POINTS: 5 Manuel Rico (Víctor Mallarino) is a middle-aged widower and a rich businessman who lives with his three grown-up children, Javi (Juan Fernando Sánchez), Bárbara (Julieth Restrepo), and Charly (José Restrepo) in a posh manor in Bogotá. On the one hand, Manuel has given his children everything they always wanted to the point of spoiling them rotten. On the other hand, he’s also been an absent father who has never connected very well with his children. He’s the typical businessman who’s always busy. Pretty much out of the blue, he has a stroke and ends up in the hospital. This is when the status quo begins to change as he realizes how bad it is that his children have taken for granted the lifestyle he has provided. What’s even worse, though, is that his own company faces embezzlement charges, so almost all his properties and belongings are confiscated. Needless to say, no one has the money to settle these matters legally. So the family hides out in a secluded two-bit house. Reduced to an almost penniless state, the grown-up children will have to do something they’d never done before: work. Malcriados (“Spoiled”), directed by Colombian writer and filmmaker Felipe Martínez Amador and written by Mariano Vega, is a cliché of a movie from the first frame to the last. Stereotyped characters utter an equally stereotyped dialogue, the performers overact, you see the uninspired gags coming from a mile away, the incidental music is unbearable, and the mise-en-scene makes you recall a mediocre TV movie. The chief idea of the film seems to be that once a family is confronted with a huge crisis, it should stand united; its members must trust each other and talk about their hidden emotions and longings, and in the end they will surely become a better family, one that is nurturing and supportive. Because in Malcriados a financial crisis like any other is more than enough for a complete change of lifestyle, without that much effort and in a relatively short period of time: a life lesson for a wholesome family — never mind how farfetched it is. The reasons why Malcriados looks and sounds like a mediocre TV flick are pretty diverse. It’s not only because its narrative consists of a series of autonomous scenes with little dramatic progression, but mostly because, in terms of style, absolutely nothing stands out. The camerawork, for instance, is static and flat; or take the overall photography, which lacks creativity and instead relies on dull formulas. What’s more disappointing is that the characters never come across as individuals, but rather as shallow vessels performing actions meant to be comic. The idea of rich and spoiled children who face the real world as adults is already rather over-explored, but if executed with a minimum degree of originality and a somewhat personal approach to comedy, then it could be the right stuff for a decent movie. But when everything is so obvious, so heavy-handed, then what you get is just a lame feature. Production notes Malcriados (Argentina, Colombia, 2016). Directed by Felipe Martínez Amador. Written by Mariano Vera. With Víctor Mallarino, Julieth Restrepo, Juan Fernando Sánchez, José Restrepo, Michel Brown, Yuli Pedraza. Cinematography: Juan Carlos Gil. Editing: Alejandro Parysow. Running time: 111 minutes. @pablsuarez
Argentine comedy draws on Shanghai traditions for a story of devotion beyond the grave POINTS: 7 In China, there’s an old tradition that dates back to the 17th century that’s still alive and well today: to bury the bodies of the dead next to each other, as though to signify a marriage. This way, the dead are accompanied by their loved ones in the afterlife. This ceremony is called ghost marriage. And though these marriages can be legally arranged between the families, the theft and trafficking of corpses is punished with life sentences. Previously featured at the BAFICI, Una novia de Shanghai (“A Shanghai Bride”) was shot entirely in Shanghai with Chinese crew and actors and is spoken in Mandarin. The new film by award-winning Argentine filmmaker Mauro Andrizzi (Iraqui Short Films, En el futuro, Accidentes gloriosos), takes a simple and moving tale of a so-called ghost marriage to weave a sincere meditation on the meaning of true love in today’s materialistic Chinese society. Better said, Andrizzi’s take may be geographically narrowed to China, but its resonance is actually universal. Story-wise, it’s about two slackers who pull off tricks on the streets of Shanghai to make ends meet — including stealing wedding-rings from proud and easily distracted brides, as they pose with their grooms in outdoor photo shoots in parks and on the streets. One night, the ghost of an old man contacts them and asks for their help in exchange for a bundle of money he’s secretly hidden somewhere before he died. This ghost is in love and wants to celebrate a ghost marriage, which means the two slackers will have to dig out the corpse of the love of his life, a married woman with whom he’d had a long-lasting romance, and put it in a container to be shipped to the faraway town where the man is buried. And so within the mould of a charming comedy, Andrizzi draws out an urban itinerary for his two protagonists — or, to be fair, three protagonists given the ghost’s voice-over that accompanies the men everywhere — to follow across the city, from the cemetery to the container. And in so doing, he also perceptively explores Shanghai with the alert eye of an eager documentary filmmaker seeking to find the pulse and rhythm of a city filled with all sorts of people, food, venues, and night clubs. But A Shanghai Bride is not a travelogue. It’s not about sightseeing. It’s not about postcard images. It’s not about exoticism. In stark contrast, it’s about becoming a city insider who pays careful attention to traits and facets of a booming place that defies standard synopsis, a place in the world that keep reinventing itself. That’s why the atmospheric cinematography aims to reveal what glossy surfaces truly mean, in addition to going for that which is hidden, that what you can’t see at once. However, the film’s core theme is whether love is the most important thing of all. In a contemporary and materialistic society, such a notion is bound to be risible and ridiculous. But bear in mind that the ghost of this old man belongs to an older generation, and so the truthful romance that joined him to the woman started flourishing decades ago. And though the two lovers are now dead, their everlasting love is not. An auteur work that smoothly intertwines with genre cinema, A Shanghai Bride comes across as a surprise with its sense of discovery and its vindication of romantic ideas that have long been forgotten. Production notes Una novia de Shanghai (Argentina, China, 2016) Written and directed by Mauro Andrizzi. With Lorena Damonte, Jiao Jian, Hu Chen-gwei, Sun Yu-han. Cinematography: Yao Zi-long. Editing: Francisco Vázquez Murillo. Running time: 74 minutes. @pablsuarez
Points: 5 Beatrice (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi), an aristocratic woman who falls prey to fantasies which include being friends with George Clooney and Bill Clinton, and Donatella (Micaela Ramazotti), a fragile young woman obsessed with recovering her son who was taken by social services because of her dangerous behaviour, are residents of a psychiatric facility for women in Tuscany. Despite their different tempers and life stories, they become good enough friends to escape together while taking part in an educational activity outside the facility. So off they go in an adventure that will change the course of their lives forever as well as reveal some delicate secrets from their past. And in so doing, they will also realize the beauty of their imperfections. Of course, you’ve seen this story before. In fact, it’s billed as the Italian version of Thelma and Louise. But the truth is it pales enormously in comparison to Ridley Scott’s endearing, memorable feature. And it’s not even similar. The fact that two women in trouble comfort one another as they embark on a journey of self-discovery does not mean, at all, that they are two of the same kind. La pazza gioia (“Like Crazy”), the new outing by Italian Paolo Virzi (La prima cosas bella, Il capitale umano) is a run-of-the-mill crowd-pleaser with no insights or findings, and its overall plot is very hard to buy. Of course, massive audiences often couldn’t care less about it and the proof is that Virzi’s feature was seen by over six million people in Italy — or so the film’s poster claims. Then again, crow-pleasers tend to be loved by very undemanding viewers. On the plus side, Bruni Tedeschi’s performance does have its good moments, particularly when she’s not an over-the-top maniac. As for Ramazzotti, let’s just say she does her best — though she’s almost constantly eclipsed by Bruni Tedeschi — but she can only do so with a character that’s your usual crazy person with the usual break downs, the usual depression and fits of madness. Like Crazy is part comedy and part drama. For the first two acts, it’s mainly a situation comedy peppered with the usual traits such comedies have: the women act in the weirdest of ways, they are unpredictable, their conversations may make little or no sense at all, and they live in parallel universes. When a complex scenario is played for laughs, then you should have smart and somewhat original gags. When that’s not the case, and on top of it you have stereotypes posing as flesh and blood characters, then there’s little, if any, chance for the film to work. A few minutes before the third act, Like Crazy turns into a drama and it lacks even more verisimilitude. It becomes sort of existential, rather emotional, and even more obvious. By the time you reach the ending, which seems one of Beatrice’s fantasies and yet it’s the stark reality, then all hope for improvement is dead and buried. Production notes Like Crazy (“La pazza gioia”). Directed by Paolo Virzi. Written by Francesca Archibugi, Paolo Virzi. With: Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Micaela Ramazzotti, Anna Galiena, Valentina Carnelutti, Elena Lietti. Cinematography: Vladan Radovic. Editing: Cecilia Zanuso. Running time: 111 minutes. @pablsuarez
Points: 5 Los inocentes (“The Innocents”), the debut feature of Argentine filmmaker Mauricio Brunetti, is set in mid-19th century Buenos Aires province and it’s meant to be both a compelling drama of historical proportions and an eerie ghost tale of revenge. Leaving aside a few specific assets in production values — such as immaculate, tidy art direction, and a neat, rightly moody cinematography — Los inocentes doesn’t even remotely succeed as neither of the two. When it comes to the drama, there’s just no pulse, and for a number of reasons. As far as the horror goes, there’s simply no sense of fear or creepiness. That’s what makes it so tedious to watch. The story in brief: after some long 15 years, Rodrigo (Ludovico De Santo) returns to the large, sumptuous ranch house where he was born. It is a place where he was endlessly mistreated by his cruel father (Lito Cruz) and neglected by his submissive, religious freak of a mother (Beatriz Spelzini). He’s now married to a young, beautiful woman, Bianca (Sabrina Garciarena), whom he introduces to his parents. His father is as despicable and overbearing as always while his mum is now wheelchair-bound, only able to utter laughable cries and whispers. Little do they all know that Eloísa (María Nela Sinisterra), a young slave brought from Africa, will return from the land of the dead to avenge the death of so many innocent slaves at the hands of the masters of the house. Worst of all: innocent Bianca is also to pay for the sins of others. It’s not so much that the storyline is so unoriginal that turns Los inocentes into a cinematic bore (if it were only that, then it’d have been simply predictable), but instead it’s the cartoonish look of all these one-dimensional characters that makes it so hard to buy — with an over-the-top, mean Lito Cruz doing his own impersonation of a mean Lito Cruz. We know some of these landlords were bad guys, we know we are not to empathize with them, we know that slaves were treated like garbage. But you don’t have to stress it so much, it’s not necessary to paint a picture with such broad strokes. For the sake of seriously good drama, what you need is developed characters and not trite stereotypes. And the same goes for disturbing horror cinema. Then you have the lame dialogue: explanatory to the tiniest detail, often solemn and almost never realistic, the lines uttered here fail to carry any genuine dramatic weight. So you don’t buy the characters and you don’t buy how they talk. Add to that the lack of the necessary tension to pull the story forward. Major and minor events take place one after another in an automatic, repetitive manner, with no unforeseen twists and turns of any kind. Following generic conventions is one thing; doing so without having a soul is something entirely different. So sooner rather than later, and despite the formal achievements in cinematography and art direction that give the film a credible overall look, the creepy and disturbing atmosphere a film like this one calls for is never conjured up. The living dead may return and indeed they do, but they are neither disturbing nor scary. They just have great make-up, perform a few tricks they know by heart, and go back to rest in peace. By then, you are probably sound asleep too. Production notes Los inocentes (Argentina, 2016). Written by Mauricio Brunetti, Natacha Caravia. Directed by Mauricio Brunetti. With Lito Cruz, María Nela Sinisterra, Beatriz Spelzini, Sabrina Garciarena, Ludovico Di Santo, María Eugenia Arboleda, Stella Delphino. Cinematography: Hugo Colace. Editing: Elena Ruiz. Running time: 101 minutes. @pablsuarez
A turkey farm is heaven and hell for multigenerational family in Israeli film Baba Joon Points: 8 Set in an immigrant Persians’ moshav in the Negev during the early 1980s and mostly spoken in Farsi, Baba Joon is Israel’s foreign-language Oscar entry of last year. Written and directed by Yuval Delshad, it’s an unusually assured debut feature that works very well on two levels at once: as an appealing coming of age story, and as an honest meditation on the tensions between three generations regarding what one should do with his life — and where to do it. There are three generations in the Morgian family, which owns a broken-down turkey farm in a remote community of Farsi-speakers. There’s the grandfather (Rafael Faraj Eliasi), the family’s patriarch and a stubborn old man who built the farm long ago. Then there’s Yitzhak (Navid Negahban), who moved from Iran when he was a kid and was forced by his father to run the farm almost ever since. Then, there’s Moti (Asher Avrahmi), Yitzhak’s 13-year-old son who has a knack for fixing cars and hates the turkey farm with all his heart. Last, but not least, there’s Sarah (Viss Elliot Safavi), Moti’s caring mother who tends to favour her son over any dispute with his father. There’s also another significant character that appears in the third act, Darius (Fariborz David Diaan), Yitzhak’s brother, who left the family home long ago and moved to the US — he knew what he’d have to do if he stayed at the farm, that is to say, live with turkeys forever, like the rest of the family. And that’s not a pretty sight. As a coming of age story, Baba Joon carefully confronts father and son in everyday circumstances that are almost always related to farm work. While the grandfather and the father belong to the migrant generation and want to stick to their traditions, Moti is younger and couldn’t care less about the past and instead wants to walk along a new road. In fact, he wants to move to his uncle’s home and perhaps work with jewellery — or do anything else but turkeys. One of the outstanding traits of Baba Joon — the title is a Persian term of endearment that a son can use to address his father — is that it eschews all sorts of melodramatic confrontations between the three generations where the eldest could be easily demonized and the youngest would be a suffering victim. This is not how things are, for Baba Joon would rather go for realism than anything else. So what you have, instead, are family members trying to understand one another, even when it may not seem so at first sight. Because the point here is that understanding that everybody has their reasons implies that some of the axioms you hold are to be left aside. And that’s always threatening and even subtly disturbing. Such underlying tensions result in an eloquent contrast that speaks about a divide as much as about the willingness to come to terms. Walking along this thin line is not easy at all, but filmmaker Yuval Delshad does a very good job at it. Then there’s also the mix between professional and non-professional actors — another element that adds up to realism. Avrahami and Eliasi are non-pros and they deliver fresh, compelling performances that blend seamlessly with those of the pros. Likewise, the production design feels naturalistic at all times, and this a film shot on location, then there you have all you need for a great combo. Emotional and honest, Baba Joon boasts nuanced characters — except perhaps for that of the mother, which is pretty one dimensional — and it keeps its tone from beginning to end, eschewing commonplace as much as possible. That’s a lot to say for a debut film. Production notes Baba Joon (Israel, 2015) Written and directed by Yuval Delshad. With Asher Avrahami, David Diaan, Navid Negahban, Elias Rafael, Viss Elliot Safavi. Cinematography: Ofer Inov. Editing: Yoni Tzruya. Running time: 91 minutes. @pablsuarez
Points: 6 “When I was four, my father died, and the one and only icy phrase to explain his absence was: ‘Your dad died in a train accident.’ Nobody in my entire life explained to me how that accident actually happened. So little by little, the everyday silence became so intense that I got used to not asking anymore,” says Argentine filmmaker Mariana Arruti (Los llamaban los presos de Bragado, La huelga de los locos, Trelew) about her new and insightful documentary El padre (“The Father”), which seeks to fill in the void left by an absent father who has faded from his daughter memory. More than three decades have gone by since Juan Arruti, the filmmaker’s father, died on September 13, 1973, and it’s now time to start asking questions that were left unanswered, or that were never asked to begin with. Arruti doesn’t believe the version of the accident — and not without reason. Her own mother never identified the body at the morgue, many folks claim he was too watchful a man to cross a railway without seeing the train coming, whereas others also distrust the official version for unspoken reasons. Plus the fact that Juan was being persecuted by the police because of his being a political activist is not to be taken lightly. Narrated in the first person singular, El padre is not exactly or strictly a conventional documentary since it boasts some fictional segments and chooses a subjective point of view in portraying its subject. But it’s definitely not a fiction film either, so let’s just say it lies smoothly on the thin frontier dividing the two formats. Arruti meets with her mother, uncles, cousins, and nanny, as well as with three of her father’s comrades, who were also involved in politics. And as a non-obtrusive interviewer, she asks succinct questions and lets them go back in time to bring forward fragments to recreate a missing picture. In so doing, some interviewees cannot hide the emotions that start flowing from deep inside their hearts, and with teary eyes they say what they know about Juan Arruti. Yet there’s no possible way to have hard information, absolutely true facts, or even conclusive statements. Because memory often fails the best of witnesses, and also because some stories have parts that are never unveiled. So it’s particularly smart for Arruti to go for a subjective point of view because in order to fill the void left by her father, all she can possibly have are images provided by those who knew him — to which she can add sounds for making a film. This way, the art of filmmaking will eventually allow for closure. So you have sensitive, affectionate reenactments of her early days with her father, which she can only imagine, shot in elegant black and white. In slightly sepia tinted tones, there are reenactments of her days, weeks, and months following her father’s death, which are removed from the cosy or welcoming. At the very end, there’s a sweet and emotional —if restrained — segment that visually expresses what the director has accomplished in her pursuit of overcoming a traumatic absence. One more things: unlike many documentaries filmed in a very narcissistic first person singular — where the figure of the filmmaker is too noticeable to the point of being obnoxious — Arruti knows better, and so she discreetly chooses not to take centre stage at any time. She’s after a father that was abruptly taken from her, and so the film is always about him and his absence. More to the point, it’s about getting him back in the best of way possible for her. Production notes El padre (Argentina, 2016) Written and directed by Mariana Arruti. With Emma Gil, Manuel Martínez Sobrado, Franco Jeremías Lara Arruti, Nadia Schmiedt y Vanina Aybar. Cinematography: Manuel Muschong. Editing: Marisa Montes. Running time: 72 minutes. @pablsuarez
Points: 6 Ángel (Diego Gentile) is a successful director of advertising commercials whose work is celebrated and respected. He’s also a chauvinist, a womanizer, and a sex-addict. In fact, he uses his profession to seduce women — as many as possible. He’s also a hypocrite because his wife Lucila (Moro Anghileri) has asked him to bring other people into their otherwise sexually-starved relationship. She’s not narrow-minded regarding sexuality and feels threesomes could be a good way to get some excitement. But he refuses, time and again, because he says he’s an old fashioned guy who doesn’t like that sort of stuff, when the truth is he wants to be the only one with privileges. Little does he know that he will soon be paying his dues when a sisterhood of Celtic vampire women come looking for him, as they’ve been doing for ages with many men who have used, mistreated and abused women. These female vampires called Baobbhan Siths will also come for Ángel’s business partner, Eduardo (Damián Dreizik), and once they bite both their necks, they will become two more casualties in the women’s army of living dead. Written and directed by Fabián Forte —co-written with Nicolás Britos — El muerto cuenta su historia (“The Dead Man Spins His Tale”) is an uneven mix of horror and comedy with some assets regarding production values — mainly the cinematography and the production design — overall good acting, but not much of an ingenious plot despite all the fantastic elements tossed into it. Once the set up is established and the main conflict starts to unfold, it’s pretty easy to guess how the story will play out and end. The introduction of other living-dead characters in the second act — played by Lautaro Delgado, Pablo Pinto, and Sebastián Berta Muñiz — feels somewhat reminiscent of Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice, and it’s a right move that adds a welcome new layer to a scenario that on the surface looks and sounds very well. Yet, for its all visual imagery, El muerto cuenta su historia still lacks a sense of surprise. So expect few thrills. It’s more of a flat line than anything else. Emilia Attias, Viviana Saccone, and Julieta Vallina play the three ruling Celtic vampire women, and their expressive faces and husky voices are the two single features used to flesh them out. Other than that, they have no personality traits whatsoever. Considering their importance in the tale, they should be more than flaming figures to look at. On the plus side, special credit goes to the makeup and F/X department that creates a great look of its own to this story of the fantastique invading the everyday lives of chauvinistic males to their profound dismay. Production notes El muerto cuenta su historia (Argentina, 2016). Directed by Fabián Forte. Written by Fabián Forte, Nicolás Britos. With: Diego Gentile, Damián Dreizik, Emilia Attias, Viviana Saccone, Julieta Vallina, Moro Anghileri, Lautaro Delgado, Sebastiàn Berta Muñiz. Cinematography: Leonel Pazos. Editing: Demian Rugna. Running time: 80 minutes. @pablsuarez
The trite high-school transfer story gets an infusion of raw energy and a genuine flavour Points: 07 “When I was young, I was a Benoît, too — a little shy. I was the new kid in the classroom and I always had a hard time fitting in. It’s something painful for a lot of people, and everybody was ‘the newbie’ sometime in their life,” said French actor-turned-filmmaker Rudi Rosenberg about his debut film Le nouveau (“The New Kid”), a lightweight yet very enjoyable tale about discrimination, tolerance and acceptance that won the New Directors prize at San Sebastián as well as the Audience Award for Best International Feature at the BAFICI. The story is pretty well-known: a coy teenager comes as a transfer in a new school, where he faces the tricky task of making friends, standing up against the bullies, becoming one of the cool guys, and, if possible, having a pretty girl fall for him too. Basically what every high-school boy wants given those circumstances. Yet despite so well-trod a premise, Rosenberg is sensitive enough to infuse it with a good deal of raw energy and emotional truth as he has his so-called geeks and freaks find out that being who they really are is hip and ultimately outdoes being who others expect them to be. Such revelations won’t come easily, as the road to self-approval is often arid and not devoid of a good deal of suffering, but in the very end it’s a path that pays off in a down-to-earth, trustworthy manner. And it’s for keeps. Benoît (Rephael Ghrenassia) is a shy 13-year-old from Le Havre who moves to a Parisian junior high-school where the popular kids are cute, rich, and well-dressed — that’s no surprise. Like everywhere else, some of them relentlessly bully the underdogs, namely the plain weirdo Joshua (Joshua Raccah), the brainiac Constantin (Guillaume Cloud Roussel) and the handicapped, self-confident Aglaee (Geraldine Martineau). There is also Swedish Johanna (Johanna Lindstedt), a young beauty for whom fitting in won’t be much of a problem. Needless to say, Benoît is infatuated with her — which is no good news, to be honest. Though Rosenberg never goes for harrowing realism and its multiple complexities, you could still say that his portrayal still is authentic and familiar enough, without ever being manipulative, as to elicit sincere empathy from viewers at large — even those who were bullies as kids, I dare say. This is partly due to a gifted cast of emerging young actors who know what ensemble acting is all about, to a catching sense of humour that makes children’s cruelty more digestible. Also, a transparent mise-en-scène and clean editing that are never distractive and instead allow the drama to breathe at ease. Some situations may be too trite and obvious when trying to convey a message — i.e. Benoît organizes a big party, but only three students turn up, so losers are always shunned — but for the most part they nevertheless work out, mainly because they rely on simplicity and common sense. And though the ending might feel too optimistic at first glance, then think it’s only fair that these uncool kids get what they strive for, meaning to feel good about themselves, have friends with whom to enjoy life, and not care about fitting in. Granted, in real life it takes much longer than a term to pull off such a feat — and many people never get even close — but thanks to the magic of the movies you get the picture anyway. And that’s what really matters. Production notes Le nouveau (France, 2015) Written and directed by Rudi Rosenberg. With Rephael Ghrenassia, Joshua Raccah, Geraldine Martineau, Guillaume Cloud Roussel, Max Boubil. Cinematography: Nicolas Loir. Editing: Julie Lena. Running time: 81 minutes.
Spellbinding musical biography does justice to the uncanny magic of a unique popular artist POINTS: 9 First, the facts. While on the road to promote her booming new album Corazón Valiente around Argentina, beloved cumbia singer and composer Gilda met a tragic end as her bus crashed head-on with a truck that had suddenly changed lanes. Gilda, her mother, her young daughter Mariel, three of her musicians as well as the bus driver died on September 7, 1996, en route to Entre Ríos — whereas her young son Fabrizio and other members of the band survived. Enter the myth. Gilda’s fateful death at the height of her brief four-year-career shocked the entire country, her albums climbed to the top of the charts, and a posthumous album called no less than No Es Mi Despedida (“Not My Farewell”), with previously unreleased material, was launched in 1997 and soon became the best-selling album of the year. Right after the heartbreaking accident, her fans built a shrine precisely where the crash took place. Even before her death, they claimed she had a special gift for miraculously healing people. On her birthday, year after year, her fans visit the shrine to leave candles, flowers, and presents. Saint Gilda is thus born. And now, almost 20 years after her death, comes Gilda, no me arrepiento de este amor, starring famous actress and singer Natalia Oreiro as the title character: a spellbinding musical biopic that does justice to the sweet candour and uncanny magic of a unique artist who transcended the boundaries of tropical music and social barriers and was recognized by notable musicians from different fields thanks to stirring tunes such as Corazón herido (“Broken Heart”), Corazón valiente (“Brave Heart”), Un amor verdadero (“True Love”), and her most emblematic No Me Arrepiento de este amor (“I Don’t Regret This Love”). Yes, it’s all about love, passion, and heartache. Written and directed by Lorena Muñoz — co-written with Tamara Viñes — Gilda is an accomplished feature that never hides its intentions to pay homage to both the woman and the myth in a courteous and adoring manner. It’s based on the real life story, but it’s certainly not the ultimate truth about Gilda. Let’s say that it’s more of a fable, yet one rooted in reality. Muñoz has a strong background in documentary filmmaking; she co-directed with Sergio Wolf their outstanding debut feature Yo no sé qué me han hecho tus ojos, about the mythical tango singer Ada Falcón — a great diva of the 1920s and the ‘30s — and then made her thought-provoking solo documentary Los próximos pasados about a forgotten mural by David Siqueiros. So it’s no surprise that Gilda bears the imprint of a filmmaker who smoothly mixes true-to-life facts with inspired poetic licences to make the whole affair of myth-making all the more absorbing. Going from the artist’s early beginnings as a kindergarten teacher to her musical breakthrough in the often hostile cumbia scene of the early 1990s with partner/agent Toti Giménez (a very convincing Javier Drolas), Muñoz draws a detailed picture where you see the forest for the trees, but also the tree standing by itself. From the early days of her love for her husband (Lautaro Delgado in an assured performance) to the hurdles in their marriage due to her career and his possessiveness, Gilda becomes a sad story of a painful break-up. Also important are Gilda’s memories of her caring bond with her father (Daniel Melingo in a luminous performance) and his death when she was a teenager (touchingly played by Ángela Torres), and then her growing up with a widowed, somewhat unaffectionate mother (Susana Pampín, superb as always). In technical and aesthetic terms, Gilda goes beyond the expectations raised by a genre work with such high ambitions. Not only because Oreiro displays sheer talent in becoming Gilda (she recorded all the songs featured in the film, some of them live), but also because the cinematography, editing, musical score, art direction, sound, costumes and make-up are top notch. Each element of the language of cinema skilfully converges to paint a passionate picture, an immaculate period piece which results in a sense of style that never distracts viewers from the drama. On the contrary, it enhances it. But what’s most remarkable, what makes the film so special, is that it has fully succeeded in capturing and conveying the enchanting aura of a cherished woman who now has her own cinematic shrine. Long live Saint Gilda. Production notes Gilda, no me arrepiento de este amor (Argentina-Uruguay, 2016). Directed by Lorena Muñoz. Written by Lorena Muñoz, Tamara Viñes. With Natalia Oreiro, Lautaro Delgado, Javier Drolas, Susana Pampín, Daniel Melingo, Angela Torres. Cinematography: Daniel Ortega. Editing: Alejandro Brodersohn. Running time: 117 minutes.
POINTS: 6 It’s Carnival in a godforsaken small town somewhere in Argentina. Moré (Agustín Rittano) and Gringa (Jimena Anganuzzi) are a young couple whose love life is not what you’d call flourishing. It seems tediousness and a pervasive sense of dissatisfaction rule their everyday life. The prospect of having a child is where their hopes lie, but even that may not happen. Yet at least they have a house to live in — even if shabby — a room to rent, and some sort of diner — actually, diner is too big a word for just a bunch of scattered tables and chairs in a large room. An odd man, Tania (Jorge Prado), arrives in town looking for a woman who nobody knows a thing about. He looks exhausted, worn out, and has no money at all. For the time being, Moré and Gringa allow him to stay at the extra room they have. He says he’ll pay them as soon as he has some money. And then there’s Jafa (Alberto Suárez), another strange man whose partner, another unknown woman, died a couple of years ago, or so. He seems to have been in some sort of accident and it’s very hard to know what he wants because all he does is file forms and follow formalities for some unidentified legal purpose, which nonetheless is clearly related to his dead partner. So you have two absent women — one dead and one missing — at the centre of these men’s lives, and soon another absence will affect the already gloomy life of the young couple. You could say that in this scenario the bodies that aren’t where they should be can paradoxically be more present than if they actually were present. Absence can cause unbearable pain if it’s prolonged for far too long. Los ausentes (“The Absent Ones”), the debut film of Luciana Piantanida, is ambitious. Not in its scope since it’s a low-budget small production indie feature, but it’s ambitious in the story it wants to tell and in how it wants to tell it. Because its chief theme is never detailed, but rather hinted at, or subtly suggested — in the best of cases. Consider that the manner in which the absences affect the protagonists is sometimes shown by what they do, whereas other times it’s almost completely hidden by their silence. Much of the conflict resulting from that takes place in the characters’ souls, and so that can never be filmed. But it can be referred to. So it is the detailed observation of the meaning of their minor actions and lack of reactions where you can have a glimpse of what’s happening. In a sense, Piantanida’s opera prima succeeds in telling a story about individuals lost in their search for bodies very likely impossible to find. Thanks to its moody naturalistic cine-matography and an expressionistic sound design Los ausentes creates a languid, bleak atmosphere that makes you feel what the film opts to not explicate. You do have a sense of being there and that’s an achievement. At the same time, there’s an effectively eerie effect resulting from the contrast between the naturalistic cinematography and the expressionistic sound design. In visual terms, there are also over a dozen shots that go for a poetic edge rather than realism. Which is also an asset. In a different sense, Los ausentes faces some problems. It’s a slow burner that, as all slow burners, pays off at the very ending. As though it were an epiphany — but it’s not quite one — all pieces fall into place and the final picture makes perfect sense. However, it’s perhaps too slow, even for a slow burner. From time to time it does gain momentum and that’s when the narrative becomes slightly more dynamic and the film’s emotional impact deepens. But it too occasionally loses momentum — and I guess this is involuntary — and Los ausentes is motionless. In terms of style, there’s a difficulty with maintaining a cohesive editing, but this also has to do with the narrative itself. Since Piantanida often favours a strong use of ellipsis rather than expository transitions (which makes sense with the whole notion of absence explored) then a methodical approach should also be used. But here you perceive that there’s more of an intuitive manner in creating the ellipsis than any method, which doesn’t always work and it surfaces an uncomfortable unevenness. Occasionally, some confusion in the narrative also arises. Nonetheless, all in all, Los ausentes is a film that’s to be praised for its goals and assets, rather than put down for its flaws. Above all, it’s an opera prima and it does have an appealing sense of narrative freedom that’s quite creative and personal. Production notes Los ausentes (Argentina, 2014) Written and directed by Jimena Piantanida. With Jimena Anganuzzi, Agustín Rittano, Alberto Suarez, Jorge Prado. Cinematography: Federico Lastra. Sound: Abel Tortorelli. Editing: Ezequiel Santiso. Running time: 95 minutes. @pablsuarez