In 1971, while dictator Franco ruled Spain, Argentine filmmakers Fernando “Pino” Solanas and Octavio Gettino regularly visited the residence of former Argentine president Juan Domingo Perón in Puerta de Hierro while he was exiled. The filmmaker’s intention was to clandestinely shoot a documentary on Perón, which would be later screened in Argentina. Throughout six months, Solanas and Gettino smuggled the documentary footage from Madrid to Rome, where the editing was done. If making the film was no easy task, screening it in Argentina would be an even harder task. Due to multiple political pressures, the documentary never saw the light of day. Even José López Rega, Perón’s own minister of social welfare, conspired against the film — which was left unfinished. But some 40 years later, in the summer of 2012, Solanas decided he would make a new film which would be articulated around the never-before-seen footage from the original project. A tool to understand Perón’s legacy, if you will. Over the course of three years, the filmmaker and a group of film students shot several new scenes in the country residence of San Vicente, Buenos Aires, which Perón and Evita had built in 1947. With a script in progress, these scenes were then to be intertwined with the original archive footage as well as new one — with both film clips and photographs — all of it glued together by a verbal narration, sometimes via voice over, from Solanas. And so El legado estratégico de Juan Perón was born. A few minutes into the film, you see one thing is for sure: the original footage featuring fragments of interviews with Perón is as valuable as it is insightful, from his many views on a social and participative democracy, his tireless struggle for political sovereignty and his strategies to overcome “imperialistic manoeuvres” from abroad as well as his Plan Trienal, which included schemes for tax reform, the nationalization of bank deposits, and a strong support of national industry — among other things. And this is just the beginning of a rather comprehensive history lesson on one of Argentina’s most influential political leaders. And it’s not only that the interviews are interesting because of the information, but also – or most importantly – because of the candid, confident and easygoing portrayal they provide of Perón, the man. On the other hand, the overall film doesn’t add up to much more than a didactic history lesson with a single viewpoint that never questions the figure of its protagonist. In this sense, it’s openly biased and so it’s up to you whether you buy it or not. Plus there are some important flaws in the film’s narrative, too. When comparing the impact of the rich original footage with the anecdotic new one, the film loses momentum. Solana’s educational narration, whether via voice-over or not, becomes rather tedious and not quite cinematic after a while. And the scenes depicting the new movie being shot don’t pull much dramatic weight either. However, if you want to become knowledgeable with a most important period of Argentina and interested in getting more than a glimpse at a such a prominent person as Perón, then El legado estratégico de Juan Perón will certainly do the trick. production notes El legado estratégico de Juan Perón (Argentina, 20 16) Written and directed by Fernando E. Solanas. Cinematography: Rino Pravato. Editing: Fernando E. Solanas/Alberto Ponce/Nicolás Sulcic. Sound: Santiago Rodríguez. Running time: 103 minutes. @pablsuarez
POINTS: 5 First of all, The Danish Girl is a well-meaning film. You should bear that in mind. Then, I guess it may even help to gain some sort of an understanding of some — very few — aspects of what the male to female transgender transition process is like. At least to uninformed, conservative, and usually older folks. So, in that regard, you could say it’s functional to a certain degree. It boasts a politically correct, sensitive, emphatic gaze towards its characters and it is careful enough — too careful — as not to wallow in their suffering. And that’s one of the substantial problems of Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl: not only has it reduced a complex and often painful issue to a conveniently simplistic affair with few layers and little existential suffering, but it has also changed essential facts about the real life story of Danish artist Lili Elbe (Eddie Redmayne), the first known transgender woman to undergo sexual-reassignment surgery. For that matter, it also takes opportune liberties to portray her devoted wife, Gerda Wegener (Alicia Vikander), who lovingly accompanied her husband Einar until he became Lili, every step of the way. And to tell their unique love story too. Of course, The Danish Girl is a fictional account of reality and as such it can take liberties. But in this case, the liberties taken are too handy to create an easier to digest product, a somewhat sanitized version that leaves out of the picture much of the intrinsically distressing, troublesome nature of the whole affair. No wonder it’s been nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Actor and Best Actress. As film critic Diego Trerotola clearly puts it in his thought-provoking article on the film recently published in the supplement Soy (Página/12), in both Hooper’s film and David Ebershoff’s eponymous novel which the film loosely adapts, Wegener is depicted as a heterosexual woman, when in fact she was openly bisexual and very happy about it. Also, once in Paris, she and her trans partner Lili had a joyful open relationship, which is totally wiped out in the film. To be more precise, according to Hooper, Gerda’s sole, everlasting love was Einar/Lili. Last, but by no means least, in the film Lili undergoes two surgeries: one to remove male genitalia, and then a vaginoplasty. In real life, she had five surgeries, the last one being a uterus transplant, which didn’t work. The real Lili wanted to be a mum, too. So, in The Danish Girl, Lili’s real groundbreaking journey as a transgender pioneer is quite shorter and considerably uneventful. Another substantial problem is the director’s penchant for inert pictorial compositions rather than lively and cinematic ones. Unfortunately, Hooper’s sense of pictorial composition is nothing like Kubrick’s in Barry Lyndon, for instance, which blends in with true cinematic splendour. If you remember The King’s Speech and Les Miserables, then it shouldn’t come as a surprise that The Danish Girl is overly stylish and filled with polished, lush cinematography, stately production design, out-of-this-world costumes, and an alluring musical score. It all looks so overwhelmingly gorgeous that you wonder how the human drama of the characters is going to fit in. Actually, we are talking about melodrama rather than arid drama, which by definition is not necessarily a bad choice for this type of material — just remember Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s harrowing In a Year with 13 Moons (1978), which follows the last days in the life of a struggling transsexual. Of course, Hooper is no Fassbinder, but we already knew that. But the kind of melodrama The Danish Girl goes for is very minor: predictable Hollywood stuff with a shallow approach always afraid to provoke stirring emotions and contradictory feelings in viewers. Once again, we are not talking about, say, William Wyler’s Wuthering Heights (1939) — not by a long shot. And then there are the performances. Alicia Vikander does a very good job as Gerda: she’s supportive when necessary, a companion always, furious when disappointed, and at odds when in crisis. In a sense, she’s the true protagonist of the film since her character is better explored than that of Lili, played by Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne, whom you surely remember from The Theory of Everything. As Stephen Hawking, he was quite convincing. As Lili, he’s not. No matter how hard he tries, what you see is a pale copy of what a transgender woman is like. It’s played by the motions. It’s formulaic. It’s all just too cute for its own good. Like the film itself. Production notes The Danish Girl (2015). Directed by Tom Hooper. Written by Lucinda Coxon, based on the novel by David Ebershoff. With: Eddie Redmayne, Alicia Vikander, Ben Whishaw, Sebastian Koch, Amber Heard, Matthias Schoenaerts. Cinematography by Danny Cohen. Editing by Melanie Oliver. Running time: 120 minutes.
Uncannily hypnotic aesthetics immerse viewers into the heart and soul of the jungle POINTS: 7 Winner of the Directors’ Fortnight top prize at Cannes, of Best Film at Mar del Plata, and nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film (Colombia), El abrazo de la serpiente (Embrace of the Serpent), the third feature by Ciro Guerra (The Wind Journeys) is nothing short of an aesthetic wonder where uncannily hypnotic visuals and pervasive eloquent sounds immerse you right into the heart and soul of the Amazon as you follow a voyage through jungles, rivers and places inhabited by natives often wary of white men. Think of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre, the Wrath of God, or of Miguel Gomes’ Tabu, and, of course, of F.W. Murnau’s Tabu, and you’ll get a fair picture of the territory and the viewpoint Guerra has undertaken in his new outing. Spoken in nine different languages and meticulously filmed in striking, stately black and white photography in widescreen, Embrace of the Serpent switches back and forth between two time periods to skillfully tell a moving ethnographic tale about the destructive nature of colonialism on local cultures and nature at large. Written by Guerra and Jacques Toulemonde, the script is based on the journals of two explorers who crossed the Colombian Amazon in the early 1900s and the 1940s: first there’s the German Theodor Koch-Grumberg, who here becomes the character of Theodor (Jan Bijvoet), and then there’s the American Richard Evans Schultes, that is to say, the character of Evan (Brionne Davis). Joining them in the different trips down the river narrated in parallel times there’s a local guide, Manduca (Miguel Dionisio Ramos), who has befriended white men as well as taken on Western customs. In the first story set in the 1900s, Theodor is seriously ill and in dire need of finding the yakuna, a rare flower that is supposed to heal him. In any case, if the yakuna can’t do so, then nothing will. There’s also Karamakate (Nibio Torres), a native shaman who certainly knows his way in the jungle and can lead Theodor to the flower he so much needs. But it so happens that Karamakate is the last man of his tribe, which was almost completely annihilated by invasions of white men in the past, so he’s rather reluctant to do what’s asked of him. Nonetheless, after some persuasive talk, off they go downriver and deep into the Amazon. Set in the 1940s, the second story concerns another expedition taken on by Evan, the American explorer also in search of the yakuna because of its healing powers. This time, Karamakate (who’s much older and is played this time by Antonio Bolívar Salvado Yangiama) seems a bit less wary, but equally disheartened seeing the footprint of Western civilization on his native land. Also an exploration of man and nature, this second story adds new layers in a more oblique manner. While Embrace of the Serpent is definitely a truly fine piece of narrative cinema, it could also be said some that at times it has more to do with the contemplative viewpoint of poetic cinema. However, there are two noticeable narrative missteps. First, there’s an unfortunate tendency to be conceptually recurring from time to time. That is to say that, for example, after depicting a handful of episodes illustrating the evil deeds of the white man — including a crazed priest from a Catholic mission who fiercely punishes native boys and a mutilated worker from a rubber plantation pleading to be killed as to end his suffering — you are likely to expect some sort of dramatic build-up to a discourse that opens up a new path, or perhaps something that would go beyond what’s already shown. Hence, from time to time, you may feel you’re being fed more of the same. Secondly, at 123 minutes, Embrace of the Serpent is overlong. Perhaps it’s because of some of its digressions, or its uniformity, or some of its not-so-insightful ideas. It’s strange because it’s a film that can certainly be subtle, and yet it’s not so throughout. And while it’s true that the editing is seamless, Guerra’s third outing could have used some 20 minutes less. Production notes El abrazo de la serpiente (Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, 2015). Written by Ciro Guerra, Jacques Toulemonde. Directed by Ciro Guerra. With Nilbio Torres, Antonio Bolivar, Yauenku Miguee, Jan Bijvoet, Brionne Davis. Cinematography: David Gallego. Editing: Etienne Boussac, Cristina Gallego. Running time: 123 minutes. @pablsuarez
The story of the Argentine-Ecuadorian-German production 87 takes place in two time periods. First, it unfolds in 1987, when Pablo (Nicolás Andrade), Andrés (Francisco Pérez), Juan (Andrés Alvarez) and Carolina (Jessica Barahona) were the best of friends who had the best of times while idling in an abandoned house they used as a meeting point for their teenage mischievous ventures. Perhaps Juan is the true rebel so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he runs away from home when his father, a strict policeman, wants to enrol him in military school. Then there’s an unexpected car accident which makes Pablo flee Quito as well, never to be seen again. That is until some 15 years later he comes back to Ecuador to settle old scores and be a part of a reunion with his old friends, which will make them confront a sweet bygone past with an unsettling present. 87 is narrated by switching back and forth between present and past, and among other things it posits that a single episode that happens in a mere few seconds can alter the lives of those caught up in it — not a very novel notion. It’s also a coming of age story and, as such, expect a depiction of the pain and bliss of love, the aches of jealousy, the value of friendship and some other facets of growing up as well. The thing is that, despite the filmmakers’ best intentions to tackle this coming-of-age story in a fresh manner, they seldom achieve it. You’ve seen many coming-of-age tales of this sort and nothing truly new is explored here. To a point, the young actors’ performances may be engaging, but it’s not long before they become formulaic and repetitive. Let alone the fact that all these characters are somewhat underwritten, which doesn’t help much. And while the film’s tone — sometimes reflexive, other times more vivacious — is firmly established from beginning to end, and so 87 boasts a certain appeal, it’s also true that the dramatic progression is weak and somewhat unsubstantial. On the plus side, the cinematography does have its good moments, in some particular scenes (especially in terms of an appealing composition and an equally appealing palette), plus an overall feeling of loss and melancholy ably permeate the drama. However, good ambiance can’t make up for an absence of pathos. So 87 does look good at times, but fails to probe deep into the very issues it addresses. Limited release BAMA (Av. Pres. Roque Sáenz Peña 1145) Hoyts Quilmes (Av. Calchaquí 3950). Production notes 87 (Ecuador, Argentina, Germany, 2014) Written and directed by Anahí Hoeneisen, Daniel Andrade. With Andrés Alvarez, Nicolás Andrade, Jessica Barahona, Francisco Pérez, Daniel Roepke. Cinematography: Daniel Andrade. Editing: Javier Andrade, Andrés Tambornino. Running time: 86 minutes. @pablsuarez
Burman’s new film is about an emotionally distressed son in search of his absent father POINTS:7 “It’s an army of volunteers organized into a circular net of givers and receivers, who in turn are also givers. People die and leave their belongings to the living, even if it’s just a few things. Maybe someone dies and leaves a prosthetic leg which somebody else needs — it has happened.” “Each time someone dies, the apartment is emptied and absolutely everything is recycled, even the credits left in a cell phone — as you can see in the film,” says Argentine filmmaker Daniel Burman about Pele Yoetz, a Jewish aid foundation created and led by a man named Usher, and a central element in his new outing El rey del Once (The Tenth Man, English title), which participates in the Panorama section at the Berlin Film Festival. Among other distinctions, Burman was a privileged guest at the festival back in 1998 when he presented his debut film Un crisantemo estalla en Cincoesquinas (A Chrysanthemum Bursts in Cincoesquinas), which received strong critical acclaim, and then in 2004 he won the Silver Bear for El abrazo partido (Lost Embrace). It now remains to be seen how El rey del Once — which represents both a comeback to his earlier films and also a new beginning — will do among other challenging features by accomplished directors such as Wayne Wang, Doris Dörrie, Andrew Neel, Ira Sachs, and Maximiliano Schonfeld. Far from being a documentary on the foundation, and yet with a carefully constructed documentary feel in many central scenes, Burman’s new venture into a part of the close-knit Jewish community in Buenos Aires examines a somewhat unusual bond between Usher, an omniscient father, and Ariel (Alan Sabbagh), his adult son, an economist who has built a successful career in New York and a man who has always sought his father’s acknowledgment, presence and approval ever since he was a child. He believes he’s left his somewhat unsatisfying past behind, and yet when his distant father summons him back to Buenos Aires, Ariel realizes he is to face some unresolved issues that still trouble his emotional life. El rey del once delves into Ariel’s dilemmas, those of today which originated in the past. You could say it’s a fact that sons need and want their parents to give them never-ending, exclusive love and attention, so the issue raised is how Ariel has developed emotionally, considering he has a father who gives everything to everyone to the point of neglecting his own family. And here lies one of Burman’s main concerns: the construction of fatherhood, which took centre stage in Lost Embrace, and to a lesser degree in Derecho de familia (Family Law, 2006) too. Just like in these previous films, Burman eschews going for a psychological approach or an introspective one, and instead the emphasis is placed on Ariel’s behaviour, his actions and reactions, which speak more clearly of what goes on inside him than any interpretation of his psyche. And while Ariel revisits a family environment as well as his childhood longings, he also opens up his heart to Eva (Julieta Zylberberg), a young Orthodox Jewish girl who first befriends him and then falls for him — as he does for her. But their interaction, unlike that of Ariel’s personal dilemmas with himself and his father, could use some more development since it tends to be more descriptive and anecdotal than anything else. Often, Eva comes across as an underused character — we know very little about her and she’s a somewhat generic character. You could also say that El rey del Once is also descriptive in other sequences other than those regarding the couple, and this doesn’t bring forward much substance to the drama. But in general this trip back home, its consequences, and its new appraisal of an uneasy childhood are ably depicted. Also at the core is what Burman calls the mystery of good, which can be explored with one single question: why does somebody give something without expecting anything in return? Why do some people love someone without necessarily wanting retribution? The point is that the distinctiveness of the mystery of good is not really in the giving end, but in the receiving one. For necessity does have a subjective quality and this is something Usher is more than aware of as he acknowledges what the particular needs and wants of other people are. That’s why the mystery of love differs greatly from charity, where what matters the most is the giving end as the determinant of what others need. In this sense, El rey del Once is both heartfelt and very precise, and never in a heavy-handed manner or a didactic one. After all, the issues addressed raise hard-to-answer questions rather than having easy and ready-to-use conclusions. With many subtleties here and there, Burman draws a portrayal that feels familiar and universal — even if it has very singular characteristics. From a formal point of view, the unobtrusive camerawork is impeccable, the sound design perfectly establishes both an atmosphere and a sense of space, the performances are more than well tuned, and the editing is seamless when necessary and more brisk when the drama calls for it. With a contagious sense of humour and an emphatic gaze, El rey del Once proves to be as enjoyable as it is sensitive, a new step which differs a great deal from previous films and a desirable return to his most personal works. An effective rebirth, if you will. Production notes El Rey del Once (Argentina, 2016). Written and directed by Daniel Burman. With Alan Sabbagh, Julieta Zylberberg, Dan Breitman, Elisa Carricajo, Elvira Onetto, Adrián Stoppelman. Cinematography: Daniel Ortega. Editing: Andrés Tambornino. Art direction: Margarita Tambornino. Costume design: Roberta Pesci. Sound: Miguel Tennina, Catriel Vildosola. Produced by Daniel Burman, Diego Dubcovsky. Running time: 100 minutes. @pablsuarez
Boy will never match Chucky POINTS: 3 Yes, the boy doll in The Boy is actually quite creepy. Mostly because it looks lifelike and ghostly at once. The eyes, the gaze, are pretty unsettling — it surely outdoes Annabelle. The bad news is that The Boy, by William Brent Dell, is never creepy — not by a fat chance. No matter how hard it tries, it will never match any Chucky movie, not even the mediocre ones. Great (Lauren Cohan, who plays Maggie in The Walking Dead series) is a US babysitter hired to take care of 8-year-old Brahms (whom she thinks a real boy) in a large manor in England. So no wonder she’s shocked to learn that Brahms is actually a life-sized doll. The fact that its “parents,” an old weird couple, do treat him as though he were a flesh and blood boy, is beyond belief. That’s why they give Great a set of rules to be followed while taking care of him/it. Of course, she occasionally disregards them and mayhem ensues. And yes, Brahms was once a human boy whose life ended tragically, as you might have guessed. So there you have a classic setup for a doll horror movie. And while the overall premise is absolutely overworked, The Boy still had some potential. But not if the whole affair was to be taken seriously in a realistic vein, because the disoriented script takes so many turns, verisimilitude sinks, and the only way to pull it off is to go for something way bizarre, a bit grotesque, and largely campy. But not once does the director acknowledge this. And don’t get me started on the turn of the screw in the ending, which wrongly insists on leaving the supernatural aside. Other missteps include ineffective scares (sometimes even risible), the absence of a disturbing atmosphere, barely sketched supporting characters, scarcely convincing performances (except Lauren Cohan, but she can only do so much with a character that’s dramatically inconsistent to the point of implausibility), a manor that’s not spooky, and no suspense at all. By the way, the ending also suggests the possibility of a sequel. Now, that’s scary. @PablSuarez
Riveting animated story of lost love in Anomalisa By Pablo Suarez POINTS: 8 Nominated for Best Animated Feature Film at the upcoming Academy Awards, Anomalisa, the exquisite new film by Charlie Kaufman — co-directed with Duke Johnson — is one of the saddest, most utterly touching examinations on why falling in love doesn’t usually lead to a relationship with true commitment and stability. It’s also about why falling in love doesn’t mean experiencing love in its deepest sense. What happens when the initial spark fades? Why is it that once love is found, it can instantly turn into a threat for those afraid of stirring feelings? Could it be that love is just a fleeting emotion? In tune with his gloomy perspective as a screenwriter in Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Synecdoche, New York (which he also directed), Kaufman this time goes for a riveting animated feature which is filled with aching drama — even if it occasionally is peppered by elements of comedy to make it easier to digest, without ever being naive. The story goes pretty much like this: Michael is a middle-aged author sunk in tedium and depression who arrives in Cincinnati to give a lecture on his line of work: Customer Service. A subtle irony lies in the fact that Michael may very well know how to please customers and thus increase the status of a given company, and yet he’s totally lost when it comes to recognizing what his own soul is craving. What’s even more discouraging is that he’s equally at odds when trying to understand the needs and wants of those he loves. Better said, of those he thinks he loves. Upon arrival, he attempts to meet an old flame and while the meeting does take place, the outcome is far from satisfying. It is then when he stumbles on Lisa and Emily, two women who are pretty fond of his work and have come to Cincinnati exclusively to attend his presentation. Michael is infatuated with Lisa’s gentle voice and so a sparkle of optimism appears. Far from pretty and with a scar on her face, Lisa can’t believe she’s the object of his desire — she says people usually like Emily. What follows is yet another story of repetition of facing the inability to live with deep affections. To Michael, love is a mere anomaly, this time embodied in Lisa, thence Anomalisa. One of the things that makes Kaufman’s new outing so special is the outstanding stop motion animation that renders the characters’ movements quite realistically. Secondly, there’s the great job done with their voices. No wonder: Michael is voiced by British actor David Thewlis, Lisa is done by Jennifer Jason Leigh, and every single other character in the film, male and female, is voiced by Tom Noonan. Then there’s a smart use of a palette that favours warm and welcoming colours, although the resulting contrast with the cold drama brings an unnerving feeling to the scenario. And the well-paced editing keeps the story flowing at a very appropriate rhythm. The melancholic version of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun sung by Lisa, which instantly mesmerizes Charlie, is just an unexpected bonus. It could be argued that once Kaufman makes his point, the film becomes a bit repetitive — and I’m not sure this is voluntary. Or that part of the final act loses momentum and feels somewhat automatic. The ending surely is meant to be abrupt and it makes sense with Michael’s refusal to allow feelings to blossom, but it still doesn’t have the same emotional resonance the movie had so far. These are the flaws within an overall accomplished feature that calls for second viewings to grasp some of the layers that are hard to see at first glance. Do so and you won’t be disappointed. Plus you may enjoy it more than the first time. Which is a rare thing, since many Academy Awards films tend to be more linear and far less challenging. So let’s welcome this much-needed exception. Production notes Anomalisa (US, 2015). Directed by Charlie Kaufman, Duke Johnson. Written by Charlie Kaufman. With David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Noonan. Cinematography: Joe Passarelli. Editing: Garret Elkins. Running time: 90 minutes. @pablsuarez
Arribeños is the name of a well known street in the neighbourhood of Belgrano, which years ago was part of a quiet middle-upper class residential area with few stores, restaurants, or even coffee shops. And while today the street largely remains that way, since the late 1990s a change has been taking place on the two blocks between Juramento and Olazábal: the Barrio Chino (Chinatown) now sits there, a busy commercial section where different generations of Chinese and Taiwanese people have settled. Arribeños is also the name of the cleverly written and directed documentary by Marcos Rodríguez (La educación gastronómica) and delightfully photographed by Ada Frontini (Escuela de sordos), which places a candid, clear, and sometimes intimate gaze at a universe otherwise known only from the outside. Not that Arribeños is a behind-the-scenes work about how business and deals are conducted in Barrio Chino, but in its place — and far more interestingly — is a comprehensive exploration of how the different types of migrants (and their descendants) live and relate to others in a place of their own that blends in the local culture. It’s in the human element where Rodríguez’s documentary finds its unique inspiration. As in most documentaries, there are many testimonies, but unlike most documentaries they are not conveyed in a conventional manner. Instead, they are communicated exclusively via voice over while stylishly images of the area are shown — so the usual boring talking heads are not to be seen. And these voices carry different feelings and thoughts from diverse folks: there are those who hardly speak Spanish, those who strive hard to learn it whereas others actually care more for Mandarin and Taiwanese. Also, there are those who feel they are downright Argentine, those who are homesick and still wish they’d go back, and some who are lingering somewhere in between. What’s most gripping is how effortlessly all these people open up for the filmmaker and how the filmmaker must have asked the right questions to get them to address common issues as well as singular details that define the many layers of an identity both established and in the making. You’d think that a string of statements would become tedious at one point or another, and yet that’s not the case at all. Much attention has been paid to language so what is said and how it’s said is never anecdotic or redundant. And there’s the alluring interplay with visuals. Frontini’s cinematography avoids clichés and often goes for large static and frontal shots that provide an overall view of the neighbourhood, its shops and diners. Imagine pictures of bright colours with an assortment of shapes and textures that come across as a living backdrop for the verbal stories. No specific actions are depicted; it’s not necessarily about showing people doing this or that for the camera. Instead, it’s about informally showing people with their things in their milieus just as they are. Original, insightful and far from solemn, Arribeños is a different and accomplished experience in the field of the ever increasing creative documentaries that seek to sing their own songs. Production notes Arribeños (Argentina, 2015). Written and directed by Marcos Rodríguez. With José Tseng, Máximo Li, Margarita Xie, Ana Kuo, Susana Cheng, Hugo Wu, Gustavo Ng, Antonio Lang, Carlos Ling, Roxana Huang, Lin Hsiao Chen. Cinematography: Ada Frontini. Editing: Matías Mercuri, Federico Mercuri. Running time: 76 minutes. @pablsuarez
Dancing Arabs is a heartfelt coming of age tale of a young Arab man in Jerusalem POINTS 8 “Living in the Middle East is a question of identity. All of us who live here have a long history on our backs, struggles for land, spiritual and religious boundaries, fears, terror, moments of grace, hope and hatred that have divided people and nations,” says Israeli director Eran Riklis (Lemon Tree, The Syrian Bride, Zaytoun) about the timely queries posed in his new film Dancing Arabs (also known as A Borrowed Identity), based on Sayed Kashua’s novel. More to the point, Riklis adds: “It doesn’t matter whether you live in Tel Aviv, Damascus, Jerusalem, Cairo, or Tira — the city where our protagonist is born — you still have to face who you are, what you believe in and where you want to be in the future. These are hard-to-answer questions and it’s even harder to live with them.” Those words perfectly describe the many dilemmas a bright, young Palestinian-Israeli man named Eyad (Tawfeek Barhom) has to face when he’s sent by his father, Salah (Ali Suliman) to a prominent boarding school in Jerusalem, where a new world with both joy and adversity awaits him. As a young man, Salah himself attended university in Jerusalem, but his political activism for the Arab cause triggered his imprisonment. Now, many years later, Salah is yet another Arab fruit-picker in Tira. So it makes sense he wants his son to have a better future that will allow him to live with dignity and also broaden his horizons. Being an Arab in Israel is certainly no easy task. In fact, upon arrival to his new school, Eyad is confronted with cultural and social issues that trouble his everyday existence. He’s also bullied and feels insulted by the anti-Arab ideology in the curriculum. Kashua has said many times that his novel is largely autobiographical — he’s an Arab accepted by the Israeli Jewish society even though he still acknowledges he’s part of the Arab community, which is mostly anti-Israel — here in the movie, the Arabs happily dance on their rooftops when the scud missiles hit Israel. Though much of the hatred Arabs feel for Jews is clearly depicted, so is the hostility and prejudice of Jews towards Arabs. On the plus side, he meets Jonathan (Michael Moshonov), a young man with multiple sclerosis whom he soon befriends. And there’s also an Israeli girl, Naomi (Danielle Kitsis), who has no prejudices and doesn’t feel an inch of hate toward him. On the contrary: she is smart, loving, and soon falls for Eyad. As he does for her. The thing is whether their love can blossom considering the unwelcoming environment filled with so many conflicts and differences. Dancing Arabs exposes the colours and nuances of the scenario, aims for subtlety and sometimes achieves it, depicts the characters as real human beings, and doesn’t fall into commonplace or agitprop. In general, the performances are more than decent, all the more so that of Barhom. For the most part, it’s well directed, it keeps an engaging pace and it delivers what you’d expect from it. But not entirely: the supporting characters could have used more personal traits, more flesh and bone. As is, even when they fulfil their purpose according to the script, they still come across as half-empty acting figures. However, the biggest problem Dancing Arabs has is that it doesn’t convey the tumultuous everyday life, the harsh realism the theme calls for, the disturbingly opposite views about the same matter. Even the love story between Eyad and Naomi is somewhat sugar-coated. In real life, things are far more problematic and unsettling. What you have in Dancing Arabs is more of a didactic and illustrative take on individual facets that speak of a larger picture that’s not always addressed with the gritty realism it calls for. In formal terms, there are some moments with an accomplished emotional atmosphere — such as when Eyad is in his car after being dumped by Naomi — some verbal exchanges are smart enough to maintain your interest, and the smooth editing does much to keep the story moving forward effortlessly. Plus an unexpected surprise towards the ending makes an important difference in the story. Production notes Dancing Arabs (Israel, Germany, France, 2014) Directed by Eran Riklis. Screenplay by Saved Kashua, based on his own novel. With: Tawfeek Barhom, Razi Gabareen, Ali Suliman, Danielle Kitsis, Yaël Abecassis. Cinematography: Michael Wiesweg. Editing: Richard Marizy. Running time: 104 minutes. @pablsuarez
First, the facts: La casa del fin de los tiempos, written and directed by Alejandro Hidalgo, is not only the first horror film produced in Venezuela, but also the most popular Latin American movie in 2013 — out of a total of 450 features. In Venezuela alone, it reached some 623.500 viewers in 41 weeks, it grossed more than US$45 million, and became the most seen movie in the country’s history — yes, even more than Sixth Sense, The Others, or The Conjuring. Now, despite these impressive facts and although you can clearly see that this is a film that was made with the best intentions, the result is far from accomplished. But don’t get me wrong: it’s not a total mess either. You could say it’s one of those films that have a good premise, a nice set up, and some surprising twists and turns. And yet when it comes to the general execution of its many parts, too many flaws surface. For starters, the horror doesn’t feel that horrific. Which is a must for a ghostly haunted house story. Consider the scenario: Dulce (Ruddy Rodríguez) is a married housewife with two kids, Leopoldo (Rosmel Bustamante) and Rodrigo (Héctor Mercado), who sees some apparitions in her dark, old house, which warn her that her children are about to be killed. She desperately tries to prevent the tragedy — and yet it happens: one of her sons is found dead, the other son is missing, and her husband, (Gonzalo Cubero) is found dead too. And then Dulce is imprisoned for crimes she didn’t commit. Thirty years later and under house arrest, she’s determined to find out the truth about the tragedy that has haunted her so much for so long. The first problem lies in the near total lack of an unsettling atmosphere. Yes, you have the usual tilted camera angles, the spots of bright lights and dark shadows, the distorted visual perspectives, the eerie sound effects, the ominous musical score, and so forth. But they don’t do the trick here. They just look too done-by-the-book, they don’t feel real, they don’t get you on a gut level — for that matter, they don’t strike a chord in an aesthetic level either. Think of a student film done with the best intentions and you’ll have a good idea of what La casa del fin de los tiempos looks like. The fact that the lead performance by Ruddy Rodríguez is almost always somewhat over the top is of not much help either — whereas the rest of the actors are quite inexpressive, so there you have an ill-fated combination. And to have the film’s plot be spelled out by the characters themselves isn’t exactly the best way to deal with cinematic narrative. On the other hand, it’s also true that by the time the film is over and you know what the whole mystery was all about, you can see the premise had good potential, even with a certain degree of originality. Once again: the general outline of the film is good, it works to a limited extent and it may prove rewarding for easygoing viewers. Surely the fact that Venezuela doesn’t have a tradition of horror cinema at all explains its popularity. And yet this haunted house is certainly no Amityville Horror. Production notes La casa del fin de los tiempos (Venezuela, 2013) Written, directed, and produced by Alejandro Hidalgo. With: : Ruddy Rodríguez, Rosmel Bustamante, Héctor Mercado, Gonzalo Cubero. Cinematography: Cezary Jaworski. Editing: Judilam Goncalvez, Miguel Ángel García, Alejandro Hidalgo. Running time: 97 min. @pablsuarez