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
