IMDb > Tetro (2009)
Tetro
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Tetro (2009) -- Bennie travels to Buenos Aires to find his long-missing older brother, a once-promising writer who is now a remnant of his former self. Bennie's discovery of his brother's near-finished play might hold the answer to understanding their shared past and renewing their bond
Tetro (2009) -- Clip: Glacier ballet
Tetro (2009) -- Interview: Maribel Verdu "On acting from within"
Tetro (2009) -- Trailer for this mostly black and white drama from Francis Ford Copolla
Tetro (2009) -- MovieMaze.de - Trailer (Quicktime & Flash)

Overview

User Rating:
7.5/10   1,139 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 18% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Writer:
Francis Ford Coppola (written by)
Contact:
View company contact information for Tetro on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
26 June 2009 (Spain) more
Genre:
Tagline:
Every Family Has a Secret more
Plot:
Bennie travels to Buenos Aires to find his long-missing older brother, a once-promising writer who is now a remnant of his former self. Bennie's discovery of his brother's near-finished play might hold the answer to understanding their shared past and renewing their bond. full summary | add synopsis
Plot Keywords:
NewsDesk:
(114 articles)
Viff 2009: 'Tetro'
 (From CinemaSpy. 10 October 2009, 12:32 AM, PDT)

Mirror/Mirror — “There’s Room For Only One Genius in This Family”
 (From Atomic Popcorn. 19 September 2009, 6:52 PM, PDT)

User Comments:
cinema that throbs and kicks and is passionate - one of Coppola's triumphs more (21 total)

Cast

  (Credited cast)

Vincent Gallo ... Tetro

Maribel Verdú ... Miranda
Alden Ehrenreich ... Bennie

Klaus Maria Brandauer ... Carlo
Carmen Maura ... Alone
Rodrigo De la Serna ... Jose
Leticia Brédice ... Josefina
Mike Amigorena ... Abelardo
Sofía Castiglione ... Maria Luisa
Francesca De Sapio ... Amalia
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Adriana Mastrángelo ... Angela
Silvia Pérez ... Silvana
Erica Rivas ... Ana
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Create a character page for: ?

Additional Details

Also Known As:
Segreti di famiglia (Italy)
more
MPAA:
Rated R for language, some sexuality and nudity.
Runtime:
127 min
Aspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Certification:
USA:Unrated | Canada:G (Quebec) | USA:R (certificate #45641) | Canada:14A (Ontario) | Portugal:M/12 (Qualidade)
Filming Locations:

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
A scene where Tetro holds a bouquet of flowers pays tribute to On the Waterfront (1954), where Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) does the same thing. more
Quotes:
Miranda: You need success, Tetro. more
Movie Connections:
References The Tales of Hoffmann (1951) more

FAQ

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.
23 out of 31 people found the following comment useful.
cinema that throbs and kicks and is passionate - one of Coppola's triumphs, 22 June 2009
10/10
Author: MisterWhiplash from United States

Tetro may be the "best" film Francis Ford Coppola has made in twenty-five years. Whether this speaks more to the quality of his present state of direction as an artist or on the relative hits and misses of his career in the dregs of Hollywood (be it aiming high and just missing the mark with Godfather 3 and Dracula to stuff that went over people's heads like Youth Without Youth to even crap like Jack) is a combination. He's someone who attained financial success at a time, but then lost nearly all of it and along with it, arguably, some of his artistic merit. But after years of laying low and making wine, and making a whacked-out experiment that people either dug as an abstract piece or hated to hell ('Youth'), he comes out with Tetro like a porn star with a five-foot erection. He's got something to prove, if not to his audience then himself, and he proves it with a story that is personal and a film-making technique that recalls other masters but never too directly.

Tetro is about family, a subject Coppola is, of course, well-versed in being it the notorious kind (of course, the Godfather) and the more low-level and oddly intimate (Rumble Fish). It's a story, as with Rumble Fish, told in crisp black and white widescreen with flashes of color for flashbacks which may or may not be real, and as homage to operas like The Tales of Hoffmann. The title character, wonderfully and intensely portrayed by Vincent Gallo, is in a creative exile in Buenos Aires, a once promising writer living with his doctor-wife (Maribel Verdu, great as always) who is paid a visit one day by a young man, his brother Bennie (baby-faced newcomer Alden Ehrenreich) who hasn't seen him in years. There's secrets withheld by Tetro, not least of which about their parents, and soon an unfinished, longhand written play by Tetro (real name Angelo) is discovered by Bennie in a suitcase. He'll finish his brother's play, but at what cost?

The damaged, almost bi-polar writer, the insistent and impressionable brother, the strong but uncertain woman, these characters are fully realized by Coppola, and then on top of this comes a sort of terrific puzzle that is constructed through Tetro's unfinished play: what about their father, a famous composer (Klaus Maria Brandeur) who split them apart, possibly, or possibly not? What about their mother, who died in a car accident? What about the bond between Tetro and his former mentor, "Alone", the dubbed "most important critic in South America" who has created a pretentious empire around herself? Questions arise, and Coppola rises to the challenge of giving the audience answers but not spoon-fed. It's first and foremost a story of family, of brothers who love but have to find ways to contend with their damaged selves(inspiration being Rocco and His Brothers mayhap), and it's here that it's just about classic, on par with Rumble Fish if not even deeper and wiser about the effect of parents, or lack thereof, in lives spent and possibly wasted.

The writing is immensely interesting, always, even when Coppola may fall into over-indulging in his fantastic self-indulgence as an artist, such as with the operatic flourishes towards the end (this may not make sense, but compared to the WAY over indulgence of the hard-to-defend Y.W.Y it will). If anything the little imperfections, those brush strokes that go so high with the colors and shadows and impressionistic lighting that he and DP Mihai Malaimaire Jr engage in (one who hopefully will be getting more work following such spectacular work on a mix of 35mm and HD) along with Walter Murch's dependable editing, make it an even stronger work. It should feel a little messy here and there, because its subject matter is about finding a sense of purpose, in each other and in one's art. One feels Coppola working through a history of close but torn family ties, of losing loved ones (i.e. his own son), and at the same time a love of them all and of cinema peeking through in nearly every scene, even the ones where it doesn't look like much is going on.

Tetro is the antidote, basically, for this month's Transformers sequel. If you need to find the polar opposite of a picture based practically on just making money and reeling in the crowds with its dumb giant robot battles and preposterous and shallow theatrics, look no further than a picture which cares about its characters, its multi-faceted story and themes, and about projecting a technique that hearkens back to cinema of the 50s and 60s while sticking to an originality by its filmmaker. This will likely stay with me for a while, which is what Coppola's most profound works have done.

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Subtitles!! omfgitsrohit
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Song when Tetro talks about his father at the radio yets
Argentine setting + Patagonia Film Festival al-milo
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