Survival by way of teamwork: It’s a story as previous as time with specific resonance as we speak, says Argentine actor Ricardo Darin of his newest undertaking “The Eternaut,” which hit Netflix on Wednesday.
Based on a Nineteen Fifties comedian with iconic standing within the South American nation, the sci-fi collection tells the story of a mysterious, poisonous snowfall that precedes an alien invasion of Buenos Aires.
More elementally, it’s about bizarre individuals with few sources and no particular powers who collectively stare down a totalitarian risk, Darin, 68, advised AFP in an interview.
“The communities that managed to survive were those that stood shoulder to shoulder, defended themselves, and did not care only about what happened to them individually,” he stated of the storyline.
In this manner, the collection “resonates” with the current, stated Darin, although he declined to specify which risk specifically he was referring to.
Directed and scripted by Argentina’s Bruno Stagnaro, “The Eternaut” relies on the comedian by the identical title serialized by author Hector Oesterheld and illustrator Francisco Solano Lopez between 1957 and 1959.
Oesterheld took the collection up once more within the Sixties, with ever-more political overtones which might be believed to have contributed to his kidnapping in 1977 underneath Argentina’s brutal navy dictatorship.
He was by no means heard from once more, nor had been his 4 daughters and three sons-in-law, all of whom determine among the many estimated 30,000 individuals listed as “disappeared” by brokers of the dictatorship, in accordance with rights teams.
Darin, recognized for his roles within the movies “Nine Queens,” “Wild Tales,” and “The Secret in Their Eyes” — which received the Oscar for finest worldwide characteristic in 2010 — stated he was scared at first of enjoying Juan Salvo, the resistance hero in “The Eternaut.”
He had no background in science fiction and needed to do demanding stunts.
“Physically it was very, very hard work,” the actor stated.
“Each day, the end of filming found us exhausted, and with little recovery time.”
Darin took half in 113 of the 148 days of taking pictures, typically decked out in Salvo’s heavy snow-proof outfit on units coated with tons of cumbersome synthetic snow.
“Not to mention the things that happen in an action shoot, where you have to roll, jump, fall, crash, fight; a series of things that when you’re 25 or 30 years old, it’s nothing, but for me, who is 114…” he laughed.
Darin is hopeful the collection can be a lift for Argentine cinema at a time the federal government of budget-slashing President Javier Milei has withdrawn state assist for the National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts, and for tradition on the whole.
“Nothing like this has ever been done here,” stated Darin of the undertaking.
© 2025 AFP