"Enjoyable but a bit sentimental" says Yalza, from Denmark, as a title to his critic for this movie. I don't quite understand it, this is not a Rambo movie, this is a very subtle composition about human values, about ethical decisions, about people reaching out to each other, trying to cope with emotions, sometimes small ones, sometimes too big and impossible to grasp in one take.
I was mesmerized throughout the whole film, for moments afraid that the incredible pacing and magic created by this superb director (Sebastián Borensztein, also the script writer) could come down with some unforgivable faux pas that would destroy the fantastic story being told. But that improbability never happened. Not even in the most minuscule detail.
Ricardo Darín created such a strong introverted character (Roberto) endearing from the very beginning with his constant cursing (I didn't see the English subtitles, but I'm afraid that most Argentinian cursing vocabulary is untranslatable) while Ignacio Huang (Jun) brought to life this lost, penniless Chinese immigrant, incapable even to say ROBERTO due to his total lack of the Spanish language (plus the handicap that Chinese people cannot pronounce R at the beginning of a word); Muriel Santa Ana as Mari projected so well her (not hidden at all) great love for Roberto that one felt immediately for her.
And so it goes with the whole rest of the cast, all perfect, even to the smallest part. This movie grabbed me with the story of the lost immigrant in a country without the language because I was there and although it wasn't that tragic, I know how one can feel when it's impossible to communicate.
There are some heart wrenching emotional moments (the ones I suppose our friend Yalza from Denmark found objectionable tear-jerkers) but they are an intrinsic part of those situations and their inevitable conclusion, otherwise we'd be dealing with robots.
Anyway, to me this is an impeccable movie, so far removed from any Hollywood product (I'm convinced that Argentinian movies delve with the same profoundly human feelings that once did the Italian neorrealism in the 1940s) and --as far as I know and I don't know that much-- only Brazilian cinematography matches those feelings with the same intensity.
Try to watch it because, honestly, it's a jewel of a movie. And oh! its final scene... what a gorgeous final scene to end a perfectly gorgeous movie!
