Uncomfortable questions about parochial small-mindedness, exploitation, class, and the very meaning of “culture” (look out for a searingly brilliant speech about that) swirl around inside this wonderfully ill-tempered film, which gets the gala opening spot at this year’s VLAFF. It all starts with famed novelist Daniel Mantovani accepting the Nobel Prize for literature with the declaration of his own artistic death. Declining much grander offers of attention, the depressed, Barcelona-based writer gradually returns after 40 years to his Argentine hometown of Salas, whereupon The Distinguished Citizen morphs into something like a backwoods horror film, offset, naturally, by some of the finer cinematic devices (witty compositions, punchy dialogue) at the disposal of directors Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn.

Georgia Straight, August 2017