Del documental de Ricardo Casas, "Palabras verdaderas".
¿Cómo retratar a un personaje público, tan conocido como querido por multitudes de lectores de todas las edades y todos los países de habla hispana? ¿Por qué Mario Benedetti es recitado hasta por sus adversarios? ¿Qué tiene este hombre tan modesto, típico uruguayo si los hay, capaz de representar a tantas almas a lo largo y ancho de América Latina y España?
Si recordamos al Ciudadano Kane vemos que detrás de todo hombre hay un "Rosebud", un enigma a descubrir que generalmente no descubriremos nunca. Las preguntas son muchas y un documental permite indagar, buscar en una vida y en una obra muchas cosas. Los motivos que generan una personalidad tan exitosa y los problemas que esa fama genera, no siempre son buscados por el personaje, muchas veces son impuestos por la fuerza de los hechos, por una realidad que a todos nos invade.
PALABRAS VERDADERAS busca en esa vida y, sobre todo en la obra poética, las claves de un montevideano ilustre, de un hombre que le ha tocado vivir varios exilios y recibir los premios que este mundo puede dar. Pero sobre todas las cosas el cariño de un público incondicional, masivo y fiel que lo sigue a todos lados y lo mima cada día con su aplauso y con su lectura.
El poeta más leído de habla hispana, según Manuel Vázquez Montalban, sin dignidad autoral según Jose Saramago, pero sobreviviente de una generación que conoció el infierno y supo ganar espacios, en la dignidad y la firmeza de principios muy caros al ser montevideano, al ser del mundo, ese hombre de a pie que sale cada día a buscar las respuestas nunca explicadas.
Una infancia triste, una juventud llena de trabajos y lecturas, una madurez de compromisos y exilios marcaron a Benedetti y su obra testimonia la historia, esa que sólo los artistas pueden contar.
Y el documental lo sigue, casi sin hacerse notar, recogiendo pedazos de una historia larga y cargada de momentos que a todos los conmovieron y seguramente nos seguirán conmoviendo. Y una mención a las lecturas de Miguel Angel Solá que saben interpretar esa cotideaneidad tan cara para Benedetti y sus lectores, a la vez sabia como la historia.
HAS GONE ITSELF US, HAS REMAINED ITSELF US, MARIO BENEDETTI
From documental of Ricardo Casas, "words of true".
How can one paint a portrait of such a public person, one so well-known and well-loved by his vast readership -a readership which covers every age and every country in the Spanish-speaking world? Why is Mario Benedetti quoted and recited, even by his enemies? What is it about this man, a man of such modesty, so "typically Uruguayan", yet who is able to represent so many kindred spirits throughout the width and breadth of Latin America and Spain?
If we think back to Citizen Kane, we will remember that behind each man there is a "Rosebud", an enigma to be investigated, one whose meaning we will probably never discover. So many questions to be answered. A documentary enables us to enquire and discover many things in a man's life and work. The reasons which have created such a successful personality and the problems which this fame generates, often unsought by the person himself, but rather imposed on him by the force of events, by a reality which overcomes us all.
WORDS OF TRUTH searches for the keys of this illustrious citizen of Montevideo in his life and especially in his poetry. Here is a man who has had to face various periods in exile yet who has received all the prizes the world can offer. But above all else, who has received the unconditional love of his readership, a massive and faithful audience that follows him everywhere he goes and that spoils him every day with its applause and its reading.
According to Manuel Vàzquez Montalban, he is the most read poet in the Spanish language, totally lacking in the usual author's pride or dignity, according to José Saramago, a survivor of a generation which came to grips with hell. Someone who has opened many doors, without renouncing his very strong principles, those principles so dear to the psyche of a man of Montevideo, to this citizen of the world, this very ordinary man who marches out each day in search of the answers which are never fully explained.
An unhappy childhood, a life as a young man dedicated to work and reading, a maturity filled with political commitments and exiles - all these have marked Benedetti and his work provides a historical testimony, the kind that only artists can give us. And the documentary follows him, almost invisibly, gathering up little pieces of this long story, laden with moments which moved us all and which will undoubtedly continue to move us.
And don't let us leave out a mention of the readings of actor Miguel Angel Solá, which have the capacity to interpret this day-to-day existence, as wise as history, so dear to Benedetti and his readers.
