Paraguayan filmmaker Marcelo Martinessi returns to the Berlinale, where his debut feature The Heiresses [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] received the Silver Bear for Best Actress and the Alfred Bauer Prize in 2018, with the period drama Narciso [+lire aussi :
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fiche film], premiering in the Panorama section. Set in Asunción in 1959, the film revisits a formative moment in Paraguayan history without adhering to the conventions of heritage drama. Instead, Martinessi frames the period through the atmosphere of a paranoid thriller. A young singer-turned-radio host, Narciso (Diro Romero), is found dead after his final broadcast, at a time when an ascendant military order is consolidating power. His popularity has risen alongside the arrival of imported American rock and roll, positioning him at the intersection of national identity, sexual anxiety and geopolitical influence.

Where The Heiresses examined the sediment of dictatorship within private life, focusing on ageing bourgeois women, Narciso traces its formative tremors in the public sphere. Martinessi remains concerned with repression across social, sexual and generational registers, though he shifts perspective from female psyche to a male milieu. Narciso himself functions less as a conventional protagonist than as an enigmatic catalyst whose presence sets events in motion.

Among those drawn into his orbit are the radio director Lulú (Manuel Cuenca), who is reshaping programming to favour rock ’n’ roll over Paraguayan folk traditions, and the American ambassador, Mister Wesson (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart), whose involvement extends beyond cultural imports to infrastructure projects. Both men are charmed by Narciso’s charisma. He becomes a surface upon which lust, desire and apprehension are projected.

The film does not adopt a classical whodunnit structure. Rather than focusing on culprits, Martinessi situates the story within a historical juncture when foreign pop music collided with local folklore and a younger generation encountered the prospect of social mobility and cultural change. However, the resulting atmosphere suggests gradual, almost imperceptible shifts tightening around society.

Cinematographer Luis Arteaga reinforces the film’s claustrophobic spatial dynamics. Much of the action unfolds in constrained interiors, particularly within the radio station, while nocturnal sequences underline the transitory quality of Narciso’s presence. Martinessi opts for elliptical storytelling, preserving the character’s enigma.

As a period genre piece concerned with the emergence of authoritarianism, Narciso operates on a chamber scale, with an approach contrasting with the theatrical and opulent treatment found in Joe Wright’s recent series Mussolini: Son of the Century [+lire aussi :
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interview : Joe Wright
fiche série], for example. Martinessi instead foregrounds insinuation and atmosphere, tracing how power consolidates through incremental adjustments. The recurring radio broadcast of Dracula, transmitted from the same studio where Narciso introduces new music, acquires allegorical resonance. The figure of the vampire echoes the stealthy absorption of authority into everyday life.

By merging period drama with elements of mystery and a paranoid noir thriller, and by introducing a queer perspective within a repressive social environment, Martinessi constructs a study of cultural transition in which personal vulnerability and political transformation unfold in parallel.

Narciso is produced by Paraguay’s La Babosa Cine and co-produced by Germany’s Pandora Filmproduktion, Uruguay’s Bocacha Films, Brazil’s Esquina Filmes, Portugal’s Oublaum Filmes, Spain’s BTEAM Prods, France’s La Fabrica Nocturna Cinéma, and and Uruguay’s Guay Films. France’s Luxbox handles international sales.