Only a few years after portraying Carlos the Jackal, Édgar Ramírez has taken on another Venezuelan revolutionary – the original one – as Simon Bolivar in Alberto Arvelo’s The Liberator. Where Olivier Assayas’ Carlos was a stark portrayal of a man increasingly more concerned with his ego than his various causes, Arvelo takes a different approach. His version of Bolivar uses his revolution to overcome his demons and is an altogether more noble figure. The Liberator is flawed and suffers from a lack of ambition at times but it is not without nuanced gray areas. They come in the form of a look at a person’s ideals and all the vagaries and compromises that come with trying to realize them.Bolivar starts out as a charming, nice and intelligent rich kid who is charitable and fair to those around him but turns a blind eye toward his neighbor’s slaves. He may not approve but he feels there’s nothing he can do about it. Then he falls in love with and marries a beautiful young woman named Maria (María Valverde) who gently questions that way of thinking at the same time the Spanish military is throwing its weight around the Venezuelan colony. These early stirrings are halted for a time when Maria falls ill and dies. Bolivar spends the next two years drunk until a very wealthy Englishman named Torkington (Danny Huston) puts a bug in his ear about revolution. Bolivar may have recovered his inspiration but the plain fact that Torkington is solely in it to make money in the long run is only the first sign of the complications that will attach themselves to Bolivar’s fight.What’s described in the paragraph above is roughly the first third or so of the story. It’s also by far the worst part. The film’s earliest chapters are stuffed with awkward dialogue crammed in as exposition and foreshadowing. We learn Bolivar’s mother died when, as a boy, he cries, “My mother died!” We come to understand that, as a colonist, Bolivar has a lower social station than his future wife after she accepts his offer to dance and others in attendance murmur, “She shouldn’t have accepted his offer to dance.” Even when the film improves, the clunky lines don’t dissipate. Later, one poor actress will attempt to flirtatiously inform Bolivar, “Your enemies are spreading rumors that you have tuberculosis.” It’s very sexy, as you can imagine. Still the problem seems much worse in the first act, when it’s paired with Arvelo’s choice to skip, dutifully if artlessly, from one part of Bolivar’s life to the next just to get us to the revolution stuff. It often feels like we’re watching an abridged textbook entry jerk uncomfortably to life.At least we have Danny Huston to keep things interesting. His creepy joviality and that slimy grin like a Ralph Steadman drawing are as delightful as always. But the film as a whole doesn’t come together until Bolivar’s first attempt at insurrection fails. The Spanish government strips him of his wealth and exiles him to the jungle to live among those for whose freedom he was ostensibly fighting. He rediscovers himself (again) and vows to return with more vigor. That’s right. The Simon Bolivar biopic really picks up steam when it turns into a samurai movie.Finally freed from clicking the story forward notch by notch, Arvelo mercifully slows down the pace while he and cinematographer Xavi Giménez amp up both the beauty and the violence. The gliding aerial shots of South American in all its verdant, mist-draped beauty provide a visual metaphor for what these people are fighting for. And the trudging battles, soaked in blood and choked with smoke and dirt, give a sense of just how difficult that fight is.Once it’s on track, The Liberator becomes an examination of what it means to follow through on the cliché of standing up for what you believe in. Change doesn’t come easy. Bolivar’s motives may be pure but that won’t get him out of having to negotiate the avarice, atrocity, civilian casualties, backlash and class privilege that have an effect on his revolution as they would any revolution. That’s to say nothing of the simple truth that the person standing up next to him may be doing so for different, equally valid beliefs.The Liberator is, in total, a handsome but stodgy film that’s smart without being exceptionally deep. There is one moment, however, that hints at Arvelo’s driving point of view. A shot where Giménez’ camera slowly and sadly surveys an improvised cemetery full of those who perished alongside Bolivar is followed immediately by a shot of Bolivar himself, on his back in a narrow hammock with his eyes closed and his arms folded. He may as well be lying in his own coffin. The grave awaits even the hero and it will probably ensnare him before his mission is complete. There’s a fatalistic melancholy on display in this sequence that suggests looming mortality is no reason to give up but, rather, a reason to fight harder. If only more of the film possessed this kind of morbid beauty.
