Un lugar en el mundo (1992)

User Rating:

7.9/10   

Director:

Adolfo Aristarain

Writers:

Adolfo Aristarain (screenplay)
Adolfo Aristarain (story)

Release Date:

1994 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Mario and Ana, in voluntary exile from Buenos Aires, live in a remote Argentine valley with their 12-year-old son Ernesto...

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 15 wins

Cast

José Sacristán	...	Hans
Federico Luppi	...	Mario
Leonor Benedetto	...	Nelda
Cecilia Roth	...	Ana
Rodolfo Ranni	...	Andrada
Hugo Arana	...	Zamora
Gaston Batyi	...	Ernesto
Lorena del Río	...	Luciana
Mario Alarcón	...	Juan
Juan José Ghisalberti	...	Don Gregorio
Hugo Pertoni	...	Hombre 1
Eduardo Arias	...	Hombre 2
Roberto Rizotti	...	Cura
Marcos Woinsky	...	Locutor Marcos Woinsky
Santiago Chade	...	Maquinista tren

Also Known As:

A Place in the World (USA)
Un lugar en el mundo (Spain)

Runtime:

120 min

Country:

Argentina | Spain | Uruguay

Language:

Spanish

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Argentina:Atp | Chile:TE | France:U | Italy:T | Spain:T | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

San Luis, Argentina

Trivia:

This is only the second film in the history of the Academy Awards (after the Bowery Boys movie High Society (1955)) to have been nominated for an Oscar and then removed from the ballot. The director Adolfo Aristarain had intended this to be Argentina's official entry for Best Foreign Language Film. When he took it to the Argentinean committee for submission he was told that Argentina had already decided on another film (Eliseo Subiela's The Dark Side of the Heart). Undaunted he went next door to the Uruguayan committee and offered it as Uruguay's official entry. This went against the academy's rule which states that the film must be directed, written, produced and cast with people from the country of the film's submission. The board submitted "A Place in the World" as Uruguay's official entry despite the fact that it was directed by an Argentinean, written by an Argentinean, produced by Argentineans, cast mostly with Argentineans and told the story of an Argentinean rancher facing off against an Argentinean hydroelectric plant in Argentina. Aristarain knew the rules but decided to submit the film because his wife was a native Uruguayan who had been the film's costume designer and had a hand in co-writing the screenplay. When the 1992 Oscar nominations came out, A Place in the World was among the nominees for Best Foreign Language Film (ironically, the film that Argentina submitted was not). The Academy's board of governors learned that the film was in violation of the rule after the nominations had come out and decided to remove it from the official ballot. Aristarain felt that the board was out of line and after failing to convince them to change their minds, he tried to sue on the grounds of "breach of contract". He lost the suit on the ruling that the Academy "has the complete, untrammeled ability to base the awards on whatever it wants". Angry at the ruling, Aristarain made the decision not to release the film in the United States. He relented and it did get a minor release in early 1995 (where it grossed $100,986). As for the Academy, in an effort to avoid this kind of problem again, they rewrote their official rules to make the submission process more mathematically sound.

A jewel

I got to see this movie by chance after reading an interview to Cecilia Roth in La Nacion online newspaper. When asked for her favorite film, she mentioned "Un Lugar en el Mundo". This movie, as suggested in many places, it's as good (or better) as "La Historia Oficial", which is one of the best Argentine movies ever. Personally, I liked this one more. It's a very warm movie about the the relationships of the characters between themselves and with the place they inhabit. Certainly, the place to shoot it was chosen wisely. Argentinian pampa and Patagonia desert have a special appeal, very difficult to describe unless you visit them, some kind of special magic. The movie depicts also the strong gravitational effect that the Catholic Church has in Argentinian culture, mostly in the countryside. As you will see around the movie, besides the frequently shown green ford falcon, diesel train, horse carriage and old ambulance, the other constant are the gatherings in or around the church. A very strong recommendation if you liked "Un Lugar en el Mundo": "Historias Minimas". This is movie shares the same type of narrative it's about human relationships of a group of people in Puerto San Julian, an Atlantic town down south in Patagonia. The difference is that Un Lugar en el Mundo has a very heavy duty cast, all consummated actors and actresses. Historias Minimas only relatively known actor is Javier Lombardo, the rest are mostly first time plays.