Santiago

Some documentaries are out to change the world, while others only aim to document a short period in the life of a single person. In this case, we're talking about Santiago. He's not even a very peculiar or interesting figure, but the butler that vigilantly served the family of the director.

The documentary was filmed 15 years prior to the release of the film and was released after the butler had already died. It adds just a tinge of intrigue, but since we're mostly watching footage of the man talking about his interests, it's little more than a faits divers that didn't really affect the film all that much.

The presentation is stylish, though there's also a lot of still footage with just Santiago doing nothing much at all. Salles actually tries to defend this approach at the end, but his explanation felt a little faint. Ultimately, I just didn't care enough for Santiago as a person, which made this a pretty forgettable and pointless doc.