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Un grand silence (2016)
Denounces a great hypocrisy in the France of the 60's
This short film, set in France in 1968, reveals a world unknown to many. The protagonist, Marianne, magnificently interpreted by Nina Mazodier is a teenager who is pregnant and is hospitalized in a kind of transient asylum with many other girls her age, who suffer from the same "evil": an unplanned pregnancy. In the formal, we must emphasize the curious quality that all the characters, and there are many, are women, if we except babies. It is true that the subject lends itself, but we also think that it is an intelligent decision of the director, condemning the offspring to the parents of the creatures that the girls are gestating.
Los dueños (2013)
A film with a very original pose on the relations between social classes in Argentina
Set in the province of Tucumán, shows a family of humble origin , where its members work as guards in a cottage with adjoining farms. This family is dedicated to using housing patterns, while they are not without their consent. From this basic story, situations that create a strange climate , where the poor seem fascinated to use goods and spy on their rich patterns in an alignment state that does not leave much room for rebellion are generated. Rather these poor strategy seems to be to seek loopholes through which something can usufruct of the life of the rich. They use their house, eat their food, watch on your TV, in their bathrooms are sanitized, but avoid direct contact, almost to the end . When one of the housewives organized a meeting with the intention of seducing the youngest of the poor family, a misunderstanding makes intimate party fail, but first in what will be perhaps one of the most humiliating scenes of the film, the owners donate clothes of his men to boys from poor family, and ask them to put them in the same meeting. They abide meekly, closing a circle of obedience and subjection of who do not know or will not want escape.
Aquí se construye (o Ya no existe el lugar donde nací) (2000)
Agüero is able to look at the scene in all it's complexity around architectonical brutality that Santiago de Chile underwent around the year 2000
I was afraid that Agüero's film would be predictable and anodyne: a panflet denouncing the architectonical brutality that Santiago de Chile underwent around the year 2000, which meant the demolition of a great number of homes providing a sector located in the Chilean's capital with a citycape of it's own
But the movie is not just a pamflet. It goes beyond that. Agüero is able to look at the scene in all it's complexity. Besides the depiction of the endless greed of the real-estate developers, who, with the complicity of the different governments, make those savage changes in the cityscape. Agüero concerns himself with other social actors involved in that experience, especially with construction workers who, alien to the speculative manoeuvres of their bosses, find in this activity a way to make ends meet. With great mastery, Agüero portrays the everyday existence of these workers, almost without saying a word, or better put, letting his interviewees speak. In constrast with the idyll that these companies promise those who purchase their flats, is the hard working and sacrificed life of the workers who built these buildings and who in turn, live in much less glamorous homes. What stroke me in particular was the sequence in which a model flat is filmed from inside, with all the furniture and decoration, while in the back of the frame a simple worker can be seen on the balcony, finishing up the cleaning of that place that will be used as a marketing tool and that has nothing to do with his own home. The scenes where Agüero captures the passing of the work-day are magnificent, since dawn when all the workers leave their places in different parts of the city of Santiago, looking for means of transport, through the extenuous labour and then back home, now night. The director carries us through a version of Santiago that is not what a tourist may see. It's rather a pure and harsh look that follows the journey in time and space of the construction workers of this country.
Regarding the topic of demolition, Agüero makes another smart move: even though the aboundance of pathetic scenes with cranes and workers destroying dozens of buildings of a Santiago that no longer exists, he is capable also of make us conscious of the human and ambiental impact, by following the life of the professor who narrates his past to the camera and exposes his painful present (due to his healths problems as well as his mother's, and to the destruction of the habitat in which he lives) and thinks about his options for the future, especially regarding where will he live when his house disappears as well. It's just that there's no better way to denounce a social tragedy than to circumscribe to the minimal but interesting story of a flesh and bones human being, with all the pain and anguish that he carries along.
Bestiaire (2012)
We know it: filming animals is always problematic.
We know it: filming animals is always problematic. How to portray these enigmatic species? How to portray the in-communication between our species and the others? What do we portray when we film animals?
We also know the easiest solution, though the fakes, is to do it the way channels as Animal Planet or Nat Geo do. That is, depicting the animals as if they were just like humans, not because of their looks but rather for their conducts, which many times are explained by means of similarity with human actions.
I believe Denis Côté gives us good account of the difficulties stated above. His portrayal of animals in a zoo outside Quebec is a testimony of an impossibility: trying to disentangle something as the essence of those beings, always mysterious to us. To underline that difficulty and to avoid an easy empathy between the spectators and the characters (in this particular case, beings belonging to other species included to the film), the movie is full of scenes fragmented portrayals of the animals. Over here one can see a horn -that is also decentered in the frame; over there an ox glances to the camera most enigmatically
The portrait of the taxidermists reinforces the idea of the impossibility of the knowledge of the other, shown especially in the sequence where a duck gets "fabricated" just keeping from the original animal the skin and feathers. The rest of the body has been replaced by synthetic objects.
But Denis Côté also portrays humans and in those scenes we have two different registers, one more conventional, when portraying the visitors, and one more original, when the faces of the caretakers are shown. The director doesn't interview them. We just have the record of their acts. How is the mind and sensitivity of certain human beings shaped when they are forced by their job to spend so many time with members of other species? What do they ask themselves? Which are their humanly preoccupations regarding these being which they have to feed and take care of? Which feelings do they develop in a context where language is useless beyond a few words?
These and other questions are stimulated by Denis Côté's film and the ability to arise questions is what justifies the making of this movie.
El futuro (2013)
A very original and inspiring movie. The use of music is amazing
Regarding the film's music, I consider an issue that is very important: Could it be diegetic or extra-diegetic music? If we remember that he saw a group of friends or acquaintances, sharing a few drinks, and dancing pleasantries at times, you can consider that music that we, the viewers, we hear, is the same as listening to the characters. Thus we might consider that it is diegetic music. But thinking a little more, especially paying attention to the words of the songs, it seems unlikely that a group of people who want to have fun, so relaxed, they decide to hear these issues, at least on that occasion. Then I think the proper conclusion is that it is extra-diegetic music. There is another element that paid this claim: we do not see at any time, to any of the characters, manipulate any music player. This leads to another question: If the music we hear, not what you hear them, hear what the characters? Did not you hear any music? But the important thing is that if we agree that music is extra-diegetic, and remember the somber tone of the letters, the scenes of the film is completely redefine, and to allow a political reading of it. They try to portray the evolution of the urban, middle-class in appearance, that would be distracting "on the deck of the Titanic". While they dance, talk and drink, there is a world out there that gives us some happy future, and they do not seem to want or be able to know.
Metran men hada al-turab (2012)
A brilliant portrait of daily life in Palestine today
It may be a stereotype, but one hears the word Palestinian, immediately think wars, suffering, killings and other nasty things. However, this film contributes very good way to break these prejudices. The director's ability to convey a friendly atmosphere, a harmonious coexistence between members of this people, is remarkable. He sees the characters fulfilling their roles without twitching or fighting. Natche manages to convey a complex yet lovable of a people most of the time in the news for his troubles. Much of the secret is in dialogs care, which have as one of its main attractions, surprise and interest that shows each partner, for what it says other, their eagerness to learn the life experiences of others. The prominent role of women, evidenced from the first sequence, not with lofty speeches, but their presence in various job roles. From the TV host, who seeks photos for your program, to the journalism student who tries to capture evidence of the event, through the dancers, many women who take active roles. The exterior shots filmed in is another strong point of the film. A ubiquitous wind, caressing the faces, hair and clothing of girls and boys waiting patients for trials of dance and the beginning of the festival, is portrayed in delinquent fixed medium shots, and makes this simple experience an event filled with joy. The history of this suffering people is not absent in the film, but Natche shows his talent to portray the scenes allusive, with originality. From the very beginning of the film, the theme of war is present, when a succession of black and white photos of Palestinians in uniform, men and women, is bringing forth the past. Then, the testimony of the woman, who relates with resignation but not melodramatic gestures, nightmares why you had to spend from earliest childhood. Also when some young people remember the difficulty imposed by the Israelis to move, making Ramallah and other Palestinian cities, true ghettos.