Within minutes following the opening fade-in of “Gaucho Gaucho,” a trio of individuals can be seen dashing across a barren landscape, each sitting astride their own majestic-looking horse bathed in a sea of black and white with a South American backdrop beautifully framing the moment. It’s an appropriate setup to this documentary about gauchos, the colloquialism used to describe Argentinian cowboys and cowgirls, as the 84-minute runtime serves as little more than an exercise in striking photography mixed with a series of vignettes that’s as slice of life as one’s likely to find.
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However, this is far from the romanticized version of the American cowboy, heading off into any number of dusty adventures as they gallop through the glory days of the Wild West. Furthermore, some scenes scattered throughout “Gaucho Gaucho” can be seen as recurring; there’s the repeated check-ins on one such gaucho and his young son as the elder instructs the youth in herding cattle, knife sharpening, cutting meat and the proper way to use a lasso. There’s even a handful of seconds where we see the two working on taking down a massive tree using hatchets; one can only wonder how many hours the task will take, something the boy expresses aloud as if echoing the audience at that moment. It would also seem that no more than a few minutes will pass throughout the film before another shot of a cow takes up space onscreen, whether in milking said cow, rearing calves, or an instance in which three gauchos pray over the body of one such cow, apparently having succumbed to disease.
Another recurring character comes in the form of one young cowgirl; this particular gaucho-in-training, it would seem, can be seen early on during a light scolding from her schoolteacher regarding her traditional outfit and the latter’s wish that she wear the school uniform going forward. This is immediately followed by a shot of her classmates happily playing together during recess, each adorned with the uniform in question, while our heroine forlornly stands off to the side. Later scenes see her attempting to learn the ways of the rodeo, with predictable results for any newcomer to the sport; we even notice the consequences of her actions instantly, as the film then shows her hobbling across the screen with assistance from two crutches. Gender roles are indeed touched upon from time to time, and find themselves thrown into the blend with the many scenes of various gauchos in numerous states of conversation as they chat from everything, such as time spent in jail years prior to how many women one such gaucho has been with over the years. Yet, every time something occurs that could be seen as pointless, another genuine stab at art will find its way before the audience’s eyes, like a simple but effective shot early on of a gaucho riding horseback amongst the cobblestones of any nondescript village.
It’s hard to doubt that directors Gregory Kershaw and Michael Dweck (“The Last Race, “The Truffle Hunters”) are likely capturing this lifestyle at least somewhat accurately with “Gaucho Gaucho, “a pseudo-scrapbook of cinematic imagery with the added bonus of the black and white filter serving the cinematography well; unfortunately, it’s equally hard not to question for whom this movie is intended, as no collection of beautiful shots can help to maintain attention spans for more than a minute or two. Decently made, to be sure, but was there ever truly a need? [C-]
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