Argentine filmmaker Eduardo Crespo’s debut feature Tan cerca como pueda (“As Close as Possible”), which was released a couple of years ago, took a close-up look at the everyday of a common man in his 50s who returns to his hometown of Crespo, in the province of Entre Ríos, after many failures and disappointments. But instead of telling a story in its most classical sense, Tan cerca como pueda was an observational and meditative work on the circumstances surrounding the man’s return to Crespo.
Now Crespo has released his sophomore film, called no less than Crespo (La continuidad de la memoria / “Crespo, the Persistence of Memory”), which previously ran in the Argentine competition of this year’s BAFICI. Like Tan cerca como pueda, Crespo’s new film is also a reflexive, solemn film essay which occasionally strikes subtle emotional chords and focuses more on observing at it all than developing a strong dramatic structure. Nominally, it’s about a trip that the filmmaker takes, once again, to his hometown of Crespo, following his father’s death, which occurred while making a film with and about him.
In the broadest terms, Crespo is appealing as a very personal take on the unconscious and conscious ways memory works, it’s about the remembrance of things past while also being a son’s attempt to understand and symbolically communicate with his departed father. It’s as a narrative experience to emotionally rescue a loved one, resorting to a recollection of some of ersonal belongings of the director’s father — such as his books — and in doing so, subjective and elusive portrayal is built.
But that’s not all: the film also smoothly explores the history of the family, the city, and its inhabitants. In this way, Crespo searches not only within individual memory, but also in collective one, intertwining both in seamless layers. Narrated through the filmmaker’s voice-over, which is somewhat melancholic and nostalgic, this son’s evocation of his father is quietly seductive and intimate.
For a personal road movie of sorts, Crespo (La continuidad de la memoria) is a more original film than Tan cerca como pueda, and it partly transcends narrative and aesthetic boundaries. It’s also leisurely edited, which sometimes makes the film drag a bit, whether deliberately or not. But one thing is for sure: this auteur is not interested in following predetermined blueprints and so his search for meaning in a first person singular work that is to be acknowledged and valued.
When and where
MALBA (Av. Figueroa Alcorta 3415). Saturdays at 8 pm.
Production notes
Crespo (La continuidad de la memoria, Argentina, 2016) Directed by Eduardo Crespo. Written by Eduardo Crespo, Santiago Loza, Ariel Gurevich. Editing by Lorena Moriconi Cinematography: Eduardo Crespo. Running time: 65 minutes.
