Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: high museum of art, guest blogger, Tags, 25th Latin American Film Festival, Carancho, Pablo Trapero, Ricardo Darin, Martina Gusman, Buenos Aires, films from Argentina
Carancho shows on Saturday, October 30 at 8 p.m. in the Rich Theatre as part of the High’s 25th annual Latin American Film Festival
by Julie Chautin
“They’re like the Chilean miners down in a dark hole,” Linda Dubler said to me. We were talking about the main characters in Carancho, the film that brings the 25th Latin American Film Festival to a thrilling conclusion.
This time the hole is one that an ambulance-chasing lawyer and a doctor with a drug problem have dug for themselves. They traverse the streets of Buenos Aires in Argentinean director Pablo Trapero’s thriller. And you wonder if they will make it out.
Sosa (the incredible Ricardo Darin) has lost his license to practice law. To get by, he works with a dubious organization called the “Federation.” It sues insurance companies on behalf of poor accident victims, although most of the money from the insurers goes to the Federation, not the victims. Even the hospitals are in on the payoffs. Sosa is the carancho, or vulture, on the lookout for victims.
Lujan (the equally incredible Martina Gusman, wife of the director) is an emergency room doctor new in town. She endures long blistering hours, hassles with administration, and physical assaults by patients. Drugs are her secret source of comfort.
Sosa and Lujan meet at an accident scene one night. His eyes light up but she is wary. When they meet again, Sosa offers her a plea straight from his heart, “How can I change the way you look at me?”
The road may be rocky in some love stories, but this one is strewn with potholes. Sosa wants to reform his life and leave the Federation. He is in deep, however, and crawling out is no easy task.
Trapero’s films Rolling Family and Lion’s Den have been screened in previous years at the High’s Latin American Film Festival, and won numerous awards at others. Carancho is certain to win more. Darin and Gusman are exceptional. The direction and editing are swift and sure. The violent scenes are unnerving. But hope remains. One evening Sosa convinces Lujan to go out for coffee. We watch them through the window of the coffee shop, as passing car lights reflect onto the window like stars in the universe. Then a miracle happens. Sosa makes her laugh.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Anna Muylaert, Brazilian films, Caetano Velloso, Chico Buarque, E Prohibido Fumar, Gilberto Gil, Glória Pires, guest blogger, guitar music in films, high museum of art, Jorge Ben, latin american film festival, Paul Miklos, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, Villa Lobos
SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES shows on Saturday, October 23 at 8 p.m. in the Rich Theatre as part of the High’s 25th annual Latin American Film Festival
by Julie Chautin
“I don’t want St. Anthony, I want Aunt Dinah’s red sofa,” Baby shouts into the phone. She is a forty-something Sao Paulo native, a paulista, who fills her days fighting with her sisters about items from their dead aunt’s estate, such as it is. When she’s not watching infomercials, she teaches guitar lessons in her apartment to various wannabe Segovias, from a boy who won’t practice to an elderly lady slowly pinging away at the strings. Oh yes, all the while, Baby smokes — a lot.
Sao Paulo-born director Anna Muylaert’s award-winning dark comedy, Smokes Gets in Your Eyes, hits all the right notes, from its direction and screenplay to snappy editing. Even the music of Muylaert’s countrymen moves the story along. A guitar strums a samba as Baby’s cigarette smoke curls upward. Villa Lobos, Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso take their turns. Lovers differ on who they like better, the bossa nova style of Chico Buarque or the samba rock and funk of Jorge Ben.
Baby enjoys a smoke
One day a single guy rents the apartment next door to Baby. His name is Max and Baby knows he’s single because the doorman told her. How else do you get at the truth in a high-rise? Baby and Max meet outside her door. He smiles. She smiles. Guitar strings play Carmen in the background. Poof, they’re a couple.
They have things in common. They both play the guitar. They also have differences. She smokes, he doesn’t. It doesn’t take him long to make that quiet request — to quit smoking. She learns to chant that cigarettes are not her friends.
The further proof that Baby wants to make this relationship to work is in the plucking. Her sessions with the hair-waxing ladies are not to be missed.
Muylaert struck the right chords with actors Glória Pires and Paul Miklos as Baby and Max. All the while she shows us the faces of Sao Paulo. The city is filled with high-rise apartments where residents meet in the elevator. In fact, it is the elevator security tape that becomes a player in Baby’s fate.
One day while she’s alone in her apartment Baby hears low moans that seem to come from Max’s place. It turns out they are low female moans. Another truth slowly comes out courtesy of Baby’s drill.
The moaner is Max’s ex-wife. She won’t leave him alone, he complains to Baby. Jealousy consumes her, until a tragedy happens. And all the things that Baby wanted may slip away.
Brazilian film judges gave the film countless awards. There should be a special one for nailing what it’s like to drive in Sao Paulo. Traffic doesn’t move, it undulates likes waves on Rio’s Ipanema Beach. A little forward, then back, a traffic samba that will slowly dance you home.
Director Muylaert noted in an interview her admiration for the work of Stanley Kubrick. That is a head’s up to be prepared for anything. You will like Baby, laugh at her foibles, and ache for her too. You will also want to see more of Muylaert’s films in years to come.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Contracorriente, Cristian Mercado, guest blogger, high museum of art, Javier Fuentes-Leon, latin american film festival, Manolo Cardona, Peru, Peruvian films, Tatiana Astengo, Undertow
A review of Undertow by Julie Chautin
Undertow (Contracorriente) is another not-to-be-missed film in the High’s Latin American Film Festival. Javier Fuentes-León’s first feature film won the Sundance Film Festival’s Audience Award for World Cinema Drama earlier this year. It is a story full of emotion and beauty. The director captures the glistening blue sea, the wild and rocky coastline, and the intense inner turmoil of a married man in love with another man.
It was filmed in Cabo Blanco, on the coast of Peru. Peruvian director Fuentes-León, however, would have been happy if you thought it was made anywhere else.
In an interview with Jason Farbman of The Latin America News Dispatch, Fuentes-León notes that he wanted the seaside village to look “like a small town that could be set in South Africa, or Italy, or Colombia, or Thailand, or even maybe Louisiana.”
Miguel and his wife Mariela live in this pretty village where Miguel is a fisherman, like everyone else. They are expecting their first child. “Miguelito,” Miguel calls softly into Mariela’s growing tummy. They don’t know the sex of the child yet, but Miguel is sure it will be a boy.
Life revolves around the water, and so does death. Burials are done at sea in a traditional way. Miguel understands the importance of a good departure from this earth. And his friends rely on his help to assure their departed rest in peace.
So it is all the more wrenching when we discover Miguel’s secret life. He is having an affair with an artist visiting the village – a male artist. No one knows, and that’s the way Miguel must have it to survive. It’s a tightrope no one would want to be on.
When an unexpected tragedy happens, Miguel’s tightrope starts to fray.
In the interview, Fuentes-León notes that when dealing with homophobia, what may change people’s minds will always be “having somebody else next to them say, ‘hey, I’m gay,’” — someone you love or respect or admire, he adds. And not surprisingly, those are the feelings I have for Miguel.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Ciro Guerra, Columbia, Columbian films, guest blogger, high museum of art, latin american film festival, Los Viajes del Viento, Marciano Martínez, northern Columbia, The Wind Journeys, vallenato music, Yull Núñez
By Julie Chautin
The Wind Journeys begins in a field where workers are digging a hole. A procession brings a coffin. Ignacio Carillo’s wife, the light of his life, has died. Ignacio used to travel from village to village playing his accordion and singing. Then he married and settled down. He is well known for his songs, however legends say his accordion came from the devil. The horns on the instrument make you wonder. And now his wife has been taken from him. Who else but the devil would do such a terrible deed? The depth of his mourning leaves him no choice. He will give up singing and return the accordion to its rightful owner, the man who taught him to play, far off on a mountaintop.
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The Wind Journeys
The day he leaves for the north a boy appears in the dusty desert. His name is Fermin and he wants to learn the music of the road. The last thing Ignacio wants is a boy tagging along. Fermin, however, has his mind made up.
Director Ciro Guerra’s The Wind Journeys looks and feels like poetry as it tells of Ignacio’s and Fermin’s journey. The dialogue is minimal, music abounds and the beauty of northern Columbia fills every scene. The dusty red deserts, green crested mountains, and crystal lakes will blow you away just like the gusts of wind push the man and boy along.
Director Guerra had not yet turned thirty when he made this film, so the dreams of youth are not strangers to him. But he also has the wisdom of an ancient storyteller and that is a winning combination.
