Similar to Youth Without Youth, Francis Ford Coppola's last film (his first after a decade-long hiatus), Tetro explores intimate and personal themes--creativity, family rivalry--with extravagant and unique style. The protagonists are Tetro (Vincent Gallo) and Bennie (Alden Ehrenreich), estranged Italian American brothers reunited in Buenos Aires. Their tense reunion in Argentina unfolds in sumptuous, shadow-laden B&W, laced with segments in vivid color exploring Tetro's painful past in America. Gallo and Ehrenreich are both superb. Ehrenreich is a promising actor with a youthful charisma reminiscent of Leonardo DiCaprio and Emile Hirsch. And Gallo, so often cruel to his audience and aloof and destructive in his art, delivers a controlled and tender performance. A welcome surprise.

I am not sure if Coppola has another epoch-defining, large-canvas, powerful American classic (Apocalypse Now, The Godfather and its first sequel) in him, but I have thus far enjoyed late-era Coppola's run of small-story, high-style international art films. Tetro is a fine entry in Coppola's iconic filmography.

A-

just saw the trailer for this in front of the winter's bone dvd.

this was, jeez... one of the three or four best movies of last year, wasn't it? i sort of forgot how much i loved it.

It's okay. Surely, Francis Ford have found the fountain of youth or something...

Small story? I thought that Tetro's story was a pretty sprawling family drama. It goes to a lot of dark and surprising places and all the characters are completely transformed by the end. But the story is just one of the things to savour here. Relish the Powell/Pressburger-inspired splashes of color. Bathe in the HD black and white cinematography of Argentina - almost every shot could be framed. Even Vincent Gallo is terrific here, resembling a much more charismatic, brooding version of Quentin Tarantino - he can even act, too!

It's pretty accessible to any audience with a decent attention span, so I'm not totally sure why Tetro wasn't seen by more folks. Perhaps Coppola's own reputation, and filmography, worked against the film. How many films have their quality measured up against The Godfather, sight unseen?