Unit 25
A streetwise young man gets the Holy Spirit stuffed into him in a special prison in Alejo Hoijman's questionable doc, "Unit 25." Hoijman uses techniques so akin to narrative filmmaking that many viewers will assume they're watching a drama. The overall work shares nothing with the rich, subjective and poetic pics (e.g., "The Tree," "The Blondes") dominating recent Argentine nonfiction. Whether the results come from contrivance or reality will be debated, making it a potential controversy-laden, talking-point pic at fests and a sure item for elite tube buyers in Latin American, Euro and Christian markets.
The fact Christians may flock to this doc points up the project's confusion, for it seems equally likely Hoijman either wanted to show the nefarious ways in which Evangelical Christianity is used as a cudgel in the special Argentine prison known as Unit 25 (the only one of its kind in Latin America), or that he wanted to observe how a lost young man named Simon Pedro entered the unit as a disbeliever and, by the end, found his faith.
Yet another possible and more profound perspective -- and there's nothing on view that discourages or encourages it -- is that "Unit 25" is a parable on the power of the group to enforce its codes and beliefs on the individual to conform. Various readings, though, aren't a sign of the doc's depth, but of its conceptual confusion. . . .
Robert Koehler, Variety, April 22