A POET (UN POETA) Discovery

Winner of the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Colombian director Simón Mesa Soto’s (AMPARO) delightfully deadpan sophomore feature is an unexpectedly absurdist tragicomedy that explores the challenges of pursuing an artistic life and skewers the contradictory ideals of the creative classes. Ubeimar Rios delivers a standout performance as the hapless Oscar — a washed-up, once award-winning poet — now living with his acerbic aging mother and spending his time getting thrown out of Medellín’s dive bars, making a spectacle of himself at local poetry events and unsuccessfully trying to reconnect with his teen daughter. When he reluctantly takes a job as a substitute teacher to ease increasing financial woes, he meets Yurlady (Rebeca Andrade) — a teenage writer from an impoverished neighborhood whose raw talent draws him into a not-entirely altruistic mentorship. As he introduces the young poet to Medellín’s literary elite, they go wild for the idea of rescuing her from poverty through art — causing a series of increasingly cringeworthy events to unfold that reveal everyone’s ulterior motives. Shot on grainy 16mm with the immediacy of a verité documentary and the bite of an Armando Iannucci satire, A POET conveys its unfortunate central character’s humanity while seamlessly oscillating between barbed comedy and genuine moments of insight about the human condition. –Abbie Algar