Hawaii is Marco Berger's third solo feature film that comes to close a trilogy of sorts began with Plan B (2009) and continued with Ausente (2011). It's also very likely the best of the three with clear points in common with its two predecessors. The film begins with an overture where the main characters are introduced. Martín (Mateo Chiarino) is looking for a summer job in a small provincial town. He is homeless, we see him staying outdoors in some piece of ground with his very few possessions. Eugenio (Manuel Vignau)is staying at his uncle's, taking care of the property while his uncle is out, using time to work on a novel he is writing. This first part features almost not direct sound but an extra diegetic quasi-melodramatic orchestral arrangement. The second part starts when Martín arrives at Eugenio's place and begins to perform various maintenance works there. From their first encounter we learn they were childhood friends, that Martín used to swim in the property's pool, but now their relationship will be crossed buy an inevitable boss-employee link. The movie yet does not completely fall into some sort of "social realism". Eugenio and Martín's relationship develops into a bucolic tale, where the ambiguity of their intentions plays a fundamental role. Martín may be in a situation of abandonment, but he doesn't tell the truth to Eugenio from the beginning and pretends to be staying with some non existent aunt. Eugenio, on the other hand, takes care of his childhood friend, lends him new clothes, invites him to bath in the house and to swim in the pool, cures him when he cuts with some rusty wire and, when he finds out Martín has been lying about his aunt and is living outdoors, offers him a room. Eugenio needs to insist as Martín does not want to bother his employer and benefactor. An even if Eugenio's intentions are noble and born out of compassion, he can't avoid, with these actions, underlining their uneven, and, for that reason, somewhat uncomfortable relationship: Eugenio is in good financial position, he is a bourgeois, an artist, and the one who pays; Martín is poor, helpless, working-class, the one getting paid. But, for a good part of the movie, these social differences seem to get almost erased as their friendly relationship grows, as they have some kind of regression to childhood, playing child games and visiting old places that bring memories back (something that links this film to Plan B) I remember an Internet meme about Jane Austen novels: it features a female character saying something like "I love him, but he can't know it" and a male character saying "I love her, but she can't know it". Add to this the typical class tensions in Austen's work and you can see how Hawaii plays in these same coordinates. There are many subtle insinuations between both men, but, until the last part of the movie, it's not quite clear if there is a romantic attraction or if Eugenio's actions are born simply out of compassion, and Martin's out of gratitude. What comes to break this dreaminess of the semi-nude bodies in the summer (though far from the sticky atmosphere of Berger's short film Platero, Hawaii's summer is not an unbearable ball of heat in an overcrowded house but a clear and luminous countryside vision), this 'bucolism' of grass and plants and rivers (water, there's a lot of water in the film: the crook, the pool, Martín's bottle to drink, the faucet which he 'steals' water to wash himself of, Eugenio's house shower) is the coming of Eugenio's older brother, which constitutes a key moment (and a very powerful one). I don't want to spoil it, so I will just say it's a scene full of (verbal) cruelty but with certain honesty and accuracy that makes it even more painful. The romantic daydream is broken (the micro-climate created by having only two characters interacting in the same locations for most of the film is destroyed), the (insuperable?) social tensions and distance (re) appear at the center of the scene. The 'phantasmatic' epilogue that follows reminds us of Ausente's ending, though, I dare to say, with more subtlety and effectiveness. Special mention to both main actors. Berger's years of studying theater and as a theater teacher are noticeable, he brings out great performances from the leads and deserves to be consider a great actor's director. Vignau is in a different register to Plan B's Bruno, more obscure, bereft of the funny arrogance of that character, and full of the required ambiguity. Uruguayan Mateo Chiarino is extraordinarily photogenic, but much more than just a pretty face: the way he portrays Martín's abandonment is remarkable, in his way of speaking, his elusive eyes, his attitude that might resemble a stray dog the has found a helping hand but is still apprehensive.
Reviews
9 Reviews
Interview
(1996 TV Movie)
How to sell yourself
20 June 2013
Warning: Spoilers
In this documentary, Harun Farocki follows a group of unemployed people taking courses to learn how to make the best impression in a job interview. Simulated applications followed by group feedback of the process is carried on. The workers are faced with the questions they are most likely to be asked and their responses are evaluated with great detail to help them to make the best possible impression and to take into account the different challenges they could face during a job interview. The director goes for natural-illuminated close shots of the applicants in order to give detail to their reactions, with the exception of a few shots where he uses 'ralenti' and blue-tainted images. He's possibly trying to stand out those particular shots due to two reasons: either because they serve as an example for something that's being pointed out by one of the 'teachers' or as a replay of a particularly tough moment in the interview. The awkward moments are abundant and not exempt of humor (specially if you can identify yourself with the situations, which is quite likely), and help to reveal the contradictory and random character of job interviews, where you can never be absolutely sure about how you are supposed to react: as an example, when one of the applicants aims at a 3000 Marks wage and the interviewer counteroffers 2500, the applicant accepts it immediately and justifies herself saying that 2500 is the typical initial salary in the region. The teacher-interviewer makes her notice that she was expecting her to counteroffer 2700. The debate begins: are you suppose to counteroffer your interviewer? isn't there a chance that it could be counterproductive? how to balance the wage you believe you are worth of with your necessity of a job? Obviously there's not an exclusive answer to these questions. Do the bosses know it? Does this fact (the uncertainty of what is expected from you) play a role in a capitalist economy?
Juan sin ropa
(1919)
A film of historical significance
28 December 2012
Most of the Argentinean films from the silent era are lost due to the lack of proper politics for the preservation of the audiovisual material through time. That's why "Juan sin ropa" becomes such a significant work. Born from the association between actors Camila and Héctor Quiroga, with photography director Georges Benoît, the film, that has survived in a fragmentary way, tells the story of a worker that, after moving from the countryside to work in a cold storage plant in the big city, is involved in a strike with violent consequences.
Film expert Fernando Martín Peña has pointed the dynamic editing and the expressive use of close-ups as very modern for its time. According to him, film historian Kevin Brownlow has considered the formal resolution of the strike sequence as superior to the similar one on Griffith's "Intolerance".
Its view of the social conflicts in Argentina at the time, with the arrival of millions of immigrants in a few years and the increasing complaints about the inequity of the economical and political systems,has the big merit of anticipating the "Semana Trágica" ("Tragic Week"), a series of heavy clashes between socialist and anarchist workers and right-winged nationalistic groups in the week from January 7th to January 14th, 1919.
Film expert Fernando Martín Peña has pointed the dynamic editing and the expressive use of close-ups as very modern for its time. According to him, film historian Kevin Brownlow has considered the formal resolution of the strike sequence as superior to the similar one on Griffith's "Intolerance".
Its view of the social conflicts in Argentina at the time, with the arrival of millions of immigrants in a few years and the increasing complaints about the inequity of the economical and political systems,has the big merit of anticipating the "Semana Trágica" ("Tragic Week"), a series of heavy clashes between socialist and anarchist workers and right-winged nationalistic groups in the week from January 7th to January 14th, 1919.
Germania
(2012)
The life that falls apart makes no noise
23 October 2012
There's a certain bleakness that emanates from Germania, Maximiliano Schonfeld's debut feature, the internal bleakness of a family of three, mother (Margarita Greifenstein), daughter Brenda (Brenda Krütli)and son Lucas (Lucas Schell), that face the forced exile from their rural town —a Volga Germans village in Entre Ríos—, due to a plague that affects their chicken farm.
The movie presents the last day of the family in its hometown, developing the contrasts between the emotional state of its members and the people surrounding them, the people who will stay, the life that goes on as usual, as expected. This is particularly noticeable when watching the attitudes of Brenda and Lucas and the attitudes of their friends. The siblings never smile (except for Lucas, when alcohol is involved outside a party), and sometimes they seem to be in a zombie-like state; while their friends are cheerful, trying to have a good time with them in their last hours at home. Another moment when this can be spotted is at the party, the night before the departure.
This sense of bleakness, the sense of loss and, one may say, the abyss that opens ahead of an uncertain future in a new village (the Aldea Brasilera)can also be tracked in the use of the language. The German dialect is only spoken among adults, between adults and the young siblings and between both siblings (alternating in this last case with Spanish). The siblings only speak Spanish with their friends, even when they are also part of the German community. Besides, Brenda tells her brother at one moment that they should stop speaking in dialect, as they won't be able to speak it at their new place. These signs about the loss of their original language (hence, the loss of a fundamental part of their identity, in conjunction with the loss of their "place in the world" itself)are interrelated with the emotional bleakness aforementioned (disguised of an apparent blankness, the inexpressiveness, on the surface, showed by Brenda and Lucas), with the fact that Brenda learns she's pregnant (which puts her in a crossroad: leaving without telling the father —a young worker from outside the German community— or staying, that if the father decides to take charge of the situation) and with Schonfeld's languid cinematography, which favors long, static shots, softly lighted. The no-landscape of the countryside (as, if I'm not mistaken, was defined by writer Manuel Puig, due to the monotony of the prairie)is used by the director without 'underlining' its importance, its stripped beauty.
The difficulty in breaking off from what has been your life until today, your place (geographically and emotionally), your friends, your way of life (Brenda faces a future as a waitress in the Aldea Brasilera, instead of picking up eggs at a farm)is indeed an impossibility: what is now supposed to be your past won't leave, as the family dogs which keep coming back until the very last shot of the movie, no matter the efforts of Lucas to abandon them faraway.
This has an ambiguous consequence, the pain for what is lost in the material aspect but retained, somewhat kept alive, in an inferior form, the intangibility of the memory; plus the abyss, both frightening and exciting about the unknown future. But Germania leans towards melancholy and is the first aspect that prevails, the tremendous languor in which your known life disintegrates in the same monotonous, 'inexpressive' and quiet way of the country fields.
The movie presents the last day of the family in its hometown, developing the contrasts between the emotional state of its members and the people surrounding them, the people who will stay, the life that goes on as usual, as expected. This is particularly noticeable when watching the attitudes of Brenda and Lucas and the attitudes of their friends. The siblings never smile (except for Lucas, when alcohol is involved outside a party), and sometimes they seem to be in a zombie-like state; while their friends are cheerful, trying to have a good time with them in their last hours at home. Another moment when this can be spotted is at the party, the night before the departure.
This sense of bleakness, the sense of loss and, one may say, the abyss that opens ahead of an uncertain future in a new village (the Aldea Brasilera)can also be tracked in the use of the language. The German dialect is only spoken among adults, between adults and the young siblings and between both siblings (alternating in this last case with Spanish). The siblings only speak Spanish with their friends, even when they are also part of the German community. Besides, Brenda tells her brother at one moment that they should stop speaking in dialect, as they won't be able to speak it at their new place. These signs about the loss of their original language (hence, the loss of a fundamental part of their identity, in conjunction with the loss of their "place in the world" itself)are interrelated with the emotional bleakness aforementioned (disguised of an apparent blankness, the inexpressiveness, on the surface, showed by Brenda and Lucas), with the fact that Brenda learns she's pregnant (which puts her in a crossroad: leaving without telling the father —a young worker from outside the German community— or staying, that if the father decides to take charge of the situation) and with Schonfeld's languid cinematography, which favors long, static shots, softly lighted. The no-landscape of the countryside (as, if I'm not mistaken, was defined by writer Manuel Puig, due to the monotony of the prairie)is used by the director without 'underlining' its importance, its stripped beauty.
The difficulty in breaking off from what has been your life until today, your place (geographically and emotionally), your friends, your way of life (Brenda faces a future as a waitress in the Aldea Brasilera, instead of picking up eggs at a farm)is indeed an impossibility: what is now supposed to be your past won't leave, as the family dogs which keep coming back until the very last shot of the movie, no matter the efforts of Lucas to abandon them faraway.
This has an ambiguous consequence, the pain for what is lost in the material aspect but retained, somewhat kept alive, in an inferior form, the intangibility of the memory; plus the abyss, both frightening and exciting about the unknown future. But Germania leans towards melancholy and is the first aspect that prevails, the tremendous languor in which your known life disintegrates in the same monotonous, 'inexpressive' and quiet way of the country fields.
Picado fino
(1996)
Almost secret little jewel
25 May 2012
"Picado Fino" is Esteban Sapir's first feature (to date he has only directed two movies, this one and the critically acclaimed "La Antena". Makes me wonder why, lack of funds perhaps? After all his movies do not precisely fit on the 'popular' category). Produced between 1993 and 1995 with very limited budget and premiered only in 1998, it's not only one of the first but also one of the finest examples of the Nuevo Cine Argentino (NCA) from the 90s that gave us directors such as Lucrecia Martel, Pablo Trapero, Adrian Caetano, Lisandro Alonso, Martin Rejtman and Ezequiel Acuna among others. This is a fragmentary movie, far from a typical narrative, introduces elements in terms of editing that may fairly remind to the work of Jean-Luc Godard, but with a sense of the bizarre and the obscure that personally referred me to David Lynch or even Fritz Lang (the similitudes with Lang are perhaps more evident in "La Antena"). Here we follow the avatars of Tomas (the late Facundo Luengo, who was killed by a truck shortly after finishing filming, a circumstance that devastated Sapir, who couldn't go on with editing for some time after he found out), who finds out that his girlfriend is pregnant and dreams with leaving to "the countries of the north" while struggles to face his new responsibilities and gets a job as a dealer. But all of this would have no importance without the particular way to build a structure that Sapir has, the few and oblique dialog, the use of separators with neon symbols and traffic signals, the "associative" editing (for instance, in one of the shots, a man gets his fingers into Tomas' sister's private parts, and in the subsequent shot we see -and listen to- Tomas breaking the aluminum cover of a yogurt with his thumb, then drinking it and, in the process, daubing his nose and mouth with the white, creamy substance). Oblique, obscure, with a good amount of sense of humor, fragmentary (Joyce's "Ulysses" is a leitmotiv of the movie: a particularly funny scene shows us Tomas reading it while sitting on the toilet), "Picado Fino" is a movie that easily could have been kept in secret by its creator (who first thought of it more as an essay and not to be publicly released). We are lucky it didn't.
Born and Bred
(2006)
White purgatory
26 August 2011
Warning: Spoilers
Santiago is a successful interior designer, married and with one daughter. But his life falls apart after the family suffers a terrible car accident while he was driving. After that, a time ellipsis put us on southern Patagonia, a white-winter desolated airstrip where Santiago is now working, in what can be considered as a self-pursued purgatory. He's haunted by nightmares and day delusions. The fire marks in his body are a permanent reminder of what happened. He's a man on a search: a search for self-forgiveness, a search for courage to face the life he pretended to leave behind. The raw way of life he has chosen and the not less raw Patagonian environment that surrounds him, that envelops him, works as a mirror to his soul, but also as a cathartic path.
A Boy and His Dog
(1975)
A tender, twisted-humored futuristic story
28 July 2011
"A boy and his dog" manages to combine both a bit twisted sense of humor with an enormous tenderness, all that in a desert post-apocalyptic environment. Vic is a young man who can communicate through telepathy with his dog Blood, who has the ability to detect danger but also to smell the presence of women. In this world, the female have become commodities that are simply used and then thrown away by men. And Vic's main concern doesn't seem to be finding food, refugee, family, friends, but to get laid soon as it has been six weeks since the last time he had sex. This search for women to have sex with, plus the ironic remarks from the witty Blood and Vic's impulsive and rude manners add to the 'funny' side of the movie. But what really carves deep about it is the relationship between dog and boy: beyond their quarrels, beyond Vic sometimes not paying attention to the wise advice from Blood (who acts as a protective figure to the kid), or perhaps just because of that,the familiar bond between them in a world where love and caring don't matter and humans have evolved into a more individualistic and wild stage, may really touch one's heart.
Sitcom
(1998)
"Incest can't save the western civilization"
11 June 2011
Warning: Spoilers
Sitcom is the story of a bourgeois French family whose life is seriously affected when the father (François Marthouret)brings home a new pet: a white lab rat. This animal will prove having an almost hypnotic influence over the family members, causing each of them to release their darkest sides at the slightest physical contact with it. The first to fall is the son (Adrien de Van), who admits himself homosexual at a family dinner. He will be followed short after that by the maid's husband, Abdu (Jules-Emmanuel Eyoum Deido) Then, it's the turn of the daughter (Sophie, played by Marina de Van): she tries to kill herself but fails and becomes paraplegic. From that on, she will subject his loving boyfriend (Stéphane Rideau)to sadomasochistic practices, taking advantage of his devotion to humiliate him. When the mother (Evelyne Dandry) can't stand her world falling apart, she finally overcomes her fear towards the rat and falls under its spell, causing a desperate attempt to "cure" her son from homosexuality. Having said all this, where is the father? Well, let's say he's guilty from bringing the rat to the house. There's a connection between both, rodent and family chief, two sides of the same problem... one the metaphor of the other, perhaps. From rather absurd premises, director and writer François Ozon creates a short, overwhelming comedy —which might not be that subtle but doesn't intend to be either— about family miseries, undressed by the detonating presence of a little, white excuse.
Alphaville
(1965)
Dystopia
3 June 2011
Warning: Spoilers
Alphaville stands as a particular combination of different narratives. You have the noir, American detective story; the sci-fi element and even black comedy, all combined into one piece of filmmaking. Many people wonder if it could be consider a parody. And even when it's clear that Godard did not undressed his movie from any sense of humor, it would be unfair to point Alphaville as just a parody of sci-fi and detective stories. The dystopia factor is the key, and as it happens with any (well made)dystopia, there's social criticism behind it: the absolute confidence in new technologies and rational calculation to (supposedly) improve our life quality may finish in the lost of freedom, specially when power is never something fairly distributed in society and the ones who retain the biggest amounts of it are the ones to dominate, the ones to ensure the founding of the rational calculation (It's not Alpha 60, the supercomputer, who rules the lives of the inhabitants; it's the people behind it's development and maintenance, with professor Vonbraun being the head, who does it.
Tell Your Friends