Azor review – exquisitely controlled thriller of money and moral decay

Who is René Keys? Never seen, his presence haunts every inch of Azor, an unsettling, talky thriller from Swiss-born writer-director Andreas Fontana. Paradoxically described by those who knew him as a “good man” and a “despicable manipulator,” Keys' true character is as muddled as the situation unfurling in Argentina at the height of what is now known as its “Dirty War,” during which the film is set.

It's Keys' sudden disappearance – an event which possesses the narrative weight of Holly Martin's missing status in Graham Greene's The Third Man – that brings his business partner and fellow Swiss banker Yvan De Wiel (an excellently unreadable Fabrizio Rongione) to Buenos Aires, where he now finds himself in the position to gain some leverage over his rival. But at what cost?

The film, which takes place in 1980, essentially unravels as a series of long conversations in swanky bars and on large estates, as Yvan talks to the members of the Argentine elite who had their money tied up with Keys. Can they trust him? Can he trust them? These conversations are purposely, sometimes frustratingly opaque. Everyone speaks in riddles or talks around what they mean – something that only makes sense when realise that everybody here is worried about who might be listening in. At this time in Argentina, with an authoritarian government in place, it wasn't uncommon for people to just… disappear.

“It's a maze. There are lots of doors,” Yvan tells his wife Ines (a cool and sophisticated Stéphanie Cléauafter, who may or may not be calling all the shots) after visiting Keys' abandoned apartment. No kidding. Azor doesn't talk down to its audience and assumes they will go in with some knowledge of the history of this period. But getting lost seems to be largely the point, too. Everyone here is lost in one way or another: morally, ethically, financially. Slowly, even as these conversations have started to make less and less sense, we're able to draw a line between the self-interest of the upper classes and the rise of a dangerous power, the exploitation of a society that will leave it in tatters.

The film, formally precise and highly confident for a debut, has a luxurious air, though its frames are tinged with a lingering sense of unease. The dread in the atmosphere clashes with the azure blue swimming pools and bright garden furniture. The period dressing is as immaculate as Yvan's manner, while the careful script makes it impossible to know what he's actually thinking (at first this seems like a flaw; later, expertly calculated). And the lack of real incident, or violence, makes the whole thing even eerier to sit through.

Keys cuts a Kurtizan figure. Yvan, our moneyed Marlow. And as with Kurtz, this journey must end downriver, right at the very heart of darkness. Does the personal rivalry between the two mean that Yvan is willing to sell his soul in order to win the upper hand? Does he know he could wind up complicit in the wheels of an evil regime? If Kurtz died finally understanding what he called “the horror,” the opposite seems true of Yvan, whose only truly telling moment in the entire film comes a second or two before it cuts to black.

Azor was screened as part of the BFI London Film Festival 2021. It is now showing in UK cinemas.