"In Simón Mesa Soto's A Poet, Oscar Restrepo (Ubeimar Rios) is a failed Colombian writer who keeps a photo of the author José Asunción Silva above his mantle. Silva died at age 30, and even Oscar would admit his own career would be a lot better if he had died young, too. But in the pantheon of sad-sack protagonists, Oscar is a triumph."
"But if Soto's film is loose and gritty, its satire is remarkably precise. This is a farce of creative life where the only pure artistic intention is a joke. Success belongs to hypocrites like Efrain. Yurlady's working class family sees only a chance for money. But Oscar, for all his foolishness, is at least uncompromising. He's wrong about almost everything, except what really counts."
Oscar Restrepo is a failed Colombian writer who keeps a photo of José Asunción Silva above his mantle and believes his career would have improved had he died young. Ubeimar Rios portrays Oscar as a comically tragic figure with hunched shoulders and thick glasses. Oscar lands a high school teaching job and fixes on a soft-spoken student, Yurlady, as a promising protégé. Oscar helps Yurlady apply to Poetry Viva while navigating ridicule from students and pragmatic pressures from Yurlady’s working-class family. The film is shot on grainy 16mm and blends gritty realism with precise satire, presenting creative life as a farce where hypocrisy often trumps integrity.
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