Spanish

A decade in the making, Mariano Llinás’s La Flor is an unrepeatable labor of love and madness that redefines the concept of binge viewing. The director himself shows up at the start to preview the six episodes that await, each starring the same four remarkable actresses: Elisa Carricajo, Valeria Correa, Pilar Gamboa, and Laura Paredes. Overflowing with nested subplots and whiplash digressions, La Flor shape-shifts from a B-movie to a musical to a spy thriller to a category-defying metafiction—all of them without endings—to a remake of a very well-known French classic and, finally, to an enigmatic period piece that lacks a beginning (granted, all notions of beginnings and endings become fuzzy after 14 hours). An adventure in scale and duration, La Flor is a wildly entertaining exploration of the possibilities of fiction that lands somewhere close to its outer limits.Read More »

Felipe Cazals adapted the novel of Jose Revueltas that he Wrote in Lecumberri prison and displayed the corruption model of the Mexican system in jail, with his usual style of show cruelty in its greatest expression Felipe Cazals was supported this time with an extraordinary assembly of actors which intensity make convincing all he tried to show in the film, Manuel Ojeda,which head appear for the only hole in the Apando where they are prisoners,(this scene remind me Steve McQueen in Papillon) Salvador Sanchez and Jose Carlos Ruiz as the prisoners who traffic drug in the jail get in the film one of the best acting I ever seen in Mexican films until those years, Maria Rojo and Delia Casanova transmitted with naturally and freshmen the simplicity of the low-media Mexican class women, both suffer the denigrates methods of auscultation before enter at jail as visitors.Read More »

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Belmonte paints forests full of trees, naked men in strange positions, submarine fantastic scenes, men/animals hybrid creatures, gravediggers characters, well-built men going up stairs to the leap, love scenes below trees. All of his work, sometimes full of colors, shows loneliness and melancholy, but also beauty and attraction to the human body. Even though Belmonte shows himself distant to some of his family members, he is an emotional man who needs affection all the time; he is especially dedicated to his daughter, Celeste. When Celeste isn’t around Belmonte is kind of lost. There’s a new and important exhibition upcoming at the National Museum of Montevideo but Belmonte is thinking more about the changes inside his family: his ex-wife got pregnant by another man, and he feels Celeste is going to spend less time with him. Belmonte negotiates with his ex-wife about the amount of days he should live with Celeste, he wants more, he needs more days; but is not easy….Read More »

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This three-part documentary on Indian peasant life in the Catamarca region of Argentina is an emotionally moving examination of the generational cycle of poverty in underdeveloped countries. Beautifully told through the eyes and voices of the people, this story of one family becomes the story of all the inhabitants of the valley of Hualfin. In Part I, Temistocles Figueroa, an 84-year-old former cane-cutter, recounts his life in the cane fields through words and song. Part 2 focuses on Justina, his sister-in-law, who is a potter. Her narrative on poverty and pottery mingles with questions, such as, “I’ve heard that in other places women don’t work. How can that be,” she says, “I don’t believe it.” Part 3 profiles Antonia, Justina’s daughter, and her own daughter, Elinda. Antonia toils day and night weaving blankets for sale or barter at the general store. Elinda is her mother’s hope because perhaps her daughter can become a school teacher and break out of the cycle of poverty, but it soon becomes clear that the little girl, too, is trapped, and the cycle will go on.Read More »

Desdemona lives on an isolated island with her strange family: her father Mario, her stepmother Dulcinea and her mentally challenged sister Paulova. As the only inhabitants on the island loneliness and desolation engulf all members of her family. Desdemona tries to ward off her boredom by taking long walks along the beach or engaging in acts of self-gratification. She often tries to seduce her own father Mario to engage in acts of a sexual nature. Their daily routine is interrupted by the arrival (by boat) of a robust male stranger who brings friction into Desdemona’s family.Read More »

Synopsis: In the northeast region of Brazil, the concentration of land and the droughts victimize a peasant family, which leaves once again in search of a place to survive.Read More »

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Sebastian is an ordinary man in his thirties who is utterly devoted to his loyal dog and works in a slew of banal temporary jobs. As he moves fitfully through adulthood, he navigates love, loss, and fatherhood—until the world is rocked by a sudden catastrophe, upending his already turbulent life.Read More »

Pachamama is another fine example of Peter Nestler’s extraordinary documentaries. He takes us on an expedition to Ecuador, to the heart of an ancient Indian culture. Although heavily damaged by the Spanish conquerors, many of the old treasures and, more remarkably, many of the old traditions and customs have survived and are still in practice today. It’s a film of quiet beauty and sadness, but of a sadness that is friendly and not bitter; a film about the cultural wealth of a fascinating country. (Ted Roth, -viennale.at)Read More »

Synopsis
A photographer has drawn his world by populating it with clandestine images. Photography allowed him years ago the excuse to try to escape from the family nucleus. And so, lightly packed, he boarded the first and only train.
(translated from FILMAFFINITY)Read More »