John Clancy (Anthony Hopkins) is a psychic who can see people’s future by touching them and touching objects — although sometimes he just has visions without touching anyone or anything just because he’s a psychic, you know. He worked with the FBI in a number of cases in the past, but now he pretty much lives secluded ever since his 20-something daughter’s death from leukaemia — to make him more of cliché, he also drifted apart from his wife following their loss. Nevertheless, FBI agent Joe Merriweather (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) calls him to ask for help in a serial killing case nobody seems to be able to crack. Because whereas the killer (Colin Farrell) leaves some clues here and there, there are no forensic details or evidence of any kind. To make matters worse, John realizes that the killer also has psychic abilities. In fact, this serial killer outdoes him big time. Which should mean that catching him would be nearly impossible — but afterwards it turns out it was quite easy. This story of a psychic working with the FBI to hunt down a serial killer has been the stuff of many movies before. And if you have the faintest idea that Solace is going to bring something new to such an overworked scenario, then dream on. Actually, the fact that the killer is also a psychic — which means you should expect a duel between psychics at the end — is all the more disappointing. Of course, the psychic is a withdrawn smartass, yet deep down he’s a caring man who’s suffering in solitude. The FBI agent is also a sensitive man who bears his own personal burden: he’s also stricken down with cancer — first in remission, but then spreading again conveniently when the script says so. The female FBI agent who helps him out is … well, it’s hard to say what she’s like because she’s such an underwritten character that you wonder why she exists at all. To be fair, there’s a very contrived ending seen twice, first in a premonition and then in reality, that needed someone on the verge of losing their life. Other than that, she’s useless. And there’s the psychopathic killer. He’s got great looks, a deranged gaze, a carefully restrained tone of voice, and the required personal philosophy that justifies his mercy killings, as he calls them. Because he only kills terminally-ill people who were in agony and were going to suffer even more in the near future. Basically, this is a serious film with serious ideas about serious issues: the many meanings of justice, morals at large, the unmistakable hand of destiny, to be or not to be God — you get the point. Add to the above a handful of tacky premonitions meant to have a dreamlike nature and yet they looking like scenes taken right out of a posh and polished TV commercial, a heavy-handed and disruptive musical score that seems to belong to a different movie, the two psychics spelling out their views on life and death in their duel, artificial dialogue with trite one-liners, the fact that the serial killer appears an hour into the film when you were about to exit the theatre, some unexplainable montage sequences with moronic symbolism, and an awful use of hand-held camera. And don’t get me started on the subtext because there’s simply none. What you see is what you get, and what you get is considerably less than what you have in your average serial killer thriller — with or without psychics. Production notes Solace (US, 2015). Directed by Alfonso Poyart. With: Sir Anthony Hopkins, Colin Farrell, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Abbie Cornish. Editing: Lucas Gonzaga. Running time: 101 minutes. @pablsuarez
By Pablo Suarez Argentine filmmaker Bruno Hernández’debut feature 8 tiros is a crime thriller with a noir edge that looks good but never rings quite true. Despite formal achievements in cinematography, sound and art direction, the story of two brothers trying to seal a dark past is filled with clichéd dialogue, wooden performances, underdeveloped characters, and unconvincing action scenes and shoot-outs. Upon his mother’s death, Juan (Daniel Aráoz) comes back to town to settle long delayed scores with his older brother Vicente (Luis Ziembrowski), a high-ranking local mobster involved in drugs and prostitution. As youngsters, Juan worked for Vicente for a long time, but afterwards he wanted out of the crime world. Vicente felt Juan’s exit like an act of treason so he sent his men to kill him. Which didn’t go as planned, and yet Juan was left for dead. That happened seven years before and now Juan has returned for his payback. There’s good atmosphere in 8 tiros and the film is mostly consistent, from beginning to end. Highly-contrasted photography with drained-out tones — or very saturated ones, according to the dramatic nature of the scene — is accompanied by a cohesive art direction that firmly establishes the traits of the environment; and when not overused, sound also adds extra layers to the overall ambiance. To a certain degree, 8 tiros looks good. But as far as the rest goes, it’s all too generic and not even well-executed. When the characters are this underdeveloped, only great performances can make a small difference. Which is not the case here. The actors sound as though they were reciting their lines, not even believing in the characters they play. Clichés flow in a seemingly endless stream, ushering in feeble action scenes and risible shoot-outs, half-cooked stereotypes and no sense of true suspense at all. So much for yet another local attempt to tackle a genre that may appear to be not that difficult to pull off. When the truth is, this shouldn’t be so hard. Production notes: 8 tiros (Argentina, 2015). Directed by Bruno Hernández. Written by Andrés Gelos, Luis Langlemey, Javier De Nevares. With Daniel Aráoz, Luis Ziembrowski, Leticia Brédice, Alberto Ajaka, Roly Serrano, Alejandro Fiore. Cinematography: Julián Apezteguía. Art direction: Graciela Fraguglia. Running time: 87 minutes @pablsuarez
“I wanted to talk about what it feels like to be a girl and a woman in today’s Turkey, where the condition of women is an important public matter, more than ever before. It’s obvious that the fact that I have a different perspective because of living in France plays a key role in my outlook. Every time I go back, I have an oppressing feeling that startles me,” says Turkish-French female filmmaker Deniz Gamze Ergüven about Mustang, her accomplished film debut co-written with French screenwriter and director Alice Winocour. It premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight of the Cannes film festival, was featured at the Toronto filmfest, then nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Golden Globes, and has recently been nominated for Best Foreign Language Film (representing France) for the upcoming Academy Awards. In addition, it’s been critically acclaimed and has been regarded as a Turkish version of Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides — which is partly right as Coppola’s film is narrated from a male perspective whereas Mustang is narrated from one the sisters’ point of view. For Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s opus addresses the fierce oppression imposed by an extremely conservative environment upon the blossoming of female sexuality. Girls just want to be girls, but certain families and certain societies won’t let them. However, repression can’t last forever. For better or for worse, a change is bound to come sometime. Mustang is set in Turkey in a distant Black Sea village and filmed in Turkish by a director who’s been living in France for many years, hence its European art-house style. It takes place in summer, it’s the last day of school and Lale (the youngest sibling) and her four sisters are spending some time at the beach. Together with a couple of local boys, they play in the sea. They sit on their shoulders and throw water at one another. They laugh. They have fun. A neighbour, an old woman, sees them and tells their grandma. To their eyes, the girls’ spontaneous game is nothing but masturbating on the boys’ bodies. They should know better than rubbing their bodies together. So the girls get beaten by their uncle, are subjected to virginity tests and then locked in the house. Almost all personal items are taken away from them: mobile phones, make up, informal clothing, computers, … you name it. In turn, many aunties come to teach the sisters all sorts of domestic skills, cooking at the top of the list. However, there are some moments of freedom as the sisters manage to flee the house for a soccer game, for instance. But they pay a high price for their daring behaviour. Literally and figuratively, the house turns into a very hard to escape prison. And this is only the beginning. At first, what strikes you the most about Mustang is the caliber of the performances of a largely unknown cast of young women. There’s such naturality and authenticity that only because of that you are bound to feel you are watching quite a good film not even ten minutes into it. Secondly, there’s smooth camerawork that never draws attention to itself but instead captures the character’s emotions and thoughts with uncanny sensitivity. It’s the sort of camerawork that subtly elicits meanings from the characters rather than spelling them out. Moreover, there’s a well established sense of space, as the house, for instance, is seen from all angles and yet it always remains a prison. The outside world remains elusive as the girls are an island onto themselves. And yes, there’s a feeling of oppression too, from beginning to end. As far as formal values, Mustang is a finely-tuned piece of work. Not an extraordinary one for there’s nothing groundbreaking here, but one that’s been crafted with talent and care. As far as the narrative goes, the script works fine more often than not. Characters are developed enough; their interaction is believable, they sound and act in a credible fashion. And the episodes and occurrences are never contrived. That is until you reach the ending. Because the ending does somehow change the nature of the film. Though what happens could perhaps take place in real life (although it’s very unlikely), it nonetheless is the stuff fables are made of. Perhaps only a fable could bring about freedom. Realism couldn’t account for it. Maybe, the ending is what you would like to see happen. At least for once. But you know it can’t happen. In any case, it’s true that it feels artificial and it minimizes the overall bleakness of an otherwise somber panorama. And yet this is deliberate, that’s for sure. On the other hand, it could be the filmmaker’s way of saying: there’s life as long as there’s hope, so to speak. Clearly, she wanted to tell a story of triumph, albeit with its casualties. In this sense, it has nothing to do with The Virgin Suicides which, even if romanticized, it still more realistic —all the more so its ending. @pablsuarez
Written and directed by Gonzalo Calzada and set in Buenos Aires in 1871, the Argentine feature Resurrección tells the story of Aparicio (Martín Siplak), a young priest who after undergoing a mystical experience sets out to help those infected with the deadly plague. But before arriving in Buenos Aires, Aparicio unexpectedly visits his family house and the scenario he finds is more than unsettling: almost everybody has died. And those who survive are not in good shape — just like the large, abandoned old family house. Soon, more mystical experiences take place and in due time Aparicio starts questioning the nature of his own fate as well as the meaning of life, all the more so in view of such a dreadful panorama. Consider that resurrection in times of the yellow fever comes at a high price. Calzada’s opus belongs to the fantastique and more precisely it would fall into the realm of horror. However, such labels do not do it full justice. The imminence of death in a doomed universe, the appearance of ghosts, supernatural happenings and a small dose of fear are just elements to draw a larger picture with existential resonances. In a sense, Resurrección is a study of a character sunk in an acute crisis with himself and his environment. Whereas there are certain assets from an aesthetic point of view, namely the accomplished cinematography that creates a nightmarish world with very much darkness and an ominous atmosphere, the art direction that recreates quite well the period, and the sound design that gives the film its feeling of underlying tension, the story itself has a very hard time at being dramatic and gripping. Resurrección is a film that looks good, but has not much of a pulse. Like its characters, it’s infected and on the verge of dying anytime soon. Too talkative, quite devoid of suspense, with long stretches where little happens, an overall sense of tediousness, and too explanatory for its own good, Resurrección is far from the film it might have been. Add the fact that the characters are not exactly what you’d call developed and that Siplak delivers an unconvincing performance, what you have is a perfect storm. Production notes Resurreción (Argentina, 2015). Written and directed by Gonzalo Calzada. With Martín Slipak, Patricio Contreras, Vando Villamil, Adrián Navarro, Diego Alonso, Ana Fontán, Lola Ahumada. Cinematography: Claudio Beiza, Miguel Caram. Art direction: Sebastián Roses. Editing: Alejandro Narváez. Running time: 110 minutes. @pablsuarez
Filmmaker Varone masters the art of subtlety in his debut feature Camino a La Paz Points: 8 “Camino a La Paz is a tale about the meeting of two antagonistic persons, two cultures and two ways of being in the world. That is to say, an opportunity for mutual learning as a trip from Buenos Aires to La Paz brings together two men who find themselves in very different moments in their lives,” says filmmaker Francisco Varone about his sensitive debut feature Camino a La Paz, winner of the Bronze Alexander Award at the Thessaloniki Film Festival and that also won Ernesto Suárez the Best Argentine Breakthrough Performance Actor Award at the Mar del Plata International Film Festival. Sebastián (Rodrigo De La Serna) is a newly married 35-year-old man whose main obsessions are his car, an old Peugeot 505 SR, and the music band Vox Dei. Jobless and somewhat unsettled, he’s in urgent need of cash and so he starts working as a gypsy cab driver. It fits like a glove: it’s not a tough job and it allows him to be with his beloved car at all times. What he didn’t expect is that he would soon be making a 3,000-km trip from Buenos Aires to La Paz, Bolivia. It so happens that one of his new clients, Jalil (Ernesto Suárez), an Argentine Muslim, is in dire need to visit his brother who lives in La Paz. And for medical reasons, he can only do the trip by car. Of course, he doesn’t drive either. So when Jalil asks Sebastián to take him to La Paz, Sebastián first says it’s out of the question. But, you know, the money is pretty good and the old man is as harmless as he is honest. It’s a piece of cake. So off they go en route to La Paz. Yet if Sebastián had only known the many obstacles they’d find on the road, he’d have never taken such a ride. But there’s no point in crying over spilled milk: after all, road movies are all about curves and hurdles. Meaningful long trips are filled with some or many unexpected difficulties and occurrences, which eventually give rise to meaningful inner transformations for those who have embarked on the trips. So you have to see the outer journey as a metaphor for the inner one, and consider that often times the end result is far from what the travellers had envisioned prior to departure. Like the cycles of life itself, if you will. And while Camino a La Paz is not what you’d call a breakthrough in the history of road movies, the truth is it doesn’t have to be one. More precisely, it doesn’t want to be one. Instead, what you have is an accomplished genre piece which effortlessly follows predetermined narrative conventions and almost always makes the most out of the vicissitudes on the road. And it does so in a subtle way, with no stridence. Director Varone knows better than to have his characters utter pretentious truths or enlightening messages to viewers. With a notable sense of spontaneity and naturalism, Camino a La Paz draws a moderately nuanced portrayal of two individuals at odds with their lives. Sebastián and Jalil are not hopelessly sunk in acute crisis, which makes them particularly appealing since their dilemmas come across as more immediate and ordinary. It’s the bond they establish that gives the film its nobility, and it’s no coincidence that such a bond looks and sounds so real since Varone has done a terrific job in coaching his actors in order to have them develop the essential chemistry for the story. You can even sometimes feel the real exhaustion of the trip in their faces, voices, and gestures. The invisible editing by Alberto Ponce and Federico Peretti keeps the film unfolding at a precise rhythm that’s neither fast nor slow, just like the unobtrusive camerawork by Christian Cottet captures the actors’ most expressive moments and more. In synch, Manuel de Andrés provides a realistic sound design and properly brings to the foreground what matters the most, and last but not least, the art direction by Daniela Podcaminsky gives the film an unmistakable air of its time as great atmosphere is achieved with few elements. Production notes Camino a La Paz (Argentina, the Netherlands, Germany, 2014). Written and directed by Francisco Varone. With Rodrigo De La Serna, Ernesto Suárez, Elisa Carricajo, María Canale. Cinematography: Christian Cottet. Editing: Alberto Ponce, Federico Peretti. Running time: 94 minutes. @pablsuarez Increase font size Decrease font size Size Email article email Print Print Share Vote Not interesting Little interesting Interesting Very interesting Indispensable
Uruguayan Quixote embarks on justice quest Héctor Noguera and Néstor Guzzini in a scene from Álvaro Brechner’s Mr. Kaplan. Mr. Kaplan is an intimate journey with traits of local road movie unwinding leisurely “I’ve always been particularly attracted to characters with quixotic traits; I mean characters whose longing for epic adventures turn them firmly against the absurd circumstances of their reality. Men who use their fertile imagination as a survival tool in their everyday boring existence, and in so doing, they find a way to avenge death and oblivion,” says Uruguayan filmmaker Alvaro Brechner (Mal día para pescar) about his recently-released sophomore film Mr. Kaplan. Nominated for Best Ibero-American film at the Goya Awards and submitted as the Uruguayan entry for Best Foreign Film at the 2014 Academy Awards, Mr. Kaplan won Best Latin American Feature Film at last year’s Mar del Plata festival. In addition, it won seven major prizes, including Best Film and Best Screenplay, by the Uruguayan Film Critics Association. Now, is this much ado about nothing? No, it’s not. However, Mr. Kaplan is not an avant-garde feature that will dazzle you with cinematic flourishes or an out-of-this-world narrative. It doesn’t have to be one and it doesn’t want to be one. Which is just fine. What you have, instead, is a film that fmost of the time works just as it should, if not better; it’s deftly directed with an alluring mise-en-scene and impeccable cinematography, and it has two leads that infuse their roles with as much humanity and credibility as required to render them true personas with sound dilemmas. The Quixote-like character that Brechner refers to is Jacobo Kaplan (Héctor Noguera) a 75-year-old Jewish man struggling with an acute existential crisis. He arrived in Uruguay long ago fleeing the Holocaust during WWII. As a child, he thought that being named after a biblical patriarch meant he was surely destined for great things. Yet life itself proved otherwise. He feels he’s done very little with his life, and of top of that he’s overridden with questions such as: “What’s the meaning of my life?” “Is the world a better place thanks to me?” “Did I make a difference?” Growing old is difficult for everybody, and considering the circumstances, it’s even more so for good old Jacobo. So, pretty much out of the blue, he sets himself on a mission: after watching a news report about a Nazi hierarch likely living at large and in peace on nearby beaches, he decides it’s high time he embarked on a venture to capture and expose him. Together with his friend Wilson Contreras (Néstor Guzzini), his own Sancho Panza, so to speak, he begins his wild chase for justice and meaning. Mr. Kaplan, the film, is neither a comedy nor a drama, and it’s not your conventional dramatic comedy either. It’s something very personal, somewhere in between those two genres, with a strong dose of deadpan humour and unexpected moments of emotional resonance with no humour at all. And this pretty-difficult-to-achieve tone is what keeps it breathing new air from the first frame to the last, at an assured pace thanks to a leisured editing. And just like words make their own rhythm, so do expressive silences and powerful pauses here and there. In a more profound sense, Mr. Kaplan is an intimate journey with traits of a local road movie that reveals its own shape as it goes along. When you thought you knew where it was going, a new path will be revealed. Just like life itself. Production notes Mr. Kaplan (Uruguay, 2014) Produced, written and directed by Álvaro Brechner. With Néstor Guzzini, Rolf Becker, Nidia Telles, Nuria Fló, Gustavo Saffores, Hugo Piccinini. Cinematography: Álvaro Gutiérrez. Editing: Nacho Ruiz Capillas. Running time: 98 minutes. @pablsuarez
Italian actor at the heart of over-the-top dramedy By Pablo Suarez Family reunion turned brawl is a frequent film theme, too frequent to do it efficiently Points: 5 In Latin Lover, Italian director Cristina Comencini attempts to bring to life a comedic ensemble of the family type, in which five daughters of Saverio Crispo, a famous Italian star, all born to different mothers and with different nationalities, gather on the 10th anniversary of his death to pay homage to his career. Soon, the meeting turns into adequate territory for recriminations, fond memories, disclosures of long-hidden secrets, emotional outbursts and unexpected romantic entanglements. By the time the rendez vous is over, all these women and the few men who accompany them will no longer be the same. Both a myth and a true womanizer, Saverio could never settle down with just one partner. Hence, the many love affairs and the many daughters. Each woman has a very personal appreciation of Saverio, depending on the affection and care — or lack of it — they've received from him. It’s like any other family, with a famous father or not. The overall performances are more than fine from the mostly female cast — Marisa Paredes; the late Virna Lisi in her last film role; and Candela Peña heading the list — Latin Lover has a hard time establishing the right tone and achieving some degree of verisimilitude. You believe the actresses; you just don't believe what happens to them. Many situations verge on the absurd and don't feel genuine. Instead, they seem to have been dictated by a screenwriter who wants to be outrageously funny and fails because of the artificiality of his product. That much of the drama is conveyed via dialogue hinders the nature of the entire film If you have your characters say basically whatever it's necessary to add subplots and reveal the family’s behind-the-scenes secrets, then there's no need at all to address the same issues in a more cinematic manner. Plus, as to emphasize the absurdity of some situations, actors go over the top saying their lines and trying to bring forward some sense of true drama. Regrettably, it doesn't work. So, leaving aside some occasional scenes and, to a larger or lesser degree, all the performances, Latin Lover doesn't have much more to offer to demanding viewers familiar with situation comedy. Come to think of it, some scenes depicting the late Saverio and what he meant to his audience are indeed effective. Which isn't much to say. Production notes Latin Lover. Italy, 2015. Directed by: Cristina Comencini. Written by: Cristina Comencini, Giulia Calenda. With: Virna Lisi, Marisa Paredes, Angela Finocchiaro, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Candela Peña, Francesco Scianna, Lluís Homar, Neri Marcoré, Jordi Mollà, Pihla Viitala. Music: Andrea Farri. Cinematography: Italo Petriccione. Editing: Francesca Calvelli. Produced by Lionello Cerri. Distributed by: CDI. Running time: 104 minutes. @pablsuarez
Backwoods monster movie is a hit and miss By Pablo Suarez The Hallow is a very atmospheric feature which goes downhill pitifully toward the end With the ill-fated task of going deep into Ireland’s rural landscape, British conservationist and tree doctor Adam Hitchens (Joseph Mawle) has to venture into the woods and decide which trees are correct for milling. As you’d expect, the townspeople tell him that he’s a stranger, that he shouldn’t be there, and that in the woods there’s land that belongs to the Hallow, little ancient tree fairies once driven from their sacred lands. Of course, Adam and his wife Claire (Bojana Novakovic) ignore the warnings, and move into an isolated mill house along with their baby. And yes, soon they will have to fight to survive against demonic creatures living in the woods. Largely inspired in Irish fables and mythology, Corin Hardy’s The Hallow, also known as The Woods, is not your usual lousy horror film of the week that’s made with no sense of style or narrative. On the contrary: The Hallow is a very atmospheric feature, with an overall sense of doom, plenty wickedness and obscurity, and with an assured narrative — that is until the third act, meaning the last half hour, when it goes downhill pitifully. Great step up, fine development, and pretty awful downfall. Perhaps there are also too many elements tossed into one movie: demonic creatures (monster movie), fairy tale mythology, the family in ever-growing danger (a baby’s life at great risk), infectious zombie fungus, a hunted house also under siege, and a few other surprises better not to be disclosed here. Yes, it may be too much, but that’s not necessarily a problem because for the most part the amalgam works quite well since each element is introduced within its own logic and it is thematically and even aesthetically connected to the others. Leaving the accomplished cohesion aside, what’s even better is that The Hallow is one of those films that hinge heavily on a very good use of cinematography — the lighting design doesn’t get any better — and multi-layered sound design to create a maddening, frightening, and often relentless ambiance of shock and surprise. Plus the performances are more than fine and so you have real life people, and not the usual dumb skulls of so many of today’s horror films, hence you can care for them as much as you cared for your favourite horror film victims. Dialogue is accordingly realistic. So far, so good. But then comes the third act. And what a mess it is. For starters, this is when the previous cohesion found in the many trends of horror is not to be found anymore. The screenplay takes all the possible wrong turns, because it’s trying to figure out which is the way to go — and finds none. And it’s all done so abruptly, in a way that betrays the carefully-crafted rhythm achieved before. In the end, you can see a better film could’ve been made with some of all these elements, that is, because less is usually more. Production notes The Hallow (US, 2015). Directed by Corin Hardy. Written by Corin Hardy, Felipe Marino. With Joseph Mawle, Bojana Novakovic, Michael McElhatton, Michael Smiley. Cinematography: Martijn Van Broekhuizen. Editing: Nick Emerson. Running time: 97 minutes. @pablsuarez
Alluring biopic traces the story of the most famous tango couple of all time A scene from the documentary Un tango más. By Pablo Suarez POINTS: 7 “There will never again be a tango couple like us. I think we were the couple of the 20th century and the 21st too. If I die and then I get to be born again, I would do exactly the same things. A tango dancer, above all things. I would do everything, except being with Juan,” says famous tango dancer María Nieves Riego referring to her lifelong tango partner Juan Carlos Copes — also her sentimental companion for many, many years — at the very beginning of the enticing, very well crafted documentary Un tango más, written and directed by Germán Kral (Música cubana, El ultimo aplauso) and produced by Wim Wenders, Rodrigo Furth and Germán Kral. The opening statement by María Nieves should give you a hint as to what the documentary is about. Firstly, it’s about the two dancers and the many years they spent together, with their huge artistic achievements as well as their romantic disillusions and suffering, though it’s also evident — even if they don’t say it out in loud— that they must’ve had a good share of solace and bliss. In the second place, it’s about how María Nieves became a tango dancer, from her humble origins to worldwide stardom. And you could say it’s also a trip down memory lane as she revisits the places she danced at, a trip filled with melancholy and nostalgia, yet uplifting at the same time. María Nieves and Juan Carlos Copes met at a milonga (tango dance hall) in Buenos Aires at the end of the 1940’s — now she’s 81 and he’s 84 — and they still can dance as though they were forever young. But they are not together anymore, neither artistically nor sentimentally. For five decades, they loved and hated each other, they separated a few times, but they always remained together as dancers, like true professionals do. That is, until Copes, for very personal reasons, decided to put an end to their partnership years ago. Kral’s seductive documentary skillfully resorts to many different sources to tell an unusual story. There’s valuable archive footage of the presentations of the couple in many places throughout time together here and abroad; tastefully done reenactments depicting fragments from the couple’s professional life; candid testimonies from both Nieves and Copes, and also from those who knew and know them well. There are also perfectly executed tango numbers evoking different periods in the couple’s career, now performed by young, novel dancers as well as by the Compañía de Tango de la Universidad Nacional de las Artes and the Compañía de Juan Carlos Copes. One of the many assets of Un tango más is its soft, reflexive tone, which allows interviewees to speak calmly and with total honesty — even when so much honesty triggers painful memories. Then, there’s the pristine, glossy cinematography with a different palette according to time and setting. In third place, there’s the smart and sensitive dialogue between María Nieves and the actors and dancer who play her and her companion. As a matter of fact, it’s mostly her assured voice and her luminous face, her youthful attitude and her kindness that first strike you. You first see the human being, then you see the artist. Moreover, unlike so many documentaries about tango, or just dance at large, which feature long musical numbers filmed in long shots from the point of view of a viewer seated in the first rows, Un tango más only features fragments from these numbers, for no more than a couple of minutes, and mainly to add substance to the central story. Fortunately, this is not filmed tango with a few testimonies here and there. There’s an important love story about two legendary dancers, and another stronger, perhaps stronger — that of the love for tango in a way that elevated it to sublime nature status. Production notes Un tango más (Argentina/Germany, 2015). Written and directed by: Germán Kral. With María Nieves, Juan Carlos Copes, Pablo Verón, Alejandra Gutty, Juan Malizia, Ayelén Álvarez Miño, Pacho Martínez Pey, Johana Copes. Cinematography: Félix Monti, Jo Heim. Music: Luis Borda, Sexteto Mayor, Gerd Baumann. Sound design: Celeste Palma. Editing: Ulrike Tortora. Art direction: Matías Martínez. Produced by Win Wenders, Rodrigo Furth, Jakob Abrahamsson, Nils Dunker, Dieter Horres and Germán. Distributed by: Distribution Company. Running time: 84 minutes. @pablsuarez
Points: 5 In Marcel Gonnet Wainmayer’s documentary Valdenses (Waldensians), the recovery of the silent film Fideli per secoli, shot in the mid-1920s in the north of Italy and banned by Fascism, is one of the narrative devices to tell the history of the Waldensians, often called the forerunners of the Reformation, since their anti-Catholic stance goes back to the 12th century. They are also an 850-year-old community which in the last decades has defied the Vatican on issues such as the acceptance and validation of homosexuality and women’s right to abortion. Besides the scenes from the silent film, Valdenses also features fragments of the play Li Valdés, from the Gruppo de Teatro Angrogna, which tells a different version of the history of the Waldensians, as it tours diverse communities in Argentina and Uruguay. And in the US, the Waldensians of North Carolina stage the play From This Day Forward, yet another historical reading. And there are the testimonies of today’s representatives of the community, as well as drawings depicting key moments in the history of this singular community. On the one hand, Valdenses surely tells a lot about its subject from its very beginnings, its development, crucial times in the history, and the community as it looks today. The many interviews are certainly knowledgeable and the information they provide is an important piece to make up a picture of multiple shades. Add to that the information you get from the movie and the plays. In little time, much is exposed. Yet the documentary feels like a history lesson that offers little insight and raises few queries. And it’s far too anchored on the spoken word — be it in the testimonies or on the dialogue and songs from the play. In fact, what seems most appealing are the images from the silent film and it’s a shame they are not put into any kind of dynamic dialogue with the rest of the material. They are there just to illustrate what the spoken word already explains. The point is not whether the Waldensians’ history in itself is interesting or not – that’s for you to decide – but it’s the way in which it is narrated that hinders the movie. It’s of not much help either that the editing lacks a seductive rhythm and there’s little dramatic crescendo at all. So if you care to know about the community, you will know quite a bit, with all sorts of details, facts, and explanations. And that’s that. Production notes Valdenses (Argentina, Italy, Brazil, 2015) Directed by Marcel Gonnet Wainmayer. Cinematography: Carlos Gindzberg. Editing: Marcos Pastor, Miguel Colombo. Running time: 78 minutes. @pablsuarez