Argentine Victor Saldaño left the city of Córdoba as a young man in 1989 and took a long journey across Latin America, which lasted until 1995 when he arrived in the US. He had long wanted to see the whole wide world, and so it seemed his desire was to be fulfilled. After a brief stay in New York doing odd jobs, he moved to Dallas with Jorge Chávez, a Mexican friend of his with whom he got hooked on drugs and crime. Following some heavy partying, on November 25, 1995, Saldaño and Chávez kidnapped 46-year-old US citizen Paul Ray King with the intention of robbing him. But as King resisted the assault, Saldaño killed him with three shots to the chest and one to the head.
Saldaño has stood trial twice since then. With enough evidence against him, he pleaded guilty in both occasions, and was sentenced to capital punishment in both trials. He was first given the death penalty because, as a Hispanic, he was regarded as very likely to commit another crime in the future — that is, according to the legislation of Texas, which was later on modified.
In the second trial that took place after 12 years of inhumane imprisonment on death row, as Saldaño’s mental state was bordering psychosis, he was nonetheless considered a sane adult, eligible for the death penalty and not an asylum.
From a legal standpoint, this is a case with the right charges and the right conviction, no doubt about that. But it has been alleged that he’s been wrongly sentenced to the death penalty because of racial and discrimination issues. As he couldn’t afford experienced lawyers, he was initially granted a poor defence by the State. As of today, Saldaño awaits execution.
Raúl Villaruel’s documentary Saldaño, el sueño dorado (Saldaño, The Golden Dream) provides a very basic panorama of the entire affair, with testimonies from Saldaño’s mother, his US and Argentine lawyers who took the case at different stages, Argentine government officials and other legal experts. It also includes footage from the police interrogation of Saldaño the night he committed the crime. So if you want to be informed in broad strokes, you will be. Yet from a cinematic standpoint, Villaruel’s film is very flat and poorly conceived.
A series of talking heads alone don’t make for good cinema, lack of subtext and few insights into potential layers as well as telling details render it obvious and formulaic, and a didactic stance towards viewers doesn’t allow them to reflect upon the material. And while the formal values — cinematography, sound design, editing — are not a total mess, they are merely correct, at best.
And yes, the documentary does raise uneasy queries about injustice in a legal system and the inhumanity of the death penalty, but it’s been done before many times and in much better shape. As it is, many of the particulars of this case, including a full portrayal of Victor Saldaño, the man, are left unexplored.
