User Reviews

Plot: 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.