Crowd-pleasing romcom builds on generic formula, good chemistry between stars POINTS: 6 Starring Adrián Suar and Valeria Bertuccelli, written by Pablo Solarz and directed by Juan Taratuto, the eloquent Me casé con un boludo (I Married an Idiot, roughly translated) is first and foremost an unapologetic crowd-pleaser, a conventional mainstream romantic comedy that goes for easy laughs and guarantees even easier audience involvement. Suar, Bertuccelli, Solarz and Taratuto previously teamed up in Un novio para mi mujer (2008), which became the most seen film of the year with some 1.4 million viewers. Unpretentious and somewhat effective, both Me casé con un boludo and Un novio para mi mujer follow a predetermined, generic formula and don’t come up with anything new at all. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. In Me casé con un boludo, Fabián Brando (Suar) is an extroverted, narcissistic film star who’s shooting a movie with Florencia (Bertuccelli), an actress with virtually no experience, and worse, no talent to speak of. So at first their collaboration is rather difficult because of Florencia’s repeated mistakes. Fabián tries to support her and she tries to do her best, and but the results are not good. However, what you can see almost from the moment they meet is that Fabián is infatuated with Florencia, and while she doesn’t open up to him, the truth is she’s into him too. Day after day and while the film is being shot, Fabián and Florencia fall for each other. Not only that, she also moves in with him. Sooner rather than later, Fabián asks her to marry him. Since she’s so in love, she says yes. But Fabián and Florencia spend more and more time together and their everyday life begins to lose the spark. At least for her, as she discovers many not-so-nice things about him that turn him into an idiot (hence the title). Since she is no fool, it’s not long before she realizes that she had actually fallen in love with the character Fabián played in life — as opposed to the real Fabián. Of course, we all play out characters in our private and public lives, but Fabián is a consummate actor who just can’t stop acting. What is Florencia to do now that she realizes she sees the character and hardly knows the man? The first part of the film, its general setup, flows easily as it hinges around reliable stereotypes, building up the story at a good pace, with good comic timing and some insights. Characters are introduced, their goals and motivations are stated, and a sense of time and space is ensured. Then there’s the second part, in which Fabián’s tricks to get Florencia to love him back, and here romantic comedy gives way to situation comedy, with some amusing scenes. But at the same time you are bound to realize that you’re watching yet another mainstream comedy offering nothing new. And the third act, basically the ending, is the worst part. It feels forced, predictable, and too long. On the plus side, Bertuccelli does a very good job as Florencia and you will identify with her right away. She has perfect comic timing, very helpful when the gags are not that funny. In fact, the gags are effective and they make people laugh, but they are hardly memorable. Suar is Suar, as usual, and you could say he’s good being that one more time. What works very well is the chemistry between the two leads, and that’s a large part of the film’s success. Production notes Me casé con un boludo (Argentina, 2016). Directed by: Juan Taratuto. Written by: Pablo Solarz. With: Adrián Suar, Valeria Bertuccelli. Cinematography: Julián Apezteguia. Running time: 110 minutes. @PablSuarez
Nothing is black and white in Sean Baker’s hectic story of transgender working girls in LA POINTS:9 Tangerine has finally reached local screens. Winner of top prizes at the Karlovy Vary, Mar del Plata, Palm Springs and Rio de Janeiro film festivals, the new outing by the director of Starlet (2012) is nothing short of a notable technical/aesthetic achievement as it was shot on the tiniest of budgets using iPhones for cameras and anamorphic adapters to create a textured, very tangible cinematic feel. Moreover, almost all scenes were shot with nothing but available light to achieve a look of gritty realism. As expected, the nervous, hectic handheld camerawork pays off all the more taking into account how small iPhones are, hence how inconspicuous they must have been at the time of shooting in environments with lots of passers-by who sometimes seem unaware that a film is being shot. Plus there’s a musical score that mashes up classical pieces with disco, hip-hop, techno, electronic, Armenian music, ambient — you name it. And yes, it all sounds great together. Like a travesty opera, in the best of senses. But what’s even far more vital is that this unique, spellbinding character study of two black transgender prostitutes who work the blocks up and down Santa Monica casts an emphatically humanistic, never condescending gaze while not sugarcoating the dark side of the local universe of sex workers and drug culture. This buddy-movie — or girlfriend movie, to be more precise — is anchored on the meaning of the bonds (or lack thereof) established by the protagonists, on their most obvious and meaningful illusions and yearnings — namely being found and loved for who they are — and on their strength to always put up a fight and then move on, come what may. Directed, co-written, shot, edited and produced by Sean Baker, Tangerine is reminiscent of the work of other US indie auteurs such as John Waters in its exultant outrageousness, of Jonathan Caouette in its sense of creative freedom (remember Tarnation, which was made with practically no more than US$250 and an iMac?), and of the early works of Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai (Chungking Express and Fallen Angels mostly) in its stylish camerawork, vibrant cinematography and very, very brisk editing. And yet it’s not a combination of any of the above. Tangerine, like Starlet before it, stands very well on its own feet. But in Starlet, Baker cared for a more intimate story narrated in quite a relaxed, hushed manner, that of an unlikely friendship between a young and gorgeous wannabe porn star and an eighty-something woman with tragic losses in her past. In stark contrast, Tangerine is an energetic and sometimes nerve-racking comedy of sorts, and there’s nothing hushed about it. And even for a comedy, there’s also poignancy and sadness. In both movies, the backdrop of LA’s low-end drug and sex industry is somewhat similar and also in both cases the dramatic focus is on the characters’ inner loneliness and their search for real company. In a sense, they long to transcend themselves, even if they don’t know it. After all, solitude comes in a variety of shapes and colours. The story goes pretty much like this: it’s Christmas Eve and Sin-Dee Rella (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) has just been released from prison after 28 days. Right away, she meets her best friend, Alexandra (Mya Taylor), who happens to mention that Sin-Dee’s pimp and boyfriend, Chester, has been sleeping with a white woman while she was in jail. Even worse, a woman with “a vagina and everything,” says Alexandra. Sin-Dee Rella (who’s no Cinderella, in fact) is enraged beyond belief and sets out to find the woman who’s dared to touch her man. Alexandra would rather not accompany her out-of-control friend and walks up and down Santa Monica handing out flyers for her singing appearance at a two-bit club that very same night. The other trannies say they’d show up for sure, but who knows? Nevertheless she strives to drum up an audience. Meanwhile, there’s a parallel subplot involving Razmik (Karren Karagulian), an Armenian cab driver who picks up random fares and in so doing we get a glimpse of other people’s lives. But that’s only incidental, since Razmik’s story is also connected with those of Alexandra and other working girls. And it opens up a story of immigration and discrimination as well. Kitana Kiki Rodriguez is simply superb, going all over the place like a shrew on meth, pretending she’s a tough cookie, and yet deep down deluding herself into thinking that Chester actually loves her as she wants and needs to be loved. She’s a character that elicits contradictory reactions from viewers: at times you just want her to shut up for good, never to see her again … and in the next scene you realize how fragile she can also be and that’s when you feel like having her around for a bit longer. Mya Taylor also delivers an impressive performance, although she goes for a more restrained, controlled approach as her character is never overwhelmed by feelings, let alone by those caused by men who abandon women. She’s more of a loner, if you will, who still believes she’ll have her big break as a singer sometime. So she bides her time. Even considering the comedic mould which escalates to strict screwball in the grand finale at Donut Time (of all places!), you don’t have the lightweight stuff that classical screwball comedy is made of. Here, you get reality once again, and for better or worse, reality is all these characters have. Which, if seen from the right angle, is not that bad at all. See, nothing is either black or white in Tangerine. It’s more of a matter of beautifully assorted colours. Production notes Tangerine (US, 2015). Directed by Sean Baker. Written by Sean Baker, Chris Bergoch. With Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, Mya Taylor, Karren Karagulian, Mickey O’Hagan, Alla Tumanian, James Ransone, Luiza Nersisyan, Arsen Grigoryan, Ian Edwards, Shih-Ching Tsou. Cinematography: Radium Cheung, Sean Baker. Editing: Sean Baker. Running time: 87 minutes.
Magallanes (Damián Alcázar) is a former army soldier and right-hand man of a well-known retired colonel (Federico Luppi). They served together in the Peruvian military during the conflict with the Shining Path in Ayacucho, and now he’s his occasional driver on the streets of Lima. One afternoon, he picks up Celina (Magaly Solier), a humble young woman who now runs a precarious beauty salon on the outskirts of the city. Unexpectedly, she brings about stories from a dark past: she was imprisoned and raped for more than a year by the colonel when she was a teenager. Like the colonel, Magallanes met her back then, but Celina doesn’t recognize him anymore. Knowing what would happen if the information about the colonel reaches the media, he pulls out old photographic evidence and decides to blackmail the colonel’s well-off son (Christian Meier). Both Celina and Magallanes struggle to make ends meet so they could use the money. The blackmail operation sounds good, but when set in motion things didn’t go as planned. If there’s one undeniable asset in Magallanes, the debut feature of Peruvian actor-turned-filmmaker Salvador del Solar, that’s the performance of Magaly Solier, whom you probably remember from the Oscar-nominated La teta asustada (The Milk of Sorrow). She quietly downplays most of her scenes, yet her intensity and expressiveness always leave a strong impression. She’s a sorrowful, anguish-ridden woman who shows an entirely different facet once she’s confronted with her painful past. And Solier conveys this transition with assurance and authenticity. Toward the end, an angry verbal outburst in Quechua feels theatrical and over the top, but Solier’s command of the scene makes it believable. Despite its too literal manner, Magallanes works somewhat efficiently as a mirror for the abuses committed by the armed forces in their fight against terrorism. It examines one particular case and yet symbolically addresses them all. It can also be a useful tool to keep the memory alive. As a thriller, it’s well-paced and has some suspense. On the minus side, it’s a highly predictable story with its ideological viewpoint often spelled out for viewers. In addition, most characters have almost no layers, except for some ambiguity you can find in Magallanes’ behaviour and in Celina’s silence. And not for its own good, it’s didactic and at times redundant. Production notes Magallanes (Argentina-Peru-Colombia-Spain, 2015). Written and directed by Salvador Del Solar. With Damián Alcázar, Magaly Solier, Federico Luppi, Bruno Odar. Cinematography: Diego Jiménez. Editing: Eric Williams. Running time: 98 minutes. @pablsuarez
Oscar-nominated thriller offers the gritty realism of a war film turned into courtroom drama POINTS: 7 Oscar nominated for Best Foreign Film A War (Krigen), written and directed by Tobias Lindholm, first and foremost follows Claus M. Pedersen (Pilou Asbaek), a Danish army commander in Afghanistan who strives hard to hold his unit together after one of his men dies after stepping on a mine. Intrepid and humanistic, Pedersen cares a great deal for his soldiers and is always willing to go more than the proverbial extra mile to protect them. He’s what you’d call a true leader. Secondly, A War focuses on the home front, back in Denmark, where Claus’ wife Maria (Tuva Novotny) tries to hold daily life together with three young children and a husband on the frontline. All of them miss Claus and to different extents, they all suffer from his absence. Switching back and forth, these home front scenes are intertwined with those on the war front to provide some insight on the war for those in Denmark. During a routine mission, the soldiers’ unit is caught in heavy crossfire and, in order to save one of his men in dire need of medical attention, Claus is forced to make a judgment call, which ultimately ends up turning his life upside down. He orders a house to be bombed so that his soldier could be airlifted from the place. That’s why during the film’s second half, Claus is back in Denmark in a courtroom accused of killing 11 civilians (eight kids included) as a result of his perhaps not-so-sound decision. If there really was an enemy in the house, then Claus’ bombing would be justified. Otherwise, it wouldn’t, and he would have to spend four years behind bars. Which would end his career and be a disaster for his wife and his children who need him so much. Let alone for his own sense of justice and pride. After all, he truly is a good soldier. It’s the war that’s maddening. Lindholm’s third feature does have a fair number of assets in formal terms: it’s impeccably acted, it’s shot in a documentary-like approach that achieves a good dose of gritty realism, its tone is devoid of melodrama and any sugarcoating, it’s discreetly photographed with no embellishment or glorification of war, it establishes a compelling sense of an authentic war space, and it unfolds meticulously as a complex thriller too. Unlike many films on the same subject, it never simplifies its scenario. In fact, its no-frills, stripped-down narrative does emphasize the complexity of it all. On the minus side, Claus’ wife and children are not developed as characters, but rather as acting figures to do this or that as the script requires. It would have been interesting to get into Maria’s heart and head rather than watch her from the outside. All the more so when Claus’ family gets to play such an important role in the film’s premise. Other than that, A War is a fine slow burner, a reflexive war-at-home movie which ends with a rightfully restrained and yet quite strong courtroom drama. From an ideological point of view, there might be an aspect that’s not quite that accomplished. Without spoiling the ending, you could say that the filmmaker opts not to take sides on the outcome of the drama. What’s the importance of a soldier’s life? What’s the significance of villagers’ lives? What’s the price of lying? What’s the cost of morality? These and a couple of other questions are posed but no answers are given. In this regard, you could say the film allows viewers to make up their own minds, which will surely be divergent. Then again, it could also be said that the filmmaker’s deliberate reluctance to state a viewpoint on his material is also a way of not wanting to deal with it, as if he were only interested in drawing a morally and ethically challenging scenario without daring to accompany it with his own discourse. If this is so, then the manoeuvre equals cheating, even if subtly done. So you should watch the film for its many cinematic merits and then see what you make of its ideology take. A viewer’s personal perspective is a must in all films, but all the more so in this type of auteur works which don’t follow a predetermined blueprint. production notes A War / Krigen (Denmark, 2015). Written and directed by Tobias Lindholm. With: Pilou Asbaek, Tuva Novotny, Soren Malling, Charlotte Munck, Dar Salim, Dulfi Al-Jabouri. Cinematography: Magnus Nordenhof Jonck. Editing: Adam Nielsen. Running time: 115 minutes @pablsuarezd
POINTS: 9 It’s widely known that awards don’t necessarily have that much to do with the quality of a film. Too many mediocre movies have inexplicably won too many prizes at all times. But it’s equally true that every now and then, there comes that one special film that deserves all the praise it’s been getting internationally. Indian writer-director Chaitanya Tamhane’s debut feature Court is a perfect case in point. At last year’s BAFICI, Court won Best Film and Best Actor in the official competition, plus the FIPRESCI and the SIGNIS awards. Then, the FIPRESCI award at the Viennale and the top prize in Venice’s Orizzonti section, among many other prizes. And while it’s certainly not a film for mass audiences, Tamhane’s striking outing is not a piece of artsy cinema for movie buffs only either. Spoken in Hindi, English and the local dialect Marathi, with both professional and non-professional actors, and with an extensive use of diverse locations serving as backdrops filled with plenty of social information, Court is both a marvellously understated court room drama with far-from-callous approach as well as an unflinchingly analytical portrayal of a dysfunctional judiciary system often ruled by laws that date back to the 19th century. Narayan Kamble (Vira Sathidar) is a 65-year-old activist, agitator and folk-singer who visits with his troupe working-class neighbourhoods to raise awareness on a number of social conflicts. He’s arrested for seditious behaviour since it’s alleged that a sewer worker committed suicide after listening to one of his songs. Which, of course, doesn’t make any sense. The real reason is political more than anything else — in fact, Kamble had been arrested many times before on similar uncertain charges. Vinay Vora (Vivek Gomber) is a well-learned, humanistic, and devoted defence attorney who takes up Kamble’s case, as he usually does with many other individuals often harassed by Indian laws. He’s confronted by a painstaking, knowledgeable public prosecutor who tries to do her best — and often succeeds — to have Kamble legally pay for his misdemeanours. As for the judge, let’s just say he follows procedures by the book and seems not to care about anything else. But Court is not entirely confined to the court room: it examines the contrasting contexts in which the defence attorney and the public prosecutor live their everyday life. Also, the places they go to in their free time and the social activities they engage into. The contrast lies firstly in the fact that Vinay belongs to a well-off, upper class that’s part of an up-to-date India whereas the public prosecutor is a middle-class woman of a more traditional sector of society. Secondly, while Vinay puts a great deal of personal interest in the case, the public prosecutor is solely concerned with doing her job as best as possible, without any consideration for the heart of the matter. Yet Tamhane luckily knows better than turning her into an unlikeable, one-dimensional character so there are some welcome nuances here and there. With a fixed camera that captures the environment mostly in large shots, Tamhane scrutinizes the territory his characters inhabit and, in so doing, goes further into the characteristics of the two Indias and the relationships between them. It could be argued that the leisured editing — which makes shots last longer than usual — hampers the dramatic drive and may feel somehow tedious to some, and yet that would be a superficial appreciation. In order to immerse viewers into a multilayered, intricate scenario and have them experience the necessary sense of time and space, the shots have to last what they actually last. Accordingly, the sound design and the photography fall into a continuous naturalistic vein, never calling attention to themselves. Just like the presence of the filmmaker, which is erased from the story he tells. There’s no room for mannerisms or shock value, no big revelations, meanings or conclusions — this is not Hollywood fare. Which is not to say this slow burner doesn’t grow dramatically or lacks its high points. On the contrary. But the thing is that it’s all conveyed in a more oblique and hushed manner. And then there’s the unexpected, odd and ambiguous coda, which adds another dimension to an already rich panorama that seems to have more and more material to be explored and discussed, time and again. Production notes Court (India, 2014). Written and directed by Chaitanya Tamhane. With Vivek Gomber, Geetanjali Kulkarni, Pradeep Joshi, Vira Sathidar. Cinematography by Mrinal Desai. Editing by Rikhav Desai. Running time: 116 minutes.
In the Chilean feature La visita, not a son but a son-turned-daughter comes back home for her father’s funeral. She named herself Elena (Daniela Vega) when she decided she would become the woman she was deep inside. That is to say, right after she left the house where she lived with her mother, Coya (Rosa Ramírez), a live-in housekeeper who has been working for a traditional upper-class family for far too long. In a conservative society, Elena had to leave her hometown, her mum and her neighbours to find her way. Up until then, she had been Felipe, and this is the first time her mum and her employer see her as Elena. What she awakens in others, how others perceive her and how she perceives herself is the stuff Mauricio López Fernández’s first film is about. Imagine a recollection of everyday moments, brief scenes where Elena reestablishes her lost bond with her mum in addition to trying to fit in a world that is now foreign to her. Also, La visita is about a world where women are sometimes at odds when male figures are absent. However, other times they are freer, more in charge of themselves. When unexpected transformations take place, perhaps a new order may be created. For a character study, many of the observations are of interest as they reveal what matters most with certain pre-established social boundaries. It’s particularly thought-provoking to see that, while different sexual orientations can be accepted (or at least politely respected), class differences still rule a universe where there’s never a shadow of a doubt as regards who gives the orders and who simply obeys them. The tale is meant to be minimalist and to somehow go beyond what can be seen at first sight, and whereas there are a handful of scenes which achieve this exploratory, introspective approach, it’s equally true that many other scenes are only descriptive and anecdotic. La visita is the type of film that intends to be transcendental but is often inconsequential. It has its good moments, but it has too many others that don’t add much to a not-so-deep exploration of gender and class frictions. The thing is that the premise held far more potential that never quite materializes. On the formal side, the cinematography by Diego Poleri is worthy of mention. With subtlety, a smooth and unobtrusive camera bears witness to slices of life that speak of the ambiguity of a larger universe. And while the performances are not what you’d call striking, they are effective enough to render a credible drama. But when all has been said and done, you may still feel that you’ve been led to know more about these characters, and yet you’ve been shortchanged. It could be argued that the filmmaker is only interested in showing you the tip of the iceberg, and perhaps that could be true. Still, in this case it’s the entire iceberg that holds more revelations, and not just the tip. For less is not always more. Production notes La visita (Argentina, Chile 2014). Written and directed by Mauricio López Fernández. With: Daniela Vega, Rosa Ramírez, Claudia Cantero, Carmen Barros. Cinematography by Diego Poleri. Editing by Valeria Hernández. Running time: 82 minutes. @pablsuarez
A crowdpleaser that managed to fool many critics is likely too shallow for local audiences Brazilian production Que Horas Ela Volta? (styled The Second Mother in English), written and directed by Anna Muylaert, won the Special Jury Prize at Sundance as well as the Audience Award and the top prize in the Panorama section at Berlin. It also amassed good deal of critical acclaim. Due to the issues it addresses, some foreign critics have compared it to Lucrecia Martel’s masterpiece La ciénaga (The Swamp). Now, that makes no sense whatsoever. In fact, I seriously doubt many Argentine film critics and viewers will find it realistic. And for a good reason: they are likely to be familiar with the social scenario, which is common in many Latin American countries. Of course, so is the director, but she opted to go the Hollywood way rather than the Brazilian one. The story goes like this: Val (Regina Casé) is a live-in-maid for a well-off family in São Paulo. One day and pretty much out of the blue, she announces that her teen daughter Jessica (Camila Márdila), whom she hasn’t seen in ten years, is coming to town to apply to a prominent university. So she asks her employer and household head Barbara (Karine Teles) to allow her daughter to live with her in the house for a short while until they can find an affordable place they can move to. Not without some reluctance, Barbara agrees. But when Jessica arrives, things begin to change. She’s not really keen on obeying the unwritten house rules and boundaries live-in-maids are expected to follow. Not that she is bad-mannered or ill-bred, but she doesn’t hesitate to point out how much she disagrees with the social order. As an example, she doesn’t like her mum’s small room, which she’s supposed to share. So she indirectly suggests she would like to have the large, comfy guest room. Barbara’s husband Carlos (Lourenco Mutarelli) says she can do so. In addition, he tells her she can eat the expensive ice cream they buy for their teen son, Fabinho (Michel Joelsas), who was practically raised by Val because his parents are always too busy with their jobs and social calendar. So it’s only a matter of time until Jessica plunges into the large swimming pool meant for family members only. The thing is that Que Horas Ela Volta? is a comedy designed to stand also as a drama, but built upon stereotypes on class difference, precisely when it pretends to be the exact opposite. Val is an ever kind, hard-working maid who never wants anything more than what she’s given. And she’s happy with that. Barbara is a competitive professional woman stuck in a loveless marriage. She’s unsatisfied, high-strung and unable to live a different life. Carlos is a kind man who talks calmly, doesn’t pay much attention to his wife and is sort of infatuated with Jessica. Other than that, he has nothing to do in the film. As for Fabinho, it’s hard to say what he is like since he’s also an underwritten character. And Jessica — well, she’s the rebel who’s also smart and well-learned. It’s hard to say what’s more annoying: the director’s overall sugarcoated gaze in dealing with a multifaceted reality so superficially (the many confrontations between Jessica and Val start and end in just a few minutes), the dialogue filled with ready-to-use lines that turn characters into concepts, or Regina Casé’s over-the-top, histrionic performance that’s meant to draw empathy from viewers. It’s just too easy to make a film with these traits. It’s a formula that may work for other stories and other genres, but here, it backfires spectacularly. Unlike Chilean director Sebastián Silva’s The Maid (La nana), a largely down-to-earth character study of an alienated maid who’s worked for the same upper-class family for more than 20 years, Anna Muylaert’s Que Horas Ela Volta? may mean well but ends up being a rather inauthentic, demagogic take on class friction with a little credible happy ending that ultimately preserves the status quo. A crowd pleaser that managed to fool many critics too. Production notes Que horas ela volta? (Brazil, 2015) Written and directed by Anna Muylaert. With Regina Casé, Michel Joelsas, Camila Márdila, Lourenço Mutarelli. Cinematography: Barbara Alvarez. Editing: Karen Harley. Running time: 110 minutes. @pablsuarez
Star-studded cast can’t save trite and charmless genre piece 100 años de perdón It’s a rainy morning in Valencia, Spain. A group of masked thieves led by El Uruguayo (Rodrigo de la Serna) and El Gallego (Luis Tosar) is about to rob the headquarters of a well-known international bank. They are supposed to break into a large number of the safe deposit boxes and then escape via a tunnel dug to join the bank’s building with an abandoned subway station. In theory, it was to be an easy heist with no consequences. But as the plan unfolds, the truth is that the thieves are truly looking for one particular safe deposit box where Gonzalo Soriano, a former member of the government now in a coma as a result of an accident, had left noteworthy documents with compromising information. What’s even more worrisome is that only El Uruguayo knows what their real mission is, and when his comrades begin to suspect he hasn’t told them the whole truth, their carefully constructed plan starts to go awry. All the more so when the tunnel they were supposed to use to flee is flooded by heavy rain. Now, they have no choice but to stay in the building with a group of hostages. Soon enough, the police will be on their way and their confrontation is not going to be pretty. 100 años de perdón, directed by Spanish director Daniel Calparsoro and starring Argentine actors Rodrigo de la Serna, Luciano Cáceres and Joaquín Furriel together with Spanish actors Luis Tosar, José Coronado, and Marian Álvarez, is a bank-robbery-movie-with-a-twist that despite being reasonably well crafted, it still doesn’t bring anything new to an already overworked subgenre. Yes, you have the social and political backdrop, meaning Spain’s ongoing economic crisis, which is of some interest. And yet it’s just a backdrop and nothing else. There are no insights or explorations here that lead to something else. As regards the heist plot itself, let’s just say it’s rather dull and mechanical. You can see a lot coming from a mile away and what you can’t predict isn’t that interesting either. It’s as if the screenwriter had watched several bank robbery movies and then cooked up some kind of mélange that bears no personal imprint. Some action sequences are well-shot, granted, and there’s some sort of suspense from time to time. But that’s it. Genre cinema stuff, but done without charm or wit. On the plus side, it should be noted that De la Serna’s performance is gripping enough to keep you watching the film, for the most part. For that matter, Tosar also does a very good job, even though the subplot involving him and the bank’s director rings false by all accounts. It’s a shame that the character played by Furriel doesn’t have more screen time to flesh it up better and the same goes for the character played by Cáceres, who is virtually inexistent. But then this shouldn’t be that much of a surprise considering that many co-productions with remiss screenwriters go for big names in an attempt to make up for what they lack in substance. And it never really works. Production notes 100 años de perdón (Argentina, Spain, France, 2016). Directed by Daniel Calparsoro. Written by Jorge Guerricaechevarría. With Rodrigo de la Serna, Luis Tosar, Joaquín Furriel, Luciano Cáceres, Raúl Arévalo, Patricia Vico, José Coronado. Cinematography: Josu Inchaustegui. Editing: Antonio Frutos. Running time: 99 minutes. @pablsuarez
Gaucho-western takes a look at Argentina’s past, with abuse of power at centre stage “El movimiento tells a story set in some sort of no man’s land at a foundational time in Argentina, in which the protagonist tries to embody everything at once: the rules and the authority, he knows what to do and how to do it, and he believes he’s the one who has to do it, he suffers from some kind of messianic madness,” says Argentine filmmaker Benjamín Naishtat (Historia del miedo/History of Fear) about his second outing, which won Best Film in the Argentine competition in last year’s Mar del Plata Festival. So imagine a small group of armed men inhabiting a vast and desolate land fallen into anarchy during the first half of the 19th century as they move across Patagonia and impose their will on defenceless townspeople. As expected, there’s much rivalry among some of these groups, but nonetheless they all claim they belong to El Movimiento (The Movement), a growing political force that seems to know no boundaries when it comes to getting what they want. El Señor (Pablo Cedrón), a well-learned man, is the leader of one of these groups and he seeks to establish a new order in the region. And while he can be quite an appealing conversationalist, he can also be as cruel as it gets. After all, he’s a man with a hunger for power. Does that ring a bell? Like Historia del miedo, El movimiento (The Movement) can’t be pinned to a given genre. But you could say it’s a gaucho-western that takes a look at Argentina’s past from the present, in the way of historical revisionism. So it makes sense that Naishtat draws some telling parallels with a more recent political panorama where violence, abuse of power, betrayal and mayhem take centre stage. And whereas he has some noteworthy insights, the truth is that some observations are quite obvious, and oddly enough, without much of a new outlook. As far as its aesthetics go, this is a film that marks some achievements, mainly its striking, captivating black-and-white cinematography enriched by a sound design that goes beyond mere description of the environment. These two elements — cinematography and sound design — create and maintain a sense of space that at times feels timeless. Another asset, and yet only to a certain extent, is it theatrical mise-en-scene, which has a very cinematic edge as it incorporates a good array of eloquent close-ups. At times, El movimiento is somewhat hypnotic in formal terms. However, it’s a shame its non-naturalistic approach and its apparently novel discourse soon begin to wear thin and feel somewhat pretentious — which were also unfortunate flaws in Naishtat’s debut feature. Production notes El movimiento (Argentina, South Korea, 2015). Written and directed by Benjamín Naisthat. With Pablo Cedrón, Marcelo Pompei, Francisco Lumerman, Céline Latil, Alberto Suárez, Agustín Rittano. Cinematography: Yarará Rodriguez. Editing: Andrés Quaranta. Running time: 70 minutes. @pablsuarez
Guerschuny’s new work, written by Wainraich, isn’t a step in the right direction POINTS: 4 Argentine filmmaker Hernán Guerschuny’s first film El crítico (2013) , the story of a film critic who sees the world as though it was a movie and so he can’t stop criticizing it, was somewhat of a nice surprise which despite its flaws and unevenness did have a fair number of assets. It was a lightweight dramatic comedy with appealing performances from Dolores Fonzi and Rafael Spregelburd and it did show some promise. It was, to some extent, effective. Unfortunately, Guerschuny’s second film Una noche de amor, written by comedian Sebastián Wainraich with the collaboration of Guerschuny, and starring Wainraich and Carla Peterson, is not what you’d call a step in the right direction. This time, the filmmaker goes mainstream big time and, in doing so, he leaves behind a less calculated, fresh approach his first film had. It’s not that the plot itself is a total mess — although it’s far from original — but mainly because its sense of humour à la Woody Allen shows way too much and it doesn’t even work half of the time. That and the fact that the ending is rather predictable turns it into a feature not to be remembered. Leonel (Wainraich) and Paola (Peterson) have been married for 12 years, they have two children, they enjoy their jobs — he’s a script writer and she’s a psychologist — and they seem to have good times together. It’s all neat and tidy. But what about the passion and desire they once had and is now not to be found? That’s the question they ask themselves, after a couple they’ve been friends with for years announces they’ve broken up. Such unpredicted news stirs uncomfortable emotions, and over the course of one night out, both Leonel and Paola will have to face a crisis of their own. So you have a dramatic comedy that borrows heavily from Woody Allen, not only in the situations the characters are involved in but mainly in the dialogue filled with snappy one-liners that don’t ring authentic. In fact, they seem to come out of a screenwriting handbook. Moreover, many times, a gag’s punch line comes to mind before the characters utter it and that isn’t a good sign if we’re talking about a dramatic comedy that aims at being surprising. The performances are definitely not out of this world. But they aren’t awful either. If Peterson and Wainraich don’t have as much chemistry between them as the story requires, it’s not their fault. Once again, the problem is the script which has them say and do things that have been said and done in many other films before. Actors are just actors, they can’t perform miracles. And when comedy turns into drama, things get more discouraging. Regarding the problems examined in the film — the routine in a long marriage, the lack of strong desire, and the burden of having children when wanting to be alone — the screenwriter’s gaze is shallow and so it can’t unveil anything new. Yet, perhaps, Una noche de amor may work in some basic level, but the point is that it fails in so many other ones. production notes Una noche de amor (Argentina). Directed by Hernán Guerschuny. Written by Sebastián Wainraich. Starring Sebastián Wainraich and Carla Peterson. Cinematography: Marcelo Lavintman. Music by Juan Blas Caballero. Running time 90 minutes. @pablsuarez