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Gael García Bernal Shines in Conspicuous Luchador Biopic


At various points, particularly during the matches in Cassandro, director Roger Ross Williams will cut between the conventional filming style most of the movie is shot in and manufactured cheaper footage, as though recorded on a videotape or broadcast on 90s television. Perhaps it is a means of transposing the kind of format inter-cutting he is so used to as a documentarian (Cassandro is his first narrative feature). But there is clearly more to it than that. There is a relationship between these bits and the television luchador fights a young Saúl Armendáriz watched with his dad on T.V. They exemplify his journey of becoming part of that world while connecting him with his past and relationships long lost.
If nothing else it is an inventive way of breaking up certain scenes in a largely formulaic though still compelling biographic sports movie -one that is relatively distinct in its focus on Mexican lucha libre wrestling along the Chihuahua-Texas border. It’s the story of Saúl, who styles himself “Cassandro”, a gay wrestler from El Paso who aims to flip the script on the “Exótico” -a drag-performing wrestler type who mostly exists to be beaten in matches by more masculine-presenting foes- by winning his own fights and creating a space for gay men in the Mexican wrestling scene.
Gael García Bernal plays the title character, whose family relationship and personal history makes up much of the film’s narrative backbone –coloured by allusions to class struggle and homophobia. The movie doesn’t dwell in either of these, but they clearly have had a critical effect on Saúl and the way he views and interacts with the world –the reason his very “into Jesus” father left the family still a wound that lingers in spite of him by all other accounts having moved on. Bigotry still follows him –in every match he is treated to just as many slur-based jeers as cheers, but the proudly out and confident Saúl never once is brought down by them, maintaining his charismatic stage flamboyance, even occasionally teasing the masculinity of the homophobes in the audience.
Bernal is in several ways not ideal for this part, being a straight man and a couple decades older than the real Cassandro in the time this movie is set. But in those moments when he is on stage it is hard to envision anyone else. He is an exceptionally buoyant showman, and takes to the costumes, the body language, the very style of this enthralling personality with aplomb. A contagious excitement seems to radiate off him, and it never matters the stakes of the matches themselves –the character is assured in his star power. At the same time though Bernal is able to convey the complex emotional nuances of the character: someone with a lot of frustrations that he keeps just below the surface of a bubbly exterior. A man who is comfortable in his identity and sexual appeal yet still insecure in the atmosphere around it -especially where it concerns his closeted partner Gerardo (Raúl Castillo), who has a wife and children in the El Paso suburbs. It’s one of the more dynamic performances I’ve seen Bernal give in recent years, certainly it’s one that he (as a producer on the film as well) brings a lot of intensity to.
As expected for someone with his background, Williams directs the film in a very grounded fashion. Those interludes of grainy video-style footage aren’t the only devices he brings over from the documentary format (and it should be noted he previously directed a short doc on Cassandro called The Man Without a Mask).  There are several sequences that are shot with hand-held cameras; outside of the professional matches and TV appearances the film has a very muted look (though this tracks with the mood of the environments around Saúl -seedy clubs, underground arenas, the types of places open to luchador culture on the border). There’s a lot of visual emptiness too, to emphasize Saúl’s isolation -you get the sense that in spite of his upbeat personality he doesn’t have a lot of relationships. In general, it’s not a very appealing world -but it is one he is made to make the most of in.
Of course there’s only so far the movie can go on these kind of dank impressions -and I wonder if the spontaneity and flare of Cassandro would have been better represented by more vivid cinematography -certainly his costumes deserve more. The flatness serves its purpose, but it also feels limiting -which doesn’t help a movie that already is fairly bare-boned in terms of its narrative conventions. As much as the movie refreshingly subverts tropes of homophobia or self-acceptance by framing the story around a figure perfectly sure of himself, and keeping all bigotry aesthetically marginalized, it doesn’t otherwise skirt the norms of an athletic biopic. Bernal’s performance is good but it can’t carry the movie through its weakest, most structurally mundane segments. Even in some cases where it tries to make a swerve in terms of clichés, such as the final fight and ultimate resolution with his father, they still come across a little blasé. Saúl’s relationship with his mother is one of the movie’s more compelling threads, it’s a nice healthy love they share; and I wish the movie could have put more of that stock in his relationship with Gerardo -and the parallel of what he at one point asks Gerardo to do, with what his own father did to his family. There are other spaces and characters in the movie (his trainer Sabrina, played by Roberta Colindrez, most especially) that could have been expanded on like this -just because it is Saúl’s story doesn’t mean they can’t add more significant colour to it.
Other than a few of those precise choices of presentation and a clever way they tie together in the end, Cassandro isn’t all that distinct an inspiring sports movie, in spite of its very specific subject and arena. It’s strongest asset is indeed the character himself, and Bernal’s compelling performance of him. Through his own charms and humour, his deep-seated sadness and anger and depth, the movie comes alive, and Williams’ documentary instincts serve that well from time to time. But it still sticks too closely to formula, with its spare divergences either not being effective or leaving Saúl’s arc incomplete. He doesn’t learn from his moments of unflattering behaviour towards Gerardo for instance. But it is an interesting story with a fascinating perspective, some genuine heart, and a flare from Bernal that makes it worthwhile.

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