Antena, La (2007)

Director:

Esteban Sapir

Writer:

Esteban Sapir (screenplay)

Release Date:

19 April 2007 (Argentina)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Silent Film | Black And White | German Expressionism | Fantastic | Independent Film

Awards:

2 wins & 8 nominations

Cast

Alejandro Urdapilleta
Valeria Bertuccelli
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Julieta Cardinali
Rafael Ferro
Raúl Hochman
Ricardo Merkin
Sol Moreno	...	Ana
Gustavo Pastorini	...	Man in the street
Carlos Piñeiro
Florencia Raggi

Also Known As:

The Aerial (International: English title)

Runtime:

Argentina:90 min

Country:

Argentina

Language:

Spanish

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Argentina:Atp | France:U | Argentina:13 | Netherlands:AL | Poland:15 | Germany:12

Filming Locations:

Buenos Aires, Federal District, Argentina

Company:

LadobleA

Trivia:

The shooting took 11 weeks and the post-production more than a year for completion.

Exceptional ode to silent cinema.

LA ANTENA (Esteban Sapir - Argentina 2005).

A completely unique take on silent cinema in this fairy-tale like story by Esteban Sapir, beautifully shot in black-and-white and practically without dialog, "La Antena" is a feast for the eye and a must for lovers of German expressionist cinema, with most of the nods to the works of Fritz Lang and Friedrich Murnau.

'The City without a Voice', 'La Ciudad sin Voz', is ruled by Mr. TV. He has taken the inhabitants voices and is in total control of all spoken words and images, forcing everyone to eat his own brand of TV-food. Mr TV is not just a monopolist, he is the personification of evil and totalitarianism, even the swastika appears as a symbol a number of times. He secretly works on a hypnotizing device to control all the citizens minds through his television broadcasts. For this purpose, he kidnaps the only one left with The Voice, a beautiful singer, but a TV repairman witnesses the kidnapping and flees to an old TV antenna in the mountains in order to halt Mr. TV's evil plans.

The production design is stunning with beautiful sets and imagery. Although shot primarily with the basic language of silent cinema, Esteban Sapir also adds a number of fresh techniques of his own, like a combination of typographic and animation techniques. Everyone talks with each other through text balloons (usually floating near their mouths), the louder they talk, the larger the characters. The texts themselves can be pushed away or crushed. In the opening sequence, we see a book, titled "La Antena", that opens and a city of paper rises from the pages. There are hardly any references to Argentina. It's constantly snowing, which gives the film a very un-Argeninian feel, while the surreal setting suggests any large city in the Northen hemisphere, with only some of the songs revealing the film's Argentinian background.

The pace is swift and there is so much happening on screen, it's hard to keep track of the film's surreal narrative. Not only breathtakingly beautiful to look at, we're also given a few messages about media monopolies, corruption and totalitarianism, but they are breezily packaged. One of the most original films I've seen in years. A delight.

The film was shown as the opening film at the IFF Rotterdam 2007.

Camera Obscura --- 9/10