Retrato de Mondongo

A cinematographic portrait. At one point in the film, the film-maker types on the screen of his computer. “Any portrait is a self-portrait.” There is no hint of narcissism in this statement, only technical fact: there is always an off-camera to a photographic portrait, and in the case of cinema, there is also movement off-camera. The portrayer does not have to project their subjectivity on the person being portrayed, in the old-fashioned pictorial way. The mere presence of off-camera means that the positions of the subject and the artist become dependent, intertwined. At least two people are required to make a film.

The subjects in this film, the pair of Argentine artists who form the Mondongo collective, are also professional portrait artists. For the film-maker who attempts to portray them, this represents a particularly intense negotiation. A portrait can also hasten the break-up in a friendship, and this will be yet more proof of the necessary ties —which can therefore be broken— between the portrayer and the portrayed.

Manuel Asín