En Argentina, las dos primeras películas de Eric Zonca fueron muy bien recibidas: La vida soñada de los ángeles (1998) y El pequeño ladrón (1999), dos conmovedores retratos de jóvenes marginales con vidas con un presente atormentado y sin posibilidades de un futuro mejor. Hubo que esperar casi 10 años para su tercera película, Julia (2008), otro retrato desesperanzado protagonizado por una deslumbrante Tilda Swinton. Ahora, exactamente 10 años después, llega su cuarta película, Sin dejar huella, un contundente y agudo policial francés en el que no se salva nadie. Porque todos los personajes, en mayor o medida, tienen facetas que van desde lo cuestionable hasta lo deleznable. Algunas están muy a la vista mientras que otras se esconden detrás de una fachada de inocencia. Basado en la novela The Missing File, del israelí Dror Mishani, el cuarto opus de Zonca comienza, como es muy habitual en el noir, con una desaparición. Se trata de Dany, un adolescente de 16 años quien, al parecer, no tendría ningún motivo para huir de su casa. Se presume, entonces, que fue secuestrado o asesinado. El encargado para resolver el caso es Francois Visconti (Vincent Cassel), un policía alcohólico, agresivo y con todo tipo de problemas – entre ellos, un hijo adolescente que es casi un traficante de drogas y una fijación por su ex esposa que lo abandonó. Solange (Sandrine Kiberlain) es la desconsolada madre de Dany, al borde de un colapso nervioso, siempre ahogada por la pena. Marie (Lauréna Thellier), es su única hija, una chica con Síndrome de Down que extraña mucho a su hermano mayor, entre otras penas que sufre. Por otro lado, está Yann Bellaile (Romain Duris), el profesor de francés de Dany, que parece estar demasiado interesado en la resolución del caso, como si se estuviera jugando alguna cuestión de carácter personal. Y esto para empezar. Sin dejar huella es tanto un noir bien oscuro como un thriller desconcertante, por lo que despliega no solo un panorama de miserias, bajezas y corrupción, sino también inesperadas vueltas de tuerca, revelaciones impensables y confesiones perturbadoras - quizás, en ocasiones, ligeramente forzadas. Por eso mismo, el clima general de malestar profundo, que generalmente se siente muy genuino, se hace carne en el espectador con tanta facilidad como incomodidad. La apuesta de Zonca no es poca cosa: nos pide que nos involucremos en el drama sin posibilidad de identificarnos o empatizar con nadie. Y, sin embargo, logra su objetivo. Porque hay algo fascinante en este univeso corrupto que hace que nos quedemos pegados a la pantalla observando el devenir de los acontecimientos. Y no precisamente desde una distancia tranquilizadora. Cassel construye un policía que recuerda al de Harvey Keitel en Un maldito policía en su desborde, violencia y ferocidad. No obstante, tiene una preocupación genuina por encontrar al adolescente desaparecido, e incluso a veces parece tener cierto altruísmo. Lo que no es poco en un mundo donde todos se preocupan por sí mismos sin tener en cuenta el sufrimiento de los otros. Siendo un actor tan talentoso, no debería sorprender que se robe la película, aún estando, quizás, al borde de la sobreactuación ocasionalmente. Pero también Sandrine Kiberlain brinda una interpretación sobresaliente, tan convicente como desgarradora. Y aún a pesar de su relativa transparencia, sus sentimientos más profundos están bien escondidos. Eso de por sí ya es inquietante. Sin dejar huella no es una película fácil de ver pero tampoco es un martirio ni mucho menos. Que retrate, sin concesiones, un mundo en el que uno no desearía vivir la hace aún más sugestiva. Porque una cosa es bien cierta: en la vida real, lejos de esta ficción que dura 113 minutos, estos mundos están a la vuelta de la esquina. Nadie puede decir que la historia que narra Zonca no es verosímil. Y sí, debe ser mostrada así, con su lógica crudeza. Sin dejar huella (Fleuve noir, Francia, Bélgica, 2018). Puntaje: 8 Dirigida por Erick Zonca. Escrita por Érick Zonca, Lou de Fanget Signolet, basada en la novela de Dror Mishani. Con Vincent Cassel, Romain Duris, Sandrine Kiberlain, Élodie Bouchez, Charles Berling. Fotografía: Paolo Carnera. Música: Rémi Boubal. Duración: 113 minutos.
Antes que nada, para valorar Bohemian Rapsody hay que saber qué es y qué no es. Recién después cada uno sabrá si es el tipo de película que esperaba o que uno cree que Freddie Mercury merecía. Entonces, hay que saber que es una película mainstream pensada, obviamente, para un público masivo y que no espera una película de autor. Es una película que no intenta, ni por un momento, abordar en profundidad la personalidad del líder de Queen. Es una panorama general, a veces a vuelo de pájaro, sobre los momentos más significativos de la banda y los de la vida de Freddie. No es un documental, por lo tanto no todo ocurrió tal como se muestra. Incluso hay cosas que nunca ocurrieron. Pero no hay cambios groseros que traicionan la esencia de la historia. Por otra parte, es casi un musical que, ante todo, busca revivir el magnetismo y la energía vital que tenía Freddie en sus conciertos con la banda. Es una película que tiene como objetivo principal hacer que el espectador sienta que está, efectivamente, frente a Queen - por supuesto, las canciones están interpretadas por los verdaderos artistas. Sobre todo, Bohemian Rapsody busca que la experiencia de verla esté cargada de pasión y energía. Ése es el punto central. Y eso sí lo logra, admirablemente. Si uno acepta esta propuesta tal como está, es casi imposible no emocionarse. Y mucho. A grandes rasgos, Bohemian Rapsody narra el devenir de Freddie Mercury, desde poco tiempo antes de existir Queen hasta el recital en Live Aid, en 1985, que solo duró 20 minutos, pero fue memorable. De hecho, la película de Brian Synger (Los sospechos de siempre, El aprendiz, algunas de las películas de X-Men) comienza y termina con Live Aid y en el camino se ocupa de hechos muy conocidos y de otros que no lo son tanto. Entonces, tenemos los comienzos de Freddie, un genio de la música que vivía una existencia común y corriente, su incorporación en una banda prácticamente desconocida, la creación de los grandes éxitos, los primeros momentos de fama llenos de excitación y adrenalina, sus grandes amores, luego las frustraciones y discusiones en la banda, las drogas, las fiestas, la cuota de autodestrucción y una posible derrota final que termina siendo una redención. Por supuesto, también la aparición del SIDA junto con el final que todos conocemos. Sí, efectivamente, es una película de fórmula, no innova dentro del género de la biopic y tampoco busca hacerlo. Pero en tanto producto mainstream de esta naturalieza es impecable. Y una de sus características más sobresalientes es la interpretación de Rami Malek como Freddie Mercury. Sus movimientos, conducta, lenguaje corporal y expresiones no tienen fisura, son convincentes y naturales. Incluso cuando tiene el pelo corto, el parecido con el legendario cantante es impresionante. Verlo es como revivir momentos mágicos que muchos de nosotros vimos en videos clips o recitales. Una de las escenas mejor logradas es precisamente aquella en la que Queen crea la canción Rapsodia Bohemia. Aunque que quede claro que la película no es acerca de Queen, sino de Freddie. O, en todo caso, los otros miembros de la banda aparecen, en mayor o menor medida, en relación a Freddie. Ésta también es una decisión de los realizadores de la película. Como tantas otras cosas, es una decisión que puede ser cuestionada. O no. Eso queda en cada espectador. Un dato interesante: la película muestra muchas de las críticas que Queen recibió al comienzo de su carrera por parte de la prensa especializada. Son todas negativas. Sin embargo, el público terminó adorando a la banda, incluso recibió con beneplácito sus primeras canciones. Quizás podemos pensar, entonces, que lo que diga la crítica especializada no siempre es necesariamente o particularmente importante. O al menos no es tan importante como el amor del público incondicional que reacciona según sus subjetividades y sus emociones más genuinas. Algo parecido pasa con la película: fue rechazada por gran parte de los críticos de cine, aquí y en el exterior. Sin embargo, no deja de llevar gente al cine desde su estreno. Y en muchas funciones los espectadores cantan las canciones. Algo bien deben haber hecho los realizadores para conmover a tanta gente que no son necesariamente espectadores descerebrados. Bohemian Rhapsody (Reino Unido, Estados Unidos, 2018). Puntaje: 8 Dirección: Bryan Singer. Elenco: Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, Joseph Mazzello, Aidan Gillen, Tom Hollander, Allen Leech, Mike Myers, Aaron McCusker y Dermot Murphy. Guión: Anthony McCarten. Fotografía: Newton Thomas Sigel. Edición: John Ottman. Duración: 134 minutos.
Si algo queda bien claro después de ver la nueva versión de Nace una estrella, es que Lady Gaga realmente puede brindar una interpretación memorable, y no solo como cantante (eso ya se sabía) sino, también, como actriz. Algo que se intuía desde que encarnó a La Condesa, la seductora y letal reina de los vampiros de Hotel, la temporada 5 de American Horror Story. Muchos dijeron que sí se lucía tanto era, básicamente, porque el papel estaba hecho a su medida. Supongamos que sí, que fue un papel pensado para ella. ¿Acaso solo por eso lo iba a interpretar tan bien? No necesariamente. Por otra parte, ¿quién hubiera pensado que tiempo después Lady Gaga iba a ser la cantante desconocida que deviene estrella que (casi) todos conocimos gracias a Judy Garland? ¿Era éste un papel hecho a su medida? ¿No era, acaso, una elección riesgosa? Claro que la versión de Nace una estrella de Cukor de 1954 con Judy Garland no es la primera, aunque sí la mejor, sin duda alguna, y por eso la más recordada. Antes estuvo la de William Wellman de 1937, con Janet Gaynor, y después la de Frank Pierson de 1976, con Barbra Streisand. La de Wellman no conmueve mucho, pero narra bien su historia y tiene algunas escenas muy rescatables. La de Pierson es, en sí misma, bastante poco interesante, pero están la voz y la presencia de Streisand. Entonces ya pasa a otro nivel. Y ahora tenemos la de Bradley Cooper y por partida triple: la dirige, la co-guiona y la co-protagoniza, con Lady Gaga en el centro del escenario. Como la película de Pierson, la de Cooper es apenas una película correcta. Pero está protagonizada por una estrella extraordinaria. Es eso, casi solamente eso, lo que le da su fulgor irresistible y la hace, en ocasiones, decididamente inolvidable. La trama, con sus pequeñas variantes, es bien conocida por todos. En esta versión, se trata de un cantante de música country consagrado (Bradley Cooper) que descubre a una talentosa, pero ignota, cantante amateur (Lady Gaga), la ayuda a posicionarse profesionalmente y, eventualmente, también a hacerse famosa. A la par, la carrera del cantante va de mal en peor, en parte por su alcoholismo y en parte por otros conflictos irresueltos. Aún así, el amor los une contra viento y marea. Como en todo melodrama, el amor siempre es más fuerte. Pero hasta un punto. Después, los amantes quedan librados al destino construido por sus decisiones. Destinos que hasta pueden ser trágicos. Como en todo melodrama. En tanto director y actor, Cooper sabe manejar con prolijidad la historia de la estrella que nace. Aunque no intenta hacer nada fuera de lo común, respeta los puntos más importantes de la historia, le da motivaciones y una identidad a sus personajes. Sus conductas tienen sentido. Nada sobresale pero nada está mal hecho. Hasta se podría decir que todo es demasiado correcto. Todo muy medido. Y eso sí que es un problema. Porque un melodrama correcto no conmueve demasiado. Es que el género pide una buena cuota de desmesura, de emociones y pulsiones que desbordan, de amantes que viven y mueren por su amor. Aún en los melodramas de Wong Kar Wai - donde los personajes reprimen sus deseo, se retraen, y no se animan a amar – se siente una tensión subterránea y el desgarro de la represión de los afectos. En cambio, en esta nueva versión de Nace una estrella el amor se percibe un tanto desapasionado, ensayado y no muy vivido. Sobre todo con el personaje de Bradley Cooper. Porque Lady Gaga va más allá de lo que el guión le proporciona, construye matices, y así le da a su estrella la intensidad que merece. Se puede pensar, también, que Cooper haya optado por un registro más realista, más cercano al drama y lejano de la pasión desmesurada. Pero si ése es el caso tampoco le dio en la tecla. Porque para ser un drama convincente es demasiado plano, con muy pocas capas. En cambio, cuando Lady Gaga es el centro de la escena – y eso pasa muchas veces, por suerte – todo se vuelve más creíble y más emotivo. Porque ella sí tiene sangre en las venas. El punto es que necesita un amante que la acompañe, en vez de uno que queda rezagado, a mitad de camino. Si no, la película como un todo pierde magnetismo. Incluso se hace difícil involucrarse con el trágico final de esta historia de amor ya tantas veces contada. Y mucho mejor contada. Nace una estrella (Estados Unidos, 2018). Puntaje: 6 Dirigida por Bradley Cooper. Escrita por Eric Roth, Bradley Cooper, Will Fetters. Con Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Sam Elliott, Andrew Dice Clay, Rafi Gavron, Dave Chappelle. Fotografía: Matthew Libatique. Montaje: Jay Cassidy. Duración: 135 minutos.
A feeble nightmare ranking low on the scare factor By Pablo Suárez For the Herald Over-plotted, talkative to the extreme, and totally scare-less, the Argentine horror thriller Ecuación, los malditos de Dios, by Sergio Mazurek, definitely misses the potential to become a decent genre film, all the more so considering it features accomplished professionals in some key areas, such as Daniel De La Vega on camerawork and Fabián Forte as assistant director. Leaving aside the many deaths that look extremely fake, Ecuación is a technically well-crafted film. The problem lies in the script, and to a minor degree, in the acting too. Broadly speaking, Mazurek’s outing follows worn-out Dr Hermes Vanth (Carlos Echevarría), a man who spends most of his time at work at the Rivadavia Hospital, trying to heal people, yet facing death far too often. In fact, it seems he’s on a losing streak as many of his patients are mysteriously dying one after the next. And then there are the deaths he witnesses outside the hospital as well. What’s even more bizarre is that every single time somebody dies, a strange old man (Eduardo Ruderman) pops up out of the blue. Eventually, Hermes’ girlfriend becomes one of the unfortunate victims, and soon enough he meets with Father Alfredo (Roberto Carnaghi) to try to get a grip on such a maddening scenario. In the end, the involvement of Sedna (Marta Lubos), a crazy woman committed to an asylum, will help to unravel a deeply buried enigma. Ecuación is written by Guillermo Barrantes and is based on a series of books called Buenos Aires es leyenda, by Barrantes and Víctor Coviello. That could partly explain why it is so over-plotted: you just can’t sum up several books-worth in an 86-minute film. There are just too many events and hardships, too much information, and conveying so much via lengthy and heavy-handed dialogue is not the best of ideas either. While overall cinematography is skillfully rendered — framing and composition are occasionally eye-catching too — there’s not a real sense of fear or a disturbing atmosphere. And a horror film without atmosphere is like a comedy with no fun. To top it all off, actors deliver their dialogue in a solemn, even declamatory manner, which does nothing but emphasize the lack of verisimilitude. Last but not least, there’s the never-creepy soundtrack that sometimes becomes overwhelming as it’s clearly an attempt to create some sense of drama the film does not have. Though well-intended and with fairly good production values, Ecuación, los malditos de Dios is a feeble nightmare that’s never haunting, but rather tedious instead. Production notes Ecuación, los malditos de Dios (Argentina, 2016) Directed by Sergio Mazurek. Written by Guillermo Barrantes, based on the books Buenos Aires es leyenda, by Guillermo Barrantes and Víctor Coviello. With Carlos Echevarría, Roberto Carnaghi, Marta Lubos, Diego Alfonso, Eduardo Ruderman. Cinematography: Daniel De La Vega, Leonel Pazos Scioli. Editing: Guille Gatti, Martin Blousson. Running time: 86 minutes.
Sisters Emma (Sofia Black-D’Elia) and Stacey (Analeigh Tipton) have recently arrived to California, they are the new girls in town and are trying to fit in at their new high school. Their teacher (Michael Kelly) teaches at the same high school — in fact, he’s Emma’s professor in one of her classes. As for the mother, she hasn’t still moved into town and will not do so for quite some time because of her husband’s affair with one of his students. Sooner rather than later, Emma and Stacey are separated from their father as an apocalyptic biological pandemic starts to spread all over the world, and so their small town, like so many other places, is quarantined and placed under martial law. What follows is the girls’ struggle for survival as the infected people become zombie-like creatures and the military, as usual, worsen the whole situation. The low-budget horror feature Viral is directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, who also shot Paranormal Activity 3 (which is pretty good) and the recent Nerve, and was originally slated for a theatrical release in the US. Then, it became an “on demand” movie and was released on DVD outside the US. Which makes sense, considering it has quite a straight-to-DVD feel about it — mostly because of its schematic mise-en-scene and not-gripping-enough set pieces. What doesn’t make much sense is that Viral opts not to go for genuinely scary or suspenseful moments while the gross out factor is very small. And it seems it’s voluntary. Though it is an R-rated movie, it mostly feels like a PG 13 release. It largely resorts to off-screen space to suggest, for the most part, the presence of the infected and the military, and yet the sound design fails to do the trick. So what kind of a horror movie is this? Not an inventive one, that’s for sure. It’s obvious that Viral follows a well-trodden road and adds no novelties. So I guess you can think of it as a drama within with the frame of a horror movie, a drama that resorts to the genre to speak about how defenceless and vulnerable you can be when an unknown virus breaks out — especially if you have to trust the government. But this drama boasts a few sentimental scenes that are too sugar-coated and taken right out of a teenage romance. As for the storyline related to the infection, as predictable as it may be, Viral holds some potential. Actually, during the first half of the movie — which is meant to introduce and develop the lead characters, but it unfortunately fails to do — the accumulation of minor events that lead to major mayhem is well articulated, there are a couple of scares, the acting is perfectly watchable, and the tone is kind of unsettling. But then, during the second half, the thrills are pretty much absent, the drama loses momentum, and chaos does look rather tepid. On the plus side, as happens in George Romero’s zombie movies, Viral does draw a political scenario of a country where the rule is that the fittest will survive — but only them. Production notes Viral (US, 2016). Written by Barbara Marshall, Christopher Landon. Directed by Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman. With: Sofia Black-D’Elia, Analeigh Tipton, Travis Tope, Michael Kelly, Machine Gun Kelly. Cinematography: Magdalena Gorka. Running time: 85 minutes.Gaumont. @pablsuarez
Moving sequel to documentary on 1930s diva immerses viewers in a ghost-like story “We thought this story was closed. But stories don’t end when we decide, they have a life of their own. And something about them refuses to end. Telling a story always means choosing a path, but that one choice doesn’t bury the rest. A part of those stories stays with us,” says the voice-over of Argentine filmmaker and film critic Sergio Wolf halfway into his new documentary Viviré con tu recuerdo (“I Will Go On Remembering You”), now commercially released and previously featured in the International Competition of the BAFICI festival. Viviré con tu recuerdo is an inventive, personal follow-up to Wolf’s 2003 debut film, co-directed with Lorena Muñoz Yo no sé qué me han hecho tus ojos — a brilliant and touching documentary about late tango singer Ada Falcón (one of the great Argentine divas of the 1920s and 1930s) and her turbulent romance with the renowned orchestra director Francisco Canaro. Above all, it’s the story of a myth that fell into oblivion. Should you remember Wolf’s and Muñoz’s feature film, you know it starts as a noir thriller. Wolf, a modern Philip Marlowe right down to his raincoat, walks the grayish, not-so-mean streets of Buenos Aires in search of information on the so-called “empress of tango,” attempting to solve a puzzle with more than its share of missing pieces. Then, in the second half, upon finding Falcón secluded in a convent, the thriller gives way to an intimate and fascinating character study by filmmakers who are nostalgic tango fans, admirers of a past golden era revisited in the present. Now, 13 years later, comes its moving sequel. It turns out that not long ago, Wolf found a silent scene that had been lost while making the first documentary and therefore had never been included. Falcón died at the time Yo no sé qué me han hecho tus ojos was being edited, hence the recently found silent scene with her missing words is a mystery to be explored. Could she have said something that added to the already depicted panorama? And if so, how? Was there another secret to be revealed, perhaps? Questions such as these are all the filmmaker needs to effortlessly immerse himself and his viewers into a new blast from the past. And it’s the exploration, rather than the result of it, that becomes the film’s subject matter. Because as filming started for Viviré con tus recuerdo, instead of conclusive answers, further questions arose. What if her voice from a different scene is asynchronously overlapped with the images of the found footage? Would it make you feel that Ada’s spirit is speaking from the remote land of the dead since the movement of her lips in the living image doesn’t match the words? — as filmmaker Edgardo Cozarinsky tells Wolf in the film, and as Marguerite Duras did in her famed India Song. If what this cinematic maneuver makes you feel is subjective, I’d say that there’s an eerie and slightly disturbing quality to it, as though you were in fact watching a ghost film. But aren’t all films territories inhabited by ghosts anyway? With an enveloping atmosphere partly due to the always moody cinematography of Fernando Lockett — arguably Argentina’s best cinematographer — and in part rooted in Wolf’s hidden nostalgia through his reflexive tone of voice (the voice-over here, as it did in the first film, is far from merely informative) — Viviré con tu recuerdo confidently plays with the elements of the language of cinema and in so doing, it turns into a quest to decipher the impossible and a mostly brilliant act of resistance against amnesia. Wolf goes after filming things gone-by, and he’s found a remarkable way to not let go of the myth by resignifying the past into the ever-changing nature of storytelling. When telling stories, opening a door leads to other doors beyond which there are stories that, more often than not, don’t want to end. Production notes Viviré con tu recuerdo (Argentina, 2016). Written and directed by Sergio Wolf. With Ada Falcón, Miguel Zavala, Edgardo Cozarinsky, Fernando Vega. Cinematography by Fernando Lockett. Running time: 80 minutes. @pablsuarez
Points: 4 When you need four screenwriters and two directors to make a crowd-pleasing mainstream comedy, something has got to be wrong. Because the saying “the more, the merrier” doesn’t apply here. Either nobody has a clue as to what sort of film they want to make, or there are far too many ideas tossed in just to make sure one or two of them actually work. Or both apply. In any case, it’s a dead end alley. Argentine comedy La última fiesta (“The Last Party”), written by Lucas Bucci, Nicolás Silbert, Tomás Sposato, and Agustina Tracey, and directed by Nicolás Silbert, and Leandro Mark, rather than a joint effort, is a collective disaster. And that’s an understatement. Alan (Nicolás Vázquez), Dante (Alan Sabbagh) and Pedro (Benjamín Amadeo) are three grown-up lifelong friends who love each other dearly. When Dante ends a long term relationship, he’s devastated. So his friends decide to throw a huge party to cheer him up. Too bad that despite the party being a success, an expensive painting is stolen. What is even worse is that both the house and the painting belong to a man of dubious and dangerous behaviour. So now the three friends must recover the painting at all costs and against all odds. La última fiesta faces two major unmistakable problems: it’s cinematically flavourless and its sense of humour can’t get any more basic — it’s hard to figure out which one is worse. It’s filmed as though it was a long and very glossy TV commercial with no texture, no depth, no tangibility, and no aesthetic criterion other than making everything look picture-perfect. So forget all sense of atmosphere because regardless of the different settings and locations where the scenes are set, they always look pretty much the same. Camerawork and editing are equally generic, so no wonder the film feels so static, so inert. As for the narrative, don’t think of La última fiesta as an organic film, but instead as a string of poorly assembled skits with lousy timing. As for the sense of humour, for starters let’s say what it is not: it’s not subtle, witty, or parody-bent. There’s no irony, self-loathing, or sarcasm either. It’s not that physical and it’s not remotely intellectual or discursive. Basically, it’s just gross. But even within this vein, it could’ve been effective — I’m thinking of some Farrelly brothers’ films. But that’s not the case of La última fiesta. What you have here is a series of gags depicting people puking on themselves and on each other, scattered faeces, toying with blood sausages, weed bongs, and dildos. The most sophisticated ones involve unfunny innuendos and moronic word fencing. Maybe if there were just one screenwriter and one director, the total mess of a film that is La última fiesta could have been avoided to some degree — or maybe not. As is, it’s definitely the kind of party you don’t want to crash. Production notes La última fiesta (Argentina, 2016). Directed by Nicolás Silbert, Leandro Mark. Written by Lucas Bucci, Nicolás Silbert, Tomás Sposato, Agustina Tracey. With Nicolás Vázquez, Alan Sabbagh, Benjamín Amadeo, Eva de Dominici, Julián Kartún, César Bordón, Roberto Carnaghi, Julián Lucero, Sebastián Presta. Running time: 105 minutes. @pablsuarez
Award-winning The Lesson is a gripping tale of endurance when the odds are stacked against you Points: 9 “Why does a decent person become a criminal?” reads the effective tagline of one of the best foreign films to be released recently in Buenos Aires. Now, that’s one disturbing question which, for sure, does not have a single answer. But in The Lesson (“Urok”), the striking debut feature by Bulgarian filmmakers Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov that won the New Directors Award at San Sebastián, you’ll find a really bleak answer in the story of an ordinary woman driven to the point of despair by a crushing debt she can’t repay in due time. And even if the film comes across as a throbbing meditation on the grim economic circumstances of post-Communist Eastern Europe, you definitely don’t need to be Bulgarian to understand its universal resonance. You just need to be a regular person in a world run by money. Nadezhda (Margita Gosheva) is an ethically conscious provincial Bulgarian schoolteacher who discovers that one of the young students in her English class has stolen a classmate’s wallet from her backpack. Though it’s not a minor misdemeanour, she seems a bit too obsessed with finding out who the petty thief is. Then again, she’s a teacher and so she has a moral code by which she abides. However, no matter how hard she tries, the thief remains unknown. At the same time, her home life is not in the best of shapes. She basically raises her young daughter Dea by herself, since her husband Mladen (Ivan Barnev) is a good-for-nothing drunkard whose great idea was to buy spare parts for their lousy camper with the money Nadezhda thought they were using to pay their mortgage. So now they only have three days to prevent foreclose. Distressed, Nadezhda will attempt to collect some money owed to her for her services as a translator, but to no avail. She intends to ask for a loan from her well-off, long-estranged father, yet her disapproval of his new (and young) wife will get in the way. She will try to get the bank to give them some extra time but that’s another dead end. Of course, loan sharks enter the scene eventually — and, believe me, you don’t want to be there when that happens. As the austere drama it is, The Lesson is shot in a naturalistic style, à la Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. You know, a hand-held camera that follows the character everywhere in suspenseful long takes, no musical score but ambient sound, no sets but locations (or so it seems), available light for the most part, a palette of cold and drab tones, and a seamless combination of professional actors and real-life townspeople. Add to that a lot of significant exteriors, since in social realism characters are always conditioned by their surroundings — usually for the worse. The Lesson is also a frantic film: in her quest to meet the bank’s deadline, Nadezhda runs into all sorts of obstacles, some of them because of bad luck, others due to bureaucratic technicalities, and the rest on account of her bad judgment caused by the stressing circumstances. From what you can expect: her car breaking down, an error in transferring money, and her trusting loan sharks. And everything unfolds in a climate of escalating tension and suspense typical of a masterful thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat. You may say that the string of impediments this heroine has to face sometimes verges on implausibility, that you don’t get that many bad coincidences altogether. But we all know that, every once in a while, a perfect storm wrecks your everyday life and, whether you believe it or not, it becomes very, very real. Grozeva’s and Valchanov’s debut feature would not have the gripping film it is if it didn’t have an absorbing central performance from an actress who appears in virtually every single shot. Indomitable and unyielding, Margita Gosheva’s Nadezhda gets all the more complex and nuanced as her maddening ordeal unfolds. She doesn’t shed a single tear, but that’s not to say she’s not hurting. It’s just that she is too busy trying to survive in an indifferent world. Production notes The Lesson (“Urok,” Bulgaria/Greece, 2014). Written and directed by Kristina Grozeva, Petar Valchanov. With Margita Gosheva, Ivan Barnev, Ivanka Bratoeva, Ivan Savov, Deya Todorova, Stefan Denolyubov. Cinematography: Krum Rodriguez. Editing: Petar Valchanov. Running time: 105 minutes. @pablsuarez
The long journey into the night By Pablo Suárez For the Herald POINTS: 3 Ulises (Tom Middleton) is a sexy gay man in his early 20s, with the cutest face and a body to die for. He’s had a fight with his boyfriend Pablo (Nahuel Mutti), an older guy, rather a brainy type than a passionate lover — or so it seems, considering their bond is hardly explored. For whatever unknown reason, Pablo has violently kicked off Ulises out of his house and is determined not to let him come back. Homeless and jobless, Ulises embarks on a long journey into the BA night life, roaming the streets and going into two-bit clubs that are actually more of a dive than anything else. But not without first stealing some money and a gun from Pablo’s apartment. So throughout a whole night, what viewers get is a tour filled with drugs, alcohol, loneliness, abuse, and even gay bashing. It’s a shame that, considering how few local films deal with what you could broadly call queer cinema, Diego Schipani’s debut feature La noche del lobo (“Night of the Wolf”) is so far from a memorable one. Or maybe it will be memorable, but for all the wrong reasons. Once again, as is the case with so many features, both local and foreign, it’s not the storyline itself that’s to be criticized. Granted, it’s not precisely inventive, but then again with good actors and a muscular script a handful of steamy scenes of some impact could be pulled off. But when the execution is so flawed, uninspired, and uneven, no miracle can be performed. Production values are astoundingly cheap, and this doesn’t have to do with having a small budget. Gus Van Sant’s Mala noche had a very small budget and that didn’t prevent it from being a near masterpiece — and it was a debut feature as well. But comparisons aside, La noche del lobo’s art direction, cinematography — meaning both camerawork and photography — and editing are below average and hardly create any sense of verisimilitude. You can see La noche del lobo is almost a film in the making, rather than a finished film. And don’t get me started on all the narrative and aesthetic clichés. In some scenes, Schipani aims for realism whereas in others he goes for a more formalistic approach. Such stylistic unevenness is far from desirable, but what hurts the film the most is that, in both cases, he fails to get it right. To begin with, performances are so rehearsed and soulless that realism is far, far away — and this is true of all performances, except perhaps for some moments in that of Willy Lemos and Tom Middleton’s. To Middleton’s credit, he has the right physique du role to play his character, so he can sometimes get away with the lines of contrived dialogue. In the end, you realize the filmmaker had the best intentions in making a different sort o feature focused on a wild and loveless night. That’s enough to begin with, but not for getting it right. production notes La noche del lobo (Argentina, 2016) Written and directed by Diego Schipani. With Tom Middleton, Nahuel Mutti, Willy Lemos, Silvina Acosta. Cinematography: Federico Bracken. Editing: Diego Schipani, Sabrina Parel. Running time: 72 minutes. @pablsuarez
‘Winter is coming’ is a fact-based menace in Emiliano Torres’ award-winning film POINTS: 8 “In the northwest of Santa Cruz, the part of Patagonia where the story is set, every daily activity is an ordeal. Travelling, getting food or fuel, communications, they’re all acts of survival. I find that interesting because it all becomes very simple, essential, and almost primitive. At the same time, the rural workers in Patagonia go there in search of a better future or they are simply running away from something,” says Argentine filmmaker Emiliano Torres. His more than promising debut feature El invierno (“The Winter”) won the Special Jury Prize and Silver Shell for Best Cinematography at the recent San Sebastián Film Festival, and Best Actor for veteran Alejandro Sieveking and the French Critics’ Award at Biarritz. A story of survivors, Torres’ El invierno is about the fate of two men who cross paths — but not in the best of ways. First, you have Evans (Alejandro Sieveking), an old foreman on a Patagonian ranch who welcomes a group of workers for the shearing season; a scenario that’s the same year after year. But this time, at the end of the season, the man is sacked from his job and replaced by Jara (Cristian Salguero), a young ranch hand from the north. Needless to say, the change won’t be easy for either of them. The old foreman is at odds with a life with nothing to do and no place to belong to, whereas the young ranch hand has a hard time adapting to his new tasks. And they both will have to survive the coming winter. Far from conveying a bucolic image of Patagonia filled with penguins, lagoons, and whales — you know, the sort of thing you see in glossy brochures — nature in El invierno is as ominous as it is menacing. Not only because of the ever inclement weather, but because here nature is seen in strict relation to the appalling conditions that rural seasonal workers are subjected to. The work itself is harsh and underpaid, and on top of that you have an environment that makes it all the more unbearable. A remarkable asset in El invierno is that Torres never overstates his points. He exposes the aridness of the work when strictly required and in a matter-of-fact manner. He doesn’t do so through the prism of melodrama or agit-prop, just like he doesn’t demonize the bosses and owners of the ranch houses. As individuals, they’re not really to blame because they are parts of an agricultural model for a country and its politics. In this sense, El invierno is as far from overtly political cinema as it could possibly be. Another gripping trait is the realistic approach, both in contents and in cinematic form. While eschewing extreme gritty realism and yet never falling into precious formalism, the cinematography renders Patagonia through a documentary-like eye of outmost precision. Some images are actually breathtaking but not because of their inherent beauty — these are not postcards, after all — but instead because of their dramatic and emotional impact. The characters and what happens to them dominate the scenario and not the other way around. It’s very rare for a novel filmmaker not to fall into the temptation of depicting such gorgeous landscapes with all sorts of stylistic flourishes, but Torres knows better than that and rightfully goes for the essence of things. So first and foremost what you have are two lead characters who, with economy of actions and even less dialogue, are nonetheless rather nuanced. There’s a backstory for each, which significantly adds to their persona, and yet it is barely exposed rather than fully developed in order to avoid unnecessary narrative digressions. It goes without saying that none of these withdrawn characters would have come across as they do hadn’t they been played by such assured actors. In tune with the overall approach, the performances by Sieveking and Salguero are devoid of mannerism, and so seek to render acting invisible. Even when such effect is not always achieved, the overall result is quite compelling. For the most part, you believe them without any hesitations. It’s also true that very occasionally El invierno may be a bit too leisurely-paced. But don’t get me wrong, it’s not that its tempo itself is slow, but instead that the contemplative stance expected from viewers is not always fed enough substance. However, such a minor misstep is compensated by so many other things executed with commendable precision. Production notes El invierno (“The Winter”, Argentina/France, 2016). Directed by Emiliano Torres. Written by Emiliano Torres, Marcelo Chaparro. With Alejandro Sieveking, Cristian Salguero, Adrián Fondari, Pablo Cedrón, Mara Bestelli. Cinematography: Ramiro Civita. Editing: Alejandro Brodersohn. Running time: 93 minutes. @pablsuarez