Maybe you just can’t remake Poltergeist. See what happened with Carrie (1976) when Kimberly Pierce tried to reboot Stephen King’s and Brian De Palma’s classic: the result was a film that wanted to closely mimic the original and yet ended up being a lousy copy. Maybe Steven Spielberg’s and Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist (1982) — the former produced it, the latter directed it, or so is credited even though some say Spielberg took charge of it all — is another case in point. Like Carrie, Poltergeist belongs to the time it was made. Its naiveté, the affectionate nature of its characters, the wholesome family, and its fable-like story is pretty much 1980s stuff. Even the poltergeist phenomenon itself was a typical topic back then. So if you are to remake it, then you’d better go for a new version inhabited by new personalities with a different tone in different times. That would be one way to go. The only other possible way to go would be to preserve both the essence (as regards the contents) and the spirit (as regards the style) of the original, and make sort of an update, if you will. The first huge problem with Poltergeist (2015), directed by Gil Kenan (Monster House, Ember City) is that it is neither a new version with new twists nor a worthy update that preserves the original. In fact, it’s nothing much of anything. The storyline is somewhat the same: a loving all-American family whose suburban home is haunted by evil forces, that is to say poltergeist, must join forces in every possible way to rescue their youngest daughter from wherever it is the mysterious apparitions on the TV set had taken her to. And then get the hell out of the house. Let’s not bother with the arbitrary changes — the characters’ names, the gender of the top medium, the family’s economics, no dog, no canary, no swimming pool — and instead focus on the major flaws. For starters, the main and supporting characters are neither likeable nor dislikeable for they lack the minimum development to turn them into beings we can care for. These characters don’t suffer, don’t yell at the top of their lungs, don’t get desperate, and don’t freak out. So once again, why are we supposed to worry about them? Furthermore, the tangible suspense and intrigue of the original film is never found in this remake. Things just happen out of the blue with no proper dramatic build-up, and even worse, they happen all at once. That is to say, you get to see a house with no haunting signals and then, overnight, all hell breaks loose. Whatever happened to the sense of mystery? Why not lead viewers into a dark scenario little by little, just like the characters are meant to be introduced to it, and then slowly reveal what the scenario is all about? Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist was not about shocking audiences, it was about surprising them with style and then dazzling them with state of the art F/X administered in the right doses. Gil Kendan’s Poltergeist is about CGI being shown as soon as possible so that more CGI effects can come up afterwards. Tobe Hooper’s magical feature had a contagious sense of humour, both domestic and authentic. Gil Kendan’s mechanic movie has no sense of humour at all, and when it tries to be funny, it rings false. And there’s one unnecessary change, which is, you get to see the other side of the TV screen, the other plane where the little girl has been taken. Leaving the fact it is one more chance to display more F/X, nothing really happens there. It’s not explored as a dramatic space, you just get to see it and that’s it. They are set pieces made with a big budget that have no weight whatsoever as regards the script. So there’s no character development, no tension, no magic, and no humour. What’s left then? Well, there’s a different ending too. It’s so farfetched and trite — and also whimsical — that it can only prove that you’ve been wasting your time watching yet another lame remake. In turn, you also understand a simple truth you may have known before you entered the movie theatre: you just can’t remake Poltergeist and get away with it. Production notes Poltergeist, US, 2015. Directed by: Gil Kenan. Music: Marc Steritenfeld. With: Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt, Kennedy Clements. Distributed by: Fox Films Argentina. NC13. @pablsuarez
Winner of the prestigious Critics’ Award at Cannes, and deservedly so, Jeremy Saulnier’s revenge thriller Blue Ruin tells a story you are most likely to be familiar with. It’s about Dwight (Macon Blair), an inscrutable vagabond with a messy beard who lives inside his worn-out car and scavenges for leftovers in garbage bags. Every now and then, he squats in other people’s homes while the owners are away, simply to enjoy a decent bath — never to steal. He sometimes fishes, spends time at the beach, and reads books at night. He leads a pretty substandard life, and yet it’s hard to know how he feels about it, as he is one of the most opaque characters seen in recent cinema. On a given day, he finds out that the man who murdered his parents has been released from jail. Soon, the look on his face shows a man in pain, desperate and disturbed at once. It doesn’t take long until he makes a decision: he’s going to kill his parents’ killer. Later on, we’ll see that, if necessary, he’ll kill the killer’s loved ones as well. But he can’t imagine that he’ll be swept into a never-ending circle of revenge that won’t necessarily pay off as he’d expected. Shot on a shoe-string budget, Blue Ruin spins its tale unlike similarly-themed films. For starters, it’s a unique slow burner that builds up suspense with admirable skill. Even though you may guess what’s to come up next, that’s no reason to make the story any less gripping. All because the focus of this drama is not so much on the killings — which, by the way, are very well executed — but in the inner turmoil and insecure behaviour of the protagonist. This is the type of revenge movie that doesn’t have a hero, but an anti-hero. Dwight is no killer — until he becomes one — and so he doesn’t even know how to properly fire a gun of any kind. And while revenge is on his mind, it’s not in his heart always. At times, it seems that he believes he must avenge his parents, but whether he really wants to do it is hard to say. And this ambiguity is one of the first commendable merits of Blue Ruin. Ambiguity is also to be found in the film’s discourse about violence and revenge. We are prompted to identify with Dwight and share his point of view — as a very alert camera follows him everywhere — but how we are supposed to feel about the bloodbath is actually quite uncertain. This is not a movie about a vigilante that rights a past wrong and then everything goes back to normal — on the contrary. One thing is clear though: futility is bound to take centre stage, sooner rather than later. Also, there’s a good degree of dark irony and downright absurdity in how the events unfold, which makes Dwight’s mission all the more dramatic. But was the absurdity of it all avoidable, provided the scenario had been better prepared? Or is this the way these things go and so, no matter what, you have to accept them? Although there isn’t that much dialogue, the unsettling sound design conveying Dwight’s inner turmoil is as eloquent as it gets — and also a bit scary. There’s something disturbing about the lack of information about Dwight, other than the bare essentials that make up a minimalist narrative where we are asked to witness without passing judgment upon these tragic events.
“Even if the person photographed was today completely forgotten, even if their name had been erased forever from the memory of men — and in spite of this, or actually precisely because of this — that person, that face demanded a name, they would demand not to be forgotten,” says renowned Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben in his book Profanations, and these words are ably quoted by Argentine filmmaker Alejandro Fernández Mouján to express the goal of his new documentary Damiana Kryygi, the infamous story of an Aché girl who, after surviving her family’s being massacred by colonists, was doomed to become, over the years, an object of scientific study for anthropologists from the Museum of Natural Science of La Plata. The Aché people are a traditional nomadic hunter-gatherer tribe living in small groups and completely reliant on the resources of the wild forest in eastern Paraguay. From the conquest period to the 20th century, the Aché, like so many other tribes, suffered ongoing abuses by rural Paraguayan settlers, ranchers, and landowners. In the early 20th century, the Northern Aché were the sole inhabitants of nearly 20,000 sq km, but in time they ended up confined on a couple of reservations with barely more than 50 sq km. Not only that, they were also decimated and enslaved as to remove them from their ancestral homeland so that multinational investors could develop the lands for their own profit. Of course, you’ve heard this kind of story before. However, there’s something quite unique about the story of Damiana Kryygi, which is very well told in Fernández Mouján’s inspired documentary. First, the facts: it’s 1896 and in the thick Paraguayan jungle, a three-year-old Aché girl survives the massacre of her family at the hands of white settlers. Their captors call her Damiana, and anthropologists of the Museum of Natural Science of La Plata, Argentina, turn her into an object of study for their racial research. When she turns 14, after showing a very natural, healthy and uninhibited sexual behaviour, she’s locked in a mental asylum. And as to continue with the racial studies, she is photographed naked by anthropologist Robert Lehmann Nitsche in 1907. Two months later, she dies of tuberculosis, which inconceivably (or not) none of the professionals surrounding her had paid attention to. From then on, another long and more uplifting story begins to unfold, one that has to do with finding and repatriating her remains — but this story is for you to learn while enjoying Damiana Kryygi, the film. With nearly perfect editing, carefully-designed photography, the right narrative tempo, and telling testimonies that are never anecdotic, but instead go for the most visible issues as well as those that lie underneath, Fernández Mouján’s new film is a valuable document, both emotionally-moving and intellectually-stimulating, that pays respectful tribute to a story filled with pain — but also with hope. In fact, it’s quite hard to strike the right balance between emotions and intellect, and the truth is that both are somehow necessary to deliver a compelling documentary that deals with such a humanistic subject. Let alone not being exploitative and falling into cliché, which Damiana Kryygi, the film, never does. And in telling this particular story, Fernández Mouján also depicts the many shades in the complex story of the Aché people with strong commitment and profound empathy.
Rome, 1984. Aria (Giulia Salerno) is a nine-year-old girl in need of love. Her selfish and childish parents are caught in a furious divorce, yet they pay close attention to their careers — she’s an accomplished pianist and he’s a famous actor — as well as to their many extramarital affairs. But not a single minute is devoted to Aria. Better said, they do care for her, but only intermittently, when they feel like it or when something awful happens. Also, her sisters are always indulged, which makes Aria feel even more lonesome. Yet she longs to love and to be loved. At school, Aria is a brilliant student, but is misunderstood and often regarded as an oddball. She only has two beings to rely on: her best friend Angelica and her cat Dac. But that’s not nearly enough when she faces being continuously thrown out of both her parents’ homes. How long can she be the black sheep of two families, and eventually be abandoned by all? Featured at the prestigious Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, Misunderstood, the new remarkable film by Asia Argento, is not an autobiographical account of her childhood, as many journalists have said. In fact, Asia Argento herself said that if she had wanted to make a film about her father (famous giallo/ horror director Dario Argento) and her mother, she would have made a documentary instead. Even if the lead character’s name — Aria — matches Argento’s legal name, and even considering the parallels between the actress/filmmaker having been raised in a dysfunctional family of artists, the fiction film is the only thing that counts. And Misunderstood (Incompresa) is a painful film to watch. Though appropriately bittersweet, the bitter scenes are sometimes lacerating. This is a film almost exclusively about the growing pains of a childhood with little love, seen from Aria’s point of view. As a matter of fact, it’s not important whether her life is actually exactly the way it’s portrayed — the cartoonish parents are a bit over the top, for instance — because the point here is that this is how she feels and how much she suffers from so much neglect. So Argento expertly resorts to extremes to emphasize the experiences as lived by the broken-hearted Aria. And, of course, Misunderstood deals with universal yearnings. Many of us have felt the pain of being cast aside, to live in somebody else’s shadow. And it is Aria’s persistence to be loved that resonates more deeply. Wanting to fit can be a terrible burden — and Giulia Salerno’s performance brings forth these feelings with uncanny simplicity and authenticity. Rather than playing a part, it seems she sometimes becomes the part. Nonetheless, Aria’s life does have moments of bliss, and not just a few ones. Some of them are shared with her best friends, whereas others are created and enjoyed by her alone. And even being a cat, Dac is a most faithful companion. Also, the recognition she gets at school for academic excellence is no small thing. Argento is not keen on depicting the life of a victim or a martyr, so Aria’s parents aren’t demonized either, but depicted as egocentric, immature individuals who can’t and won’t take care of anything or anyone but themselves. So this realistic switching back and forth between dark zones and luminous ones is one of the reasons why Misunderstood outshines films with similar themes. Another reason: you get to live it all, not just watch it.
Sin hijos delivers on father-daughter bond but fails on love affair development Gabriel (Diego Peretti) separated from his wife four years ago, and ever since his 8-year-old daughter, Sofía (Guadalupe Manent), has become the centre of his life — a life with no social or sentimental angles. But this seemingly unbreakable bond suffers a rather important crisis when Vicky (Maribel Verdú), and old schoolmate from elementary school, enters the scene. She is now a gorgeous woman with a very independent life and a seductive personality. So no wonder Gabriel falls in love with her almost as soon as he sees her again. But just as their love affair begins to blossom, Vicky tells Gabriel she simply cannot stand children and would never have one. And what makes it worse is that Gabriel never told Vicky about his daughter, and is not planning on doing so, since he knows that it will surely mean losing her. Yet this can only be a temporary solution, as you cannot hide your own daughter forever. So what is to happen when Vicky finds out about Sofía? Sin hijos, the new film by Ariel Winograd (Vino para robar, Mi primera boda, Cara de queso), is a quite an accomplished romantic comedy in some areas — particularly in the depiction of the father-daughter relationship — but fails to meet the expectations it arises in others — mainly as regards the sentimental relationship between Gabriel and Vicky. And it’s not due to Winograd’s directing, but to the screenplay. So on the plus side, father and daughter interact in a realistic and genuine way, even if sometimes Sofía is a bit too witty, which is compensated by newcomer Guadalupe Manent’s fresh performance. Peretti and Manent establish the necessary chemistry, just as they excel individually. But when it comes to Maribel Verdú, things are not that great, as she almost always seems to be rehearsing her performance in front of the camera. She looks great and has the right physique de role, and yet she’s not that convincing. And while the overall sense of humour does pay off and the dialogue is filled with effective one-liners, the way the plot unfolds also feels staged and often not stemming from the story. For instance, Gabriel and Vicky fall in love with very little development of the affair. That is to say, they find each other again after many years and almost instantly click, with no build-up of the affair. The script often executes a series of situations and episodes that don’t grow naturally from the story. And sometimes you can see what’s coming long before it happens, and so some of the surprises just don’t work out. Nonetheless, all in all, Sin hijos is an affable feature that should be praised for its entertainment value more than anything else. Production notes Sin hijos (Argentina, 2015). Directed by Ariel Winograd. Written by Mariano Vera, Pablo Solarz. With Diego Peretti, Maribel Verdú, Guadalupe Manent. Cinematography by Félix Monti. Running time: 100 minutes.
Once you’ve finished watching Stephen Daldry’s new film Trash, it’s hard to resist the word play and not say that it is, indeed, a piece of cinematic trash — and by trash, I don’t mean the countercultural subgenre you can associate with, say, John Waters. Even if well intended — at best, which I seriously doubt — and just like his previous outing Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Trash is presented as a socially conscious and morally uplifting feature where good prevails over evil in a very, very contrived way. In fact, you may take the whole story as some kind of uplifting fable — with poor kids in favelas and garbage dumps instead of talking animals. But even if that’s the case, it’s a pretty lousy fable. Adapted from Andy Mulligan’s novel of the same name, Trash is shot on locations in Brazil and tells the story of 14-year-old trash picker Raphael (Rickson Tev) and his chance discovery of a wallet that belongs to an unknown person named José Angelo (Wagner Moura). He and his friends Gador (Eduardo Luis) and Rato (Gabriel Weinstein) get involved in an investigation regarding the mysterious wallet, which leads them to corrupted politician Santos and equally corrupted policeman Frederico (Selton Mello). Needless to say, their lives are endangered, just like that of Father Julliard (Martin Sheen), a generous and tireless protector of the poor. So expect teenagers deciphering complex secret codes, memorizing a long and discursive letter and then reciting it as to get across secret information, throwing bundles of money out in the open in garbage dumps so that other impoverished souls get a piece of the bad guys’ cake (who by the way are extremely vicious), a noble US religious man (sort of a modern missionary) who, no matter what, always does the right thing, and long action sequences and shootouts where bad cops chase the kids who manage to escape miraculously every single time — among other things. And, of course, the kids also do the right thing without expecting any kind of profit and just for the sake of justice. Yes, it’s all very unlikely, to say the least. But what’s most annoying is that Daldry’s new feature tackles painfully complex issues in such a reductionist way and with such a disregard for reality that you cannot but feel you’re being taken for a numbskull. With a distorted eye that depicts Brazil as a most dangerous land inhabited by cartoonish figures posing as characters, this is exactly the kind of film bound to be delightful to the conscience of your average bourgeois viewer who believes in a black-and-white world where good does triumph over evil if there’s just enough will power and perseverance. Come to think of it, instead of a fable, Trash is an ill-fated fairy tale.
n Isla Verde, a small town in the province of Córdoba, a group of volunteers organizes the Isla Verde International Brass Festival, which gathers worldwide renowned musicians as well as students from Latin America. Its 7th edition features a good number of concerts by trumpet players Ronald Romm, from the US, and Thierry Caens, from France. Other celebrated figures include French cornetist André Cazalet, US tubist Jon Sass, and British trombonist Brett Baker (among others). Both professional musicians and students are hosted at the townspeople’s homes, and so a rich cultural exchange experience shapes up. Among the volunteers, there’s hairstylist Juan, his son Luis — a trumpet player — musicians Lucía and Ximena, a couple of chefs, relatives, and friends and neighbours. This way, locals and visitors get to share a week filled with rehearsals, music lessons, and concerts. It is during this week in February when the town of Isla Verde becomes an unparalleled musical melting pot. Adriana Yurkovich’s documentary Bronces in Isla Verde provides a fair account of this phenomenon by resorting to a keen camera that captures different moments mostly throughout different stages of the preparations for the festival. Rehearsals are particularly appealing because you get to see some very informal aspects of the affair, just like the friendly conversations visitors have with locals upon arrival. In this regard, Bronces in Isla Verde is ably informative while it also candidly conveys the spirit of the event. But as regards the musicians themselves, the film doesn’t explore their personalities at all. Neither does it examine what lies beneath the surface. Which is a shame, considering the richness of the material. On the other hand, the dynamics of a small town hosting such a unique event are also exposed in a convincing and laid back manner, which together with the outgoingness of these many different folks, makes up for the best part of Yurkovich’s feature. Production notes Bronces en Isla Verde (Argentina, 2014). Written, directed and produced by Adriana Yurkovich. Cinematography by Ati Mohadeb, Lucas Marcheggiano. Editing by Mariano Juarez. Running time: 88 minutes. When and where
It’s well known that Argentine heavyweight professional boxer Oscar Natalio “Ringo” Bonavena — who had a career record of 58 wins, 9 losses and 1 draw — met international success both in Argentina and the US, to the point of fighting Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali — and while he didn’t defeat them, he certainly put up a fierce fight. It’s also known that he was killed at the age of 33 at the gates of the Mustang Ranch brothel, in Reno, Nevada, on May 22, 1976, by a security guard named Brymer under mysterious circumstances. An inquiry following the murder said that Bonavena was very likely having an affair with Sally Burgess, the wife of Joe Conforte, the owner of the brothel, and was also planning to take over the Mustang Ranch. It is said that guards had orders from Conforte to shoot Bonavena if he appeared at the ranch. These facts, and many others — such as how Joe Conforte brought Bonavena to Reno in 1975 to train and promote a series of fights — are revealed in José Luis Nacci’s documentary Soy Ringo, through interviews with Bonavena’s relatives, friends, acquaintances and local figures of the boxing arena. Interspersed with photographs, some live footage of places where Bonavena visited, and drawings evoking scenes in his life, Nacci’s documentary may be worthy for some of the information it provides, but not because of how it provides it. As is the case with so many recent local documentaries, Soy Ringo lacks the necessary cinematic virtues to be more than just an exposé of this and that. As regards cinematography, sound, mise-en-scene, and art direction, let’s say that they are executed by the book, with no sense of style or personality. Editing is particularly flawed as the film drags quite a lot and struggles to gain momentum. In fact, it’s actually 20 minutes overlong, give or take. In terms of screenplay, anecdotes abound and yet there’s not a clear thematic and dramatic focus on any pivotal points; some of the interviewees offer true insights into Bonavena, the man and the boxer, while many others just fall into commonplace. Above all, there’s not a solid and significant thesis raised on any of the many aspects addressed. In other words: what does Soy Ringo want to unveil as new ideas, and not as anecdotes? Production notes Soy Ringo (Argentina, 2014). Written and directed by José Luis Nacci. With Adriana Nancy Bonavena, Vicente Bonavena, Natalio Oscar Bonavena, Héctor “Bambino” Veira. Cinematography: Osvaldo Ponce. Editing: Julio di Risio. Running time: 105 minutes.
La vida después delivers an intimate chronicle of the aftermath of a couple’s separation La vida después, the second outing by Pablo Bardauil and Franco Verdoia (Chile 672), chronicles the aftermath of the separation of a married couple after many, many years, and it hinges on a thought-provoking question: how much do we know the people we love the most? In the story of Juana (María Onetto) and Carlos (Carlos Belloso), some revelations surface soon after they separated on very friendly terms: first, he suspects she’s having an affair with an old friend of theirs, and then she starts unveiling a hidden facet of his. Could things really be as they seem under a different light? As the film begins to unfold, you realize La vida después could have been a play. Which is not a bad thing in this particular case, considering how neatly composed and framed each shot is, and how the narrative is deployed. Its story is divided into self-contained austere scenes, filmed mostly with a static camera as not to intrude into the actors’ space and allow viewers to contemplate them in their interplay. As for the editing, it’s also pretty seamless. And while the photography is rather lifeless at times — perhaps deliberately — La vida después is, in its own style, quite accomplished in formal terms. And it does have an effective premise that grants the logic of the many things the ex-husband and ex-wife do in order to learn more about each other. It’s best to not disclose much information here, but just as a hint let’s say that the idea of using Carlos’ new novel as a means to delve into the past does pay off, regardless of how conventional it might be. Another asset is the chemistry between Onetto and Belloso as the spouses in crisis — despite Onetto’s character being slightly overacted. The truth is La vida después has many good ideas — but some of them are executed though clichéd situations with clichéd dialogue. Also, up to the middle of it, dramatic focus is well maintained, so the plot is convincing. This is the part where Carlos investigates Juana’s past and present without her knowledge — kudos to Belloso for a subtle and authentic job as the anguished ex-husband. Then something unexpected happens, which changes the viewers’ expectations as well as the direction of the plot. And you feel you’ve been shortchanged with a narrative gimmick. More precisely, a change in the narrative point of view comes across as forced and anticlimactic. In turn, what Juana eventually finds out about Carlos is too important to be developed in such a short time (it’s almost the stuff for another movie) and pretty much out of the blue. New ideas keep popping up without rounding up previous ones and the story loses momentum. That’s how La vida después gets confused and confusing in what it really wants to say. When and where La vida después (Argentina, 2015). Directed by Franco Verdoia and Pablo Bardauil. With María Onetto, Carlos Belloso, Rafael Ferro, Esteban Meloni, Sandra Villani. Cinematography: Jorge Dumitre. Editing: Delfina Castagnino. Running time: 73minutes.
The Devil’s Hand mixes slasher vibes, satanic notions, fundamentalism in recipe for failure Not knowing what genre the film you’re making belongs to cannot be any good — except if you’re a gifted auteur defying conventions and deliberately fusing genres. But if you are a regular film director making a mainstream PG-13 horror film that soon turns into a run-of-the-mill thriller, which eventually aims to be a serious drama only to later on become a shy horror film with a sort of a sinister ending, then you’re in trouble. You just can’t have those many films in one — especially when none of the genres has been tackled skilfully, to say the least. Such is the case of Christian E. Christiansen’s The Devil’s Hand (also known as Where the Devil Hides), which mixes a slasher plot (with little, if any, gore, and unimpressive kills), some satanic notions that are never firmly rooted, a drama about religious fundamentalism in a small Amish town and how much it affects families in general, and young women in particular. Exactly 18 years ago, six baby girls were born on a fatidic date: the sixth day of the sixth month. The town’s fearful religious leader wants to kill the girls to fend off or avert a prophecy that says one of them will be the Drommelkind, a satanic demon (or something like that) when she is 18. But the father of one of the girls confronts him and saves the girls — except for one who’s killed by her own mother who then kills herself as well. Now 18 years have gone by and a mysterious unknown killer — thriller alert — is keen on slaying the 5 remaining girls. Apart from the genre confusion, most of the performances bring to mind those of low-budget, formulaic horror movies from the 1970s and the 1980s — which were likable at the time, but are pitiful in a different context — beginning with the cartoonish Colm Meaney as the town’s leader. Some tension is achieved from time to time, but overall The Devil’s Hand is pretty dull. And while the cinematography is technically well executed, it fails to create a menacing atmosphere. The ending, however, while trite, reveals there was a potentially effective (albeit standard) horror feature to be made provided director and screenwriter had stuck to the genre and fully exploited it. When and where The Devil’s Hand (US, 2014). Directed by Christian E. Christiansen. Written by Karl Mueller. With Rufus Sewell, Alycia Debnam-Carey, Thomas McDonell, Adelaide Kane, Leah Pipes, Jennifer Carpenter, Jim McKeny, Katie Garfield. Cinematography: Frank Godwin. Running time: 86 minutes