BOOGIE EL ACEITOSO

When I read the news that BOOGIE EL ACEITOSO (The Oily) was going to have its animated version in the movies, the excitement overpass the expectations; I was deeply excited about this news, but I try to keep my hopes down for the film. I had already seen the work of another argentinian comic book creator translated into the movies, such is the case of the brilliant DANTE QUINTERNO and his creations: PATORUZITO (en dos películas) and ISIDORO; but from the also brilliant ROBERTO FONTANARROSA I just knew - so far - the use of his character design he made for the animated version of MARTIN FIERRO (it was already commented in this blog, and I promised the english version of that comment pretty soon) and the movie version of one of Boogie, one of his most emblamatic characters, makes me really happy.
Although I have to confess that the characters from Quinterno have a access truly familiar and socially adequate and the success of those works gave the resurgence of the animated production in Argentina; but the work of “El Negro” Fontanarrosa is not family oriented at all and this character – born in 1972 – is totally nasty (although Isidoro is not that family oriented characater either, but it is because he is more self involved that anything else), Boogie is racist, homophobic, misogynistic, chain-smoking, violent, inhuman and yet, honestly. So it was pretty hard to translated iinto the movies, but the effort was made and in october 2009 it was released in his natal Argentina.

Likewise the comic book, the movie is the reflection of the modern society (although with a big emphasis in the United States one) promotor of the violence and the war culture as principal values marked by a a totally black humor.
Boogie had its origen inspired in the movies, especially in DIRTY HARRY, but much tougheer and violent thay policeman played by Clint Eastwood; maybe, due to that cinematographic origen, the animated flick draws on various genres of film whose base is - I repeat - explicit violence. Sometimes it is Noir Film, later it becomes a sort of road-movie which leads the film to end up as a jury movie - genres all related to the American cinema; also the aesthetic tha surrounds it is taken form these genres and, in some instances, it borrows from Sin City is shape (which Miller, in turn, took it from the work of Alberto Breccia*). This mixture of genres and aesthetics could have resulted in a real mess, but the heavy,acid and transgessive humor generated in the pages of the squares and almost faithfully taken to the big screen save the movie.
Without being a masterpiece of animation, it perfectly transfers the essence of this character to the movies, making fun of violence as it shows it explicitly. Perhaps at some point it seems to lose the plot and we fade Boogie between the mixture of genres, but it helps the work of voices and the final product is fairly good - of course, personally speaking.

TRAILER DE BOOGIE EL ACEITOSO

*Checking out the work made by ALBERTO BRECCIA in the version of H.G . OESTERHELD's EL ETERNAUTA and specially in his adaption to the comic of THE TELL TALE HEART by Edgar Allan Poe, I noticed the similarities of the uruguayan comic book creator and Frank Miller, so I come to the conclusion that the American illustrator could have been inspired by the work of his southern colleague - once again, personally speaking. (search for it in the Internet and compare, maybe you would end up telling I was right)