the film gets bogged down in too many scenarios that are representative of Bionico’s lower-class existence. If the movie focused on his intelligence more, it would have succeeded because Bionico has a big heart and dreams big. It doesn’t make sense that he keeps repeating his mistakes to the point that maybe, you know, someone will end up falling off a roof or something like that towards the film’s end.

That being said, this international movie is a wholly unique picture. Morales and co-writer Cristian Mojica create interesting supporting characters but they lack full development. Bionico and La Flaca are fully developed, however, but do things that defy their characterizations. They’re written with charisma but say and do things that are maddening and that could well be the point of the picture.

Still, Manuel Raposo could get more roles based on his work in this film until Hollywood comes calling to remake this one. His presence on-screen makes for a larger-than-life character. We want to see his love story come into fruition but Bionico’s Bachata doesn’t let that happen, for whatever reason. Maybe Bionico and La Flaca are the average “Joe” and “Jane” and that’s why Morales ends the film as oddly as he does. Perhaps, Morales demonstrates the impossible ability to achieve the perfect level of happiness here. Or maybe Morales just wanted to make a really wild movie. I’m not sure.

Rating: 6/10

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