Who doesn't have a sneaking suspicion that their first love might have been their one true love? Who doesn't wish they could go back and live that other life - even if only to see how it would have played out? La Vida de los Peces takes this premise to the extreme with a couple who were so madly in love that an encounter 10 years later is almost too much to handle for both of them.
More later on La Vida de los Peces.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
El Último Tren
A group of pensionistas hijacks a refurbished 1940's steam engine before it is sold for use as a Hollywood prop. They're not criminals, rather adventurers searching for a last hurrah, and not planning to go quietly.
El Último Tren sparkles because its characters are undeniably real even though they find themselves in a completely absurd situation. They're dealing with their own mortality and inevitable demise and they experience powerful emotions like loss, victimization, and pride.
The comedy is delightful as well. There is constant quibbling among the 3 main characters, old codgers who are always convinced they're right. They can't seem to do anything according to plan, yet they outwit the authorities at every turn.
The unusual premise of this film generated enough buzz in the Rioplatense acting community to rope in 3 absolute grandes: Hector Alterio, Federico Luppi, and Pepe Soriano. It's such a joy to watch them act together. One gets the sense that this was a last hurrah for the actors in addition to their characters but I hope there are many more opportunities for them to perform their craft.
El Último Tren sparkles because its characters are undeniably real even though they find themselves in a completely absurd situation. They're dealing with their own mortality and inevitable demise and they experience powerful emotions like loss, victimization, and pride.
The comedy is delightful as well. There is constant quibbling among the 3 main characters, old codgers who are always convinced they're right. They can't seem to do anything according to plan, yet they outwit the authorities at every turn.
The unusual premise of this film generated enough buzz in the Rioplatense acting community to rope in 3 absolute grandes: Hector Alterio, Federico Luppi, and Pepe Soriano. It's such a joy to watch them act together. One gets the sense that this was a last hurrah for the actors in addition to their characters but I hope there are many more opportunities for them to perform their craft.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Padre Nuestro (Sange De Mi Sangre)
A Sundance winner from fresh-from-film-school writer/director pair Christopher Zalla and Benjamin Odell, Padre Nuestro tells an unbelievable story while displaying America's immigrant cultural underbelly with poignance and compassion.
Pedro, 17, pays a coyote smuggler to get from Puebla, Mexico, to New York City. Illiterate and alone, he's traveling to meet his estranged father for the first time following his mother's death. Along the way, he befriends petty criminal Juan. The two fantasize about a successful new life in New York. But when Pedro falls asleep in the coyote truck, Juan snatches his letter of introduction and wins the race to Pedro's father's door. The contrast in fortunes continues as Juan's street smarts and mean streak serve him well while Pedro's naivette stands in his way - until the inevitable show-down between the real Pedro and the pretender.
Despite Juan's propensity to lie and cheat, there is something endearing about him too. The film's lack of truly "bad" characters is unusual; there is reason to identify and sympathize with each role. Pedro, the actual son, means well but can't catch a break. Juan, the impostor, finds the father's love he always craved even though he was initially seeking only money. The father still simmers over the betrayal by the woman he loved years earlier in Mexico, and is not eager to revisit that part of his life by accepting his son.
Many members of this cast can be seen in other movies about emotional awakening and cultural consciousness, including Todo Inclusivo and Entre Nos.
Pedro, 17, pays a coyote smuggler to get from Puebla, Mexico, to New York City. Illiterate and alone, he's traveling to meet his estranged father for the first time following his mother's death. Along the way, he befriends petty criminal Juan. The two fantasize about a successful new life in New York. But when Pedro falls asleep in the coyote truck, Juan snatches his letter of introduction and wins the race to Pedro's father's door. The contrast in fortunes continues as Juan's street smarts and mean streak serve him well while Pedro's naivette stands in his way - until the inevitable show-down between the real Pedro and the pretender.
Despite Juan's propensity to lie and cheat, there is something endearing about him too. The film's lack of truly "bad" characters is unusual; there is reason to identify and sympathize with each role. Pedro, the actual son, means well but can't catch a break. Juan, the impostor, finds the father's love he always craved even though he was initially seeking only money. The father still simmers over the betrayal by the woman he loved years earlier in Mexico, and is not eager to revisit that part of his life by accepting his son.
Many members of this cast can be seen in other movies about emotional awakening and cultural consciousness, including Todo Inclusivo and Entre Nos.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Jorge Drexler - Amar La Trama
Several years after re-inventing himself as a jazz-pop fusion artist, Jorge Drexler has changed the paradigm again. Gone are Campodonico and Cascobuerta, the DJ's who created the atmospheric textures on his previous 3 albums. Now he brings in an all-star cast of studio jazz musicians.
That's the first thing to take into account about Amar la Trama. This is not "Disneylandia" or even "Todo Se Transforma." It's a more polished version of his rootsy beginnings, a mature extension of Llueve and Radar.
Of course, Drexler's last album, 12 Segundos de Oscuridad, was quite brooding by his standards owing to his divorce from Ana Laan. Now he's remarried to Leonor Watling (surely one of the world's most beautiful women, I might add) and all is well in Casa Drexler.
The second important aspect of Amar la Trama is that it was recorded live in session. Usually for a project like this, all the musicians would track separately to ensure note-perfect takes. Not so here. It's a full band, in a room, taking cues from the maestro. This lends the album a wonderful warmth and spontaneity. Hey, it worked for the old-time jazz greats. Why not?
If you want one song to convince you, try "I Don't Worry About A Thing." That's right, English!
That's the first thing to take into account about Amar la Trama. This is not "Disneylandia" or even "Todo Se Transforma." It's a more polished version of his rootsy beginnings, a mature extension of Llueve and Radar.
Of course, Drexler's last album, 12 Segundos de Oscuridad, was quite brooding by his standards owing to his divorce from Ana Laan. Now he's remarried to Leonor Watling (surely one of the world's most beautiful women, I might add) and all is well in Casa Drexler.
The second important aspect of Amar la Trama is that it was recorded live in session. Usually for a project like this, all the musicians would track separately to ensure note-perfect takes. Not so here. It's a full band, in a room, taking cues from the maestro. This lends the album a wonderful warmth and spontaneity. Hey, it worked for the old-time jazz greats. Why not?
If you want one song to convince you, try "I Don't Worry About A Thing." That's right, English!
Monday, April 12, 2010
Pagafantas
"Eres un pagafantas!" is the refrain that reverberated around Spain in 2010.
The concept is universal, yet the Spanish are the first culture I know of to associate a particular word to it: The man who pays for the girl's Fanta, during their purely platonic dates where he eternally hopes for romance but she knows there's not a chance in hell.
From this brilliant concept, Pagafantas is in truth quite predictable, but director Borja Cobeaga makes the highs crescendo splendidly while the lows are absolutely gut-wrenching. Chema, the Pagafantas, is even more pathetic and spineless than you'd expect. Claudia, the object of his affection, strings him along more than human decency would seemingly allow. Their yo-yo games lead to a chase through the Bilbao streets, a marriage on a fishing boat, and an accidental flight to Buenos Aires.
So sit back with a cold Fanta and your favorite Enrique Bunbury record to enjoy Pagafantas.
The concept is universal, yet the Spanish are the first culture I know of to associate a particular word to it: The man who pays for the girl's Fanta, during their purely platonic dates where he eternally hopes for romance but she knows there's not a chance in hell.
From this brilliant concept, Pagafantas is in truth quite predictable, but director Borja Cobeaga makes the highs crescendo splendidly while the lows are absolutely gut-wrenching. Chema, the Pagafantas, is even more pathetic and spineless than you'd expect. Claudia, the object of his affection, strings him along more than human decency would seemingly allow. Their yo-yo games lead to a chase through the Bilbao streets, a marriage on a fishing boat, and an accidental flight to Buenos Aires.
So sit back with a cold Fanta and your favorite Enrique Bunbury record to enjoy Pagafantas.
La Teta i la Lluna
Bigas Luna's 1994 drama La Teta i la Lluna is a strange story: a comedy that suddenly becomes a drama, its elements alternating from childly cute to theatrical to obscene.
9-year old Tete is obsessed with breasts and goes on a personal mission to find the perfect pair of lactating breasts to feed on. A French dancer attracts his attention, but he must compete with her boyfriend and a neighborhood pretender. While playfully suggesting that Tete has a real chance of attracting a grown woman (to do what?), the film eventually recognizes that he's only a 9-year-old, and things are not really the way he sees them.
Rarely is one so dissapointed with a full book after being enamored with the first chapter, but such is the case with La Teta i la Lluna. Tete's inner monologue about breasts - he regards his mother's to be the world's finest, and harbors great jealousy to his infant brother who gets to feed on them - and his visions of the townspeoples's busts are hilarious. So, too, is his sincere but incomplete understanding of the adult world. I'm not sure what I was expecting after the first 15 minutes of the movie, but it certainly wasn't a magic realist portrait of a nomadic French dancer and her desperate boyfriend living in a trailer on the beach.
The movie's other redeeming quality - and it also occurs in the first 15 minutes - is the wonderfully shot scenes of Castellers in what appears to be Barcelona's Plaça San Jaume. The pinya, the enxaneta , and the manilles were all on full display.
Also, La Teta i la Lluna is in Catalan!
9-year old Tete is obsessed with breasts and goes on a personal mission to find the perfect pair of lactating breasts to feed on. A French dancer attracts his attention, but he must compete with her boyfriend and a neighborhood pretender. While playfully suggesting that Tete has a real chance of attracting a grown woman (to do what?), the film eventually recognizes that he's only a 9-year-old, and things are not really the way he sees them.
Rarely is one so dissapointed with a full book after being enamored with the first chapter, but such is the case with La Teta i la Lluna. Tete's inner monologue about breasts - he regards his mother's to be the world's finest, and harbors great jealousy to his infant brother who gets to feed on them - and his visions of the townspeoples's busts are hilarious. So, too, is his sincere but incomplete understanding of the adult world. I'm not sure what I was expecting after the first 15 minutes of the movie, but it certainly wasn't a magic realist portrait of a nomadic French dancer and her desperate boyfriend living in a trailer on the beach.
The movie's other redeeming quality - and it also occurs in the first 15 minutes - is the wonderfully shot scenes of Castellers in what appears to be Barcelona's Plaça San Jaume. The pinya, the enxaneta , and the manilles were all on full display.
Also, La Teta i la Lluna is in Catalan!
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Máncora
The independent film Máncora from Peru is poignant but in a way also light. It's linear, yet full of twists and turns, and it ultimately delivers a sharp message.
Máncora beings in Lima with an upper-class twentysomething named Santi in the thralls of a "fuck it all" period. He's disenchanted, aggressive, and withdrawn. Then, a shattering event: his father has committed suicide. Unable to come to terms with his own behavior and clearly feeling the guilt of his father's death, Santi leaves for the beaches of Máncora, a day's drive from the city, with his half-sister Ximena and her husband Íñigo.
While Santi begins to center himself in the tabula rasa state of Máncora, he cannot shake his aggressive streak. An altercation at a dance seems like a typical bar fight until several days later, when his adversaries ambush him on the docks and push him overboard, leaving him for dead. As his life flashes before his eyes, Santi finally decides to transform into a nurturing, warm person and surges up to the surface to begin his productive life.
Máncora engages the viewer in a way not unlike The Motorcycle Diaries. The peripheral visions of the city, the countryside, and the people from all walks of life in Perú lend it a certain journey motif. Here, however, the central plot driver is Santi coming to terms with his flaws and his purpose in life, so the literal journey is secondary.
Máncora is not just a character development piece. It's also a saga of adventure, sibling rivalry, fun, and passion. The characters are both beautiful and flawed. With a cast featuring Enrique Murciano from Without A Trace, Elsa Pataky, and Jason Day (not bad for an Indie film) you'd expect nothing less.
Máncora beings in Lima with an upper-class twentysomething named Santi in the thralls of a "fuck it all" period. He's disenchanted, aggressive, and withdrawn. Then, a shattering event: his father has committed suicide. Unable to come to terms with his own behavior and clearly feeling the guilt of his father's death, Santi leaves for the beaches of Máncora, a day's drive from the city, with his half-sister Ximena and her husband Íñigo.
While Santi begins to center himself in the tabula rasa state of Máncora, he cannot shake his aggressive streak. An altercation at a dance seems like a typical bar fight until several days later, when his adversaries ambush him on the docks and push him overboard, leaving him for dead. As his life flashes before his eyes, Santi finally decides to transform into a nurturing, warm person and surges up to the surface to begin his productive life.
Máncora engages the viewer in a way not unlike The Motorcycle Diaries. The peripheral visions of the city, the countryside, and the people from all walks of life in Perú lend it a certain journey motif. Here, however, the central plot driver is Santi coming to terms with his flaws and his purpose in life, so the literal journey is secondary.
Máncora is not just a character development piece. It's also a saga of adventure, sibling rivalry, fun, and passion. The characters are both beautiful and flawed. With a cast featuring Enrique Murciano from Without A Trace, Elsa Pataky, and Jason Day (not bad for an Indie film) you'd expect nothing less.
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