Mar del Plata award-winning film How Most Things Work is successful and enjoyable
Celina (Verónica Gerez) is a somewhat withdrawn young woman living with her sick father in a humble house, in a working-class neighbourhood in a small San Juan town. She works at a toll-booth of a God-forsaken side road with almost no traffic, since not long ago a nearby wide freeway was inaugurated.
Considering she has little to do, it makes sense that she helps out her friend Nora (Miriam Odorico) with her passion for crosswords puzzles. After all, time seems to stand still no matter what. She also has a boyfriend, Sandro (Esteban Bigliardi) and yet she doesn’t seem to be in love. Perhaps he isn’t either — it’s hard to tell.
On an unfortunate Sunday right after she comes back from mass, Celina discovers her father has died. Of course, it’s heartbreaking, even more so because her mom left them when she was two and she’s never seen her since. She’s been told that her mom is a professional singer living in Italy. While sorting out her dad’s stuff, she finds her mom’s exact address and makes up her mind: it’s time to pay her a belated visit. But she has no money for the trip.
So what is she to do? Of all things, she wants to sell encyclopaedias door to door, which is exactly what her dad did for a long time. More precisely, we’re talking about the very same encyclopaedias he used to sell, which claim to have the answers to how almost all things work. Of course, the things that truly matter are not to be found in such books and can only be learned by undergoing challenging experiences. No matter how painful or disappointing they might be.
Winner of the Best Director Award and Best Script in the Argentine Competition of the recent Mar del Plata Film Festival, Cómo funcionan casi todas las cosas (How Most Things Work) is the promising film debut of Fernando Salem and is produced by Tarea Fina, which has made La luz incidente, Ciencias naturales, Samurai, and Las acacias, all of them rather remarkable, award-winning features with an identity all of their own. And How Most Things Work is no exception.
From the very first minutes, an appropriately gloomy, unhurried tone is set and then smoothly maintained throughout the entire film. In a very down to earth manner, each character gradually begins to show their colours, and for the most part they ring true. Not that they are extraordinary beings, but their appeal lies precisely in that unfussiness. Of course, this is also a merit of the largely natural performances, with Verónica Gerez and Pilar Gamboa heading the list. Coaching actors is quite a hard task and Salem appears to have the right tools to do so effectively.
In fact, I personally believe that How Most Things Work is better directed than it is scripted. For instance, the use of incidental music is ably restrained and so it only punctuates the necessary scenes. In tune, the camerawork is invisible, since what matters is the drama and not stylistic flourishes. And the lighting design together with the sound design ensures a sense of identifiable spaces, an atmosphere that has a direct effect on Celina’s tribulations.
In a coming-of-age story like this one, special attention must be paid to what makes the characters feel what they feel and do what they do because that’s where the core of the film is. And Salem is more than aware of this simple truth. So some subtle details and minor gestures acquire larger meanings in a film where less is more.
However, just like there are some subtleties here and here, there are quite ideas and concepts that are expressed too obviously, be it metaphorically or literally. In these involuntary self explanatory moments, How Most Things Work loses its necessary ambiguity and uncertainty. Because you do get the ideas anyway, and even if you’re in doubt, in a film of this kind it’s better not to know too much for sure. Perhaps a bit more substance than style would’ve added extra layers too.
Yet in what matters the most, meaning the film’s heart and some of its veins, How Most Things Work is both successful and enjoyable while it also shows the hand of a novel director who knows what’s he doing.
Production notes
How Most Things Work (Argentina, 2015). Directed by Fernando Salem. Written by Fernando Salem, Esteban Garelli. With Verónica Gerez, Pilar Gamboa, Marilú Marini, Rafael Spregelburd, Esteban Bigliardi. Cinematography: Georgina Pretto. Editing: Emiliano Fardaus. Running time: 95 minutes.
@pablsuarez
