What the Waters Left Behind: Scars

The Ravens are such a dumb hardcore band, they don’t get the Damon Knight (“To Serve Man”) joke when a fan promises “my folks are having barbecue—they would love to have you.” Unwisely, they drive her into the ruins of Epecuen, the flooded Argentine resort city that remains in complete ruins. Just like in the previous film, the Ravens fall prey to a grotesque Texas Chainsaw-like family of homicidal freaks in Nicolas Onetti’s What the Waters Left Behind: Scars, which releases tomorrow on VOD.

This film is a lot like the first film, unfortunately, but it was helmed by only one half of the Onetti Brothers. At least Luciano Onetti showed his support by scoring the sequel and serving as associate producer. It is just as sadistically brutal, but this time the Epecuen squatters are so violent and hostile, they also display a tendency to turn on themselves. That could theoretically open a window of opportunity for the Raven, but don’t get your hopes up.

Frankly, Scars might even be tougher to slog through the just plain What the Waters Left Behind. The first film maybe also made better use of the shockingly bleak and powerfully cinematic Epecuen backdrop. Still, there are some striking drone shots of the tour van crawling across the blighted landscape.

A Taste of Blood, Based on Tolstoy’s Vourdalak

A.K. Tolstoy (second cousin of Leo) could have been one of the great horror writers of his era, but when The Vampire bombed, he held off publishing the next three supernatural stories he had lined up. Eventually, Family of the Vourdalak became a minor classic that horror fans well-remember as one of the tales adapted in Mario Bava’s anthology film, Black Sabbath. Now, the Eastern European vampire is transplanted to Argentina in Santiago Fernangez Calvete’s A Taste of Blood, which releases today on VOD.

Natalia always chafed under the controlling thumb of her father Aguirre, but she is about to discover why he is so strict. One night, she sneaks out to meet her boyfriend Alexis (who really isn’t such a bad chap), but instead, she encounters a stranger who claims to be a distant relative. Then he tries to kill her. Fortunately, Alexis safely sees her home, where her father finally levels with the entire family.

Aguirre was adopted into a wealthy Slovenian émigré family, who had long been plagued by Vourdalaks. Essentially, the Eastern European vampires are like undead family annihilators, who particularly crave the blood of relatives and loved ones. Aguirre decides to hunt down the latest Vourdalak, giving strict instructions not be let back into the house before sunrise, because Vourdalaks cannot endure sunrise. Yet, he turns up like clockwork, right before dawn, demanding they open the doors, so he can crash.

Taste is a great looking horror film, thanks to cinematographer Manuel Rebella’s striking use of light and darkness, but it sounds awful, because of the almost random mixture of English dubbing with subtitled Spanish. Entire conversations alternate between the two languages, for no reason, as far as viewers can tell.

First Look ’19: Rojo

Generally speaking, it was prudent to be polite to people connected to the establishment during the mid-1970s in Argentina. Alas, the man who causes a scene with Claudio, a well-respected provincial lawyer is not prone to prudence or politeness. His boorish behavior precipitates a crisis that haunts the counselor during the months to come in Benjamín Naishtat’s Rojo (trailer here), which screens during this year’s First Look at MoMI.

Everything goes to heck during the first act, but first comes the prologue, wherein a seemingly respectable suburban house is stripped of its furnishings by the seemingly respectable neighbors. This house will also have a call-back later in the film. For now, Claudio is patiently waiting for his compulsively late wife at his table in a crowded restaurant. An angry, slightly-hippyish outsider quite begrudges him his table and the privilege it implies, as he makes clear in no uncertain terms. Claudio will relinquish the table but he gives the stranger such a brutal dressing down for his lack of good breeding and adequate socialization, the aggrieved younger man will come looking for Claudio after dinner.

One unlikely thing leads to another and before you know it, Claudio is taking the man on a late-night drive deep into the desert, where he will be permanently deposited for sake-keeping. Claudio’s life proceeds uneventfully (just the way he likes it) for a few months and then it suddenly gets complicated. First, a social acquaintance recruits him for a scheme to profitably acquire the abandoned house from the prologue. Next, Sinclair, a celebrity detective from Chile arrives to investigate the disappearance of the man from the first act. Tangentially, they are both connected. Thematically, they are also symptomatic of the pre-coup moral malaise.

Rojo is considered Naishat’s most accessible film to date, but there are still moments when the dramatic awkwardness borders on the outright surreal (like there’s a touch of Yorgos Lanthimos in there, but nothing close to the full Lobster). Nevertheless, he incorporates some legit thriller elements, while executing the political morality play with a surprisingly light touch. This is definitely an off-center film that is often disconcerting, but it is also highly watchable.

Dario Grandinetti shows impressive range as Claudio, from the grand moralizer who obliterates the angry man’s self-image to the craven weasel dissembling and prevaricating under Sinclair’s questioning. Diego Cremonesi is bitterness personified as the angry mystery man, while Alfredo Castro gleefully chews the scenery as Sinclair, like an infernal cross between Det. Columbo and Inspector Javert.

Naishat definitely captures the dingy tackiness of the 1970s as well as the overheated tenor of the times. It is an odd film, but Naishat lands his punches and brings it all together down the stretch. In many ways, it is considerably more effective than the Oscar-winning The Secret in Their Eyes. Highly recommended for moderately adventurous viewers, Rojo screens this Sunday (1/13), as part of First Look at MoMI.

Luciferina: That’s Her Name, Don’t Wear It Out

Everyone knows “Final Girls” are expected to remain virginal, if they hope to survive. However, that is in slasher movies. This is demonic horror. Evidently, the rules here are different—much different. A naïve novice will have to adapt quickly in Gonzalo Calzada’s Luciferina (trailer here), which releases today on DVD.

Even though Natalia was never baptized, she felt compelled to run off to a convent. Her parents were always a little odd. Frankly, one of the reasons she left was to get away from them, but that meant leaving her older sister Angela behind. Rather awkwardly, Natalia must return home when an accident kills their mother and permanently incapacitates their father. She receives a somewhat frosty reception from Angela, but her sister needs her to participate in a weird ayahuasca-consuming rite.

Apparently, some really sinister stuff was going on back home while Natalia was gone. The details are a little hazy, but it seems her parents were not that much different from John Cassavetes in Rosemary’s Baby and the mother in Satan’s Slaves. To uncover their lost memories and exorcise their parents’ bad mojo, Angela wants Natalia to travel with her and her obnoxious friends to a remote island where there is an abandoned, deconsecrated nunnery, to participate in a hallucinogenic-driven ritual presided over by a sketchy shaman. Right, let the healing begin.

Except, of course it doesn’t. Instead, you know who crashes the party. Up until this point, Luciferina was a moody film, filled with foreboding and a steadily rising level off tension, but from then on, it goes completely nuts. However, we locked in, whether we like it or not, because Calzada’s set-up work is so effective. The vibe of the first two acts is reminiscent of vintage John Carpenter, which is high praise indeed, whereas the third act is like Ken Russell on a crack cocaine bender.

Sofia Del Tuffo is distressingly vulnerable and altogether disarming as the deer-in-the-headlights Natalia. Yet, the dilapidated sets and ominous locations regularly overshadow the human cast. It is the sort of film that routinely defies gravity, like Wile E. Coyote, when he takes a wrong turn over a gaping chasm. Easily recommended for fans of demonic supernatural horror, Luciferina is now available on DVD.

Brooklyn Horror ’17: Clementina

Difficult real estate markets force difficult decisions. Even though Juana suspects her husband was acting under the evil influence of their new apartment when he brutally assaulted her, she still refuses to move out. New Yorkers will understand. The square footage is considerable, but the terrible feng shui still makes their flat feel claustrophobic in Jimena Monteoliva’s Clementina, which screens today during the 2017 Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.

Mateo beat Juana so badly, he induced a miscarriage, yet she insists on covering for him when she wakes up in the hospital. The cop and social worker assigned to her case assume she is simply too scared to identify him, but she clearly believes there are extenuating supernatural circumstances. Yet, she insists on returning to their flat, presumably so he knows where to find her.

Juana shuts out everyone trying to help her, except their neighbor Olga. Sensitive to the spirit world, she recommends Juana pay close attention to what the ghosts are trying to tell her, especially when the unhinged Mateo finally returns.

Clementina is certainly a moody film, but it is a bit muddled. There are times when Monteoliva and co-screenwriter Diego Fleischer suggests the spirits intend to protect Juana, but they certainly could have made the job easier if they had not pushed Mateo into a state of violent psychosis. Granted, we are probably supposed to assume it was always in him, deep down, but it only comes out in the fateful flat.

Regardless, Clementina is rather smaller in scope and more conventional than many of the films screening at this year’s festival. Still, Cecilia Cartasegna gives a harrowing performance as Juana, powering the audience through some questionable decision-making. Emiliano Carrazzone’s menacing turn as Mateo will also have viewers holding their breath. However, the film’s inconsistent attitudes towards the paranormal goings-on muddies its effectiveness as a domestic violence parable. Frankly, Mateo is probably right when he tells her they should cut their losses and bolt from the flat.

A lot of talent went into Clementina, but they produced an unusually dour, downbeat horror film. It has good intentions, but the internal contradictions distract from the takeaway and the drama. The cast will impress, but Clementina should not be a priority for fans when it screens this afternoon (10/15), as part of this year’s Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.

ND/NF ’17: The Future Perfect

Pretty much the first step to assimilation is learning the local language. The national customs and values will not necessarily follow, but just having a frame of reference shaped by the lingua franca can change your outlook. At least that is the experience of a seventeen-year-old Chinese immigrant to Argentina in Nele Wohlatz’s The Future Perfect (trailer here), which screens during this year’s New Directors/New Films.

After years of separation, Xiaobin’s parents have finally brought her over to Buenos Aires. She never says exactly how long they have been apart, but this is the first time she has met her five-ish-year-old sister. Frankly, it is not an especially tearful reunion. They just want her to work. Possibly, they might also arrange a marriage with another Chinese immigrant, but they expect her lead the sort of insular unassimilated life they have accepted.

Yet, despite her initial difficulties, Xiaobin might actually like living in Buenos Aires (though her poker face makes it hard to say with absolute certainty). Regardless, she resolves to learn Spanish after getting summarily fired from a grocery deli for her lack of fluency. It turns out to be a fruitful decision, because her lessons also give Xiaobin a social network, beyond Vijay, the young expatriate Indian computer programmer deli customer, who takes an instant interest in her.

With incredible subtlety, Wohlatz blends the class’s stilted conversation exercises with apparently real life. Slowly but surely, Xiaobin and her classmates meet for coffee or enjoy the local sites, exchanging basic but grammatically correct pleasantries (which can indeed be pleasant). The film’s tense also shifts with the lessons being taught in class, starting with Xiaobin relating her backstory in the past tense as part of an oral exam and ending with her speculating on her possible futures.

It all sounds very stiff and effected, but Zhang Xiaobin makes it work, thanks to her wonderful natural performance. She is scrupulously reserved (some might say deadpan), but Zhang always projects a sense of alertness and intelligence under the guarded façade (which the immigrant teen is undoubtedly entitled to).

Globalization gets a bad rap, but Future Perfect, a film helmed by a German expat about a Mandarin speaking Chinese teen acclimating to Argentina, demonstrates how multinational synergies can produce challenging and idiosyncratic results. Xiaobin’s future remains uncertain, as it must always be, but it is rewarding to watch her take small but steady strides and develop options.

Future Perfect is truly a film of offbeat charm. It is quite highly recommended, but its sixty-five-minute running time makes theatrical distribution challenging (perhaps some adventurous distributor could put it on a double-bill with Sanaz Azari’s fifty-minute language-themed I for Iran). ND/NF pairs it with Wohlatz’s four-minute short Three Sentences About Argentina, which also takes the form of a language lesson, but represents a more formal, intellectual exercise. In any event, anyone interested in The Future Perfect should make a point of seeing it when it screens this Saturday (3/18) at MoMA and Monday (3/20) at the Walter Reade, as part of ND/NF 2017.

Argentine Noir: Never Open that Door

It is a two-part triptych. Obviously, it was intended to be a trio of Cornell Woolrich (a.k.a. William Irish) short story adaptations, but in early 1950s Argentina, there was even greater pressure on filmmakers to conform to manageable running times. At least Carlos Hugo Christensen’s original vision was more or less preserved. One segment became its own film and the other two were released as a strange matching pair. Yet, the parallels between the constituent stories work rather well together in Never Open that Door, which screens as part of MoMA’s current retrospective, Death is My Dance Partner: Film Noir in Postwar Argentina.

Once the seventy-three minute If I Die Before I Wake was split off, Door became a lean and most definitely mean eighty-five minutes of hard-bitten noir goodness. The first segment is very much in the tradition of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and the various incarnations of Lucille Fletcher’s Sorry, Wrong Number, but it also has a number of night club scenes for extra swinging fun.

In “Someone’s on the Phone,” grown siblings Raul and Luisa have a wildly dysfunctional, vaguely incestuous relationship. They both live in their absentee parents’ spectacularly cinematic town house (that sort of looks like a Trader Vic’s as designed by le Corbusier), but lead separate wastrel lives. However, their privileged existence is shattered when Luisa’s mounting gambling debts culminate in her suicide. Bitterly regretting his own ineffectualness, Raul sets out to kill her tormenting mystery caller. Irony will be involved.

Many consider “Phone” the weakest of the two-film anthology, but it might be the most stylish of the lot. The big band Latin jazz is hot and Pablo Tabernero’s slick noir cinematography is super-cool. Production designer Gori Muñoz and his team also crafted an ominously decadent environment perfect for the genre.

Family relations remain problematic in “The Hummingbird Comes Home.” Blind Rosa is a virtuous widow, who lives with her devoted niece and memories of her beloved son Daniel. After eight years without contact, Daniel suddenly returns, along with two gangster associates (one of whom is unlikely to see the sun rise) and a bullet-riddled car. Despite her love for her son, Rosa is not blind to the circumstances. To save her niece, she will turn the tables on the criminals during the dark of night—when the advantage shifts to her, assuming everything goes as planned.

Once Mother Rosa kills the power, Christensen stages some wonderfully tense and skillful cat-and-mouse skulking sequences. He and Tabernero evoke a sense of her unsighted POV, while clearly conveying the action to viewers. These are scenes that are worth close study. Of course, Ilde Pirovano is the crucial X-factor as the sainted but resourceful mother.

Structurally, it is a little weird to have the considerably shorter “Phone” stuck together with the longer “Hummingbird,” but they are both crackerjack noirs, so they never clash in terms of tone or aesthetics. It is still tough to beat Hitchcock’s Rear Window or Truffaut’s Mississippi Mermaid, but Never Open that Door definitely ranks close behind amongst the many film and television adaptations of Woolrich/Irish stories and novels. Happily it has been preserved and partially restored for future fans by the Film Noir Foundation. Highly recommended, Never Open that Door screens again this Tuesday afternoon (2/16), at MoMA.

Trapero’s The Clan

This film was made possible by Margaret Thatcher. By standing firm against Argentine aggression in the Falklands, she fatally undermined the despised military regime. You might think progressives would give credit where itis due, but obviously not. Regardless, the fall of the junta left former intelligence services employee Arquímedes Puccio unemployed. With the winking protection of colleagues still in the military, Puccio put his very particular set of skills to work as the head of his own family kidnapping racket. The rise and fall of the Puccios is dramatized in Pablo Trapero’s The Clan (trailer here), Argentina’s official foreign language Oscar submission, which opens this Friday in New York.

Puccio looks like a mild mannered sort, but he maintains a profoundly unhealthy hold over his eldest son Alejandro/Alex. Alejandro is popular within his social circle. He is a star member of the national rugby team and has just opened an aquatic sporting goods store below their flat. However, the patriarch will not let him leave the family business. His two younger brothers simply aren’t nearly as reliable during the abduction process.

Poor Alejandro also feels rather bad about setting up their first victim, Ricardo Manoukian, a classmate from a wealthy family. Unfortunately, Alejandro did not understand his father’s M.O. will be to collect the ransom money and then make the hostage disappear to eliminate any possible witnesses. Of course, their final kidnapping will not work out so well, as we can tell from the in media res opening and the periodic flashforwards.

Clan is more like a series of high quality true crime re-enactment than a sweeping crime saga in the Godfather tradition. It becomes quite an object of fascination, but is never truly engrossing. Although plenty of time is devoted to the toxic Puccio father-and-son relationship, Trapero and co-screenwriters Esteban Student and Julian Loyola never really get inside anyone’s head. Stylistically, it is not so very different from Cédric Jimenez’s The Connection, but it does not have the same sweep as the French film or the extensive law & order POV characters.

Playing at least a decade beyond his years, Guillermo Francella is pretty darned riveting as Old Man Puccio. He is like a veritable black hole of parental dysfunction. Unfortunately, just as Alejandro is no match for the manipulative Arquímedes, Peter Lanzani wilts next to Francella. Much like Johnny Depp in Black Mass, Francella dominates and elevates what would otherwise be a very routine crime drama.

Thanks to Francella, the design team’s spot on period details, and makeup/stylist Araceli Farace’s transforming work, The Clan is a good, solid film, but not a great one. Of course, some weeks good is pretty great. Recommended for those intrigued by the notorious case, The Clan opens this Friday (1/29) in New York.

NYJFF ’16: How to Win Enemies

Lucas Abadi might not look like much, but he has an encyclopedic knowledge of Argentine law and an intimate familiarity with Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley novels. When a femme fatale slips him a mickey to plunder his life savings, Abadi will use his hardboiled insights to track down the mystery culprit who put her up to the job in Gabriel Lichtmann’s How to Win Enemies (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 New York Jewish Film Festival.

Lucas Abadi has the brains, but he lacks his older brother Max’s charm and ambition. The caper in question will unfold as Max the beaming groom reads the wedding speech his visibly uncomfortable brother ghost-wrote for him. In retrospect, the woman calling herself “Barbara” was probably too good to be true: a sultry legal secretary who shared his passion for Highsmith and Agatha Christie. Their first date goes swimmingly until Abadi wakes up with a headache and his recent cash withdrawal missing.

His colleagues urge him to dismiss the incident as a random crime, but his instincts beg to differ. She knew exactly what she was looking for—and there are only four suspects who knew he was taking out money for a down-payment on a flat. Frankly, Barbara’s copy of American Friend is just too suspicious not to be an inside job.

Somehow Lichtmann strikes a rare tone with Enemies. He keeps things light, but still serious. Abadi is dealing with some profound issues of betrayal, but he is never in mortal peril, per se. It is therefore rather easy to watch him peel back layers of the onion, but there are always real stakes involved.

It sort of takes a little time to warm to Martin Slipak’s nebbish portrayal of Abadi, but this is definitely a case where slow and steady wins the race. Ines Palombo’s “Barbara” certainly seems like all kinds of dangerous. Sagrado Sebakis notably brings some refreshingly off-kilter comic relief as “the Pelican,” the firm’s off-the-books “consultant” and Abadi’s prime suspect. As the librarian, Carla Quevedo also makes a strong impression with limited screen time, following in the tradition of Dorothy Malone as the bookseller in The Big Sleep.

Enemies is quite a smart and wry little film. It is doomed to be compared to Daniel Burman’s chronicles of upper middle class Jewish Argentines, but Lichtmann’s caper is less fussbudget-ish and has considerably more narrative drive. Its narrow scope and low key eccentricities could be lost on those who expect liberal helping of either bombast and/or shtick, but it is really quite a lot of fun. Affectionately recommended, How to Win Enemies screens twice this Thursday (1/21) at the Walter Reade Theater, as part of this year’s NYJFF.

First Look ’16: Toponymy

Do not cry for the Perons, weep bitterly for Argentine architecture. It was not pretty, at least as practiced in the provincial Northwest in the early 1970s. Jonathan Perel will take the audience on a silent video excursion through four villages created as part of the government’s urbanization campaign to combat guerilla uprisings in Toponymy (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 edition of First Look at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens.

They were all designed and built by the national government and it shows. No private developer would ever do such ugly work. Of course, Perel’s narration and narrative-free approach does not do them any favors. After cherry picking still shots of the various government memorandum and schematics detailing their design, Perel gives viewers a tour of each Tucuman province village, consisting of sixty-eight snippets, lasting fifteen seconds each. Or so he says. In an attempt to pass for subversive, he reportedly changes up the plan without telling us. Nevertheless, the viewing experience remains the same.

Toponymy takes its title from the study of place names, which is in fact apt. All four Tucuman villages are named after fallen military heroes. Somewhat ironically, Casa Soldier Maldonado looks like it has been kept up better than those named for Lieutenant Berdina, Captain Caceres, and Sergeant Moya, but it is a dubious distinction. Still, we cannot help noticing how much open space and greenery these towns have. Naturally, they are all laid out almost identically, with ugly entry arches, tree lined boulevards, and a central park. Frankly, the military’s Tucuman burgs would probably get high marks from the urban planning departments of most universities.

The problem with Perel’s approach is there is really nothing to tell us why these micro urban centers are so distressed, aside from the Dirty War and the recently dismissed government’s ruinous economic policies. The architecture looks shoddy and oppressive, but there is no reason why the residents still cannot thrive. Without more context, we are basically looking at a document dump, followed by the most depressing travelogues ever.

Perel is getting likened to Heinz Emigholz’s wordless architectural documentaries, but at least films like Perret in France and Algeria takes us inside visually stimulating buildings. In contrast, Perel does not give viewers much to engage with, especially if they are not fully cognizant of his ideological and aesthetic conceptions coming in. For an extremely narrow, self-selecting, and defiantly pretentious audience only, Toponymy screens Sunday (1/17), as part of this year’s First Look at MoMI.

Neighboring Scenes ’16: The Gold Bug, or Victoria’s Revenge

Who produces better films, feminists or anti-colonialists? Supposedly, a prominent Swedish feminist filmmaker and her grungy Argentine colleague will be joining forces to co-direct a typically co-financed, festival-only kind of film, but nobody is working in concert on this shoot. Every kind of ism and all sorts of international film production conventions are skewered in Alejo Mouguillansky & Fia-Stina Sandlund’s self-referential many times over The Gold Bug, or Victoria’s Revenge (trailer here), which screens during the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Neighboring Scenes: New Latin American Cinema film series.

Moguillansky, playing himself, is about to start co-directing an explicitly feminist film with the Swedish Sandlund, funded with hipster European grant money. The idea is to make a bio-treatment of Swedish feminist author Victoria Benedictsson. However, unemployed actor Rafa convinces his colleagues to make a film about failed radical Leandro N. Alem instead, because he has come into possession of a map to buried treasure outside the city of Alem.

Frankly, the town has nothing to do with Alem besides being named in his honor, but that hardly matters. Caught up in his enthusiasm, Moguillansky calls Sandlund to convince her to make the eleventh hour switch (swapping one Nineteenth Century suicide for another), shamelessly playing the colonialism card. He can bamboozle the European producers, but Sandlund remains dubious. Presumably, since she is stuck at a feminist conference in Miami, she will be powerless to stop them. However, like Charlie on the phone to the Angels, the heard but never seen Sandlund will exert a powerful force from the shadows (remember the second part of the title).

Of course, the meta-meta film isn’t called The Gold Bug for no reason. Just as in Poe’s story, the map is only one clue to the treasure’s location. There is also a cryptogram to be cracked. Naturally, this will require a lot of madcap running around. Unbeknownst to Rafa and his cronies, two women on the crew, acting with Sandlund’s counsel, are conspiring to grab the treasure for themselves. There is also an incomprehensible anti-colonialist, supposedly feminist film to be made—not that they have a script to follow.

Obviously, Gold Bug follows in the tradition of chaotic movie-making films, like Day for Night and Irma Vep, but it has distantly sharp satirical edge. When Moguillansky and Sandlund were thrown together as part of some grant-writing, international financing deal in real life, the concept grew out of the absurdity of their situation. Frankly, they expose a lot of the sausage-making of multinational “prestige” filmmaking for ridicule.

Sandlund’s frosty voiceovers are absolutely hilarious and Moguillansky delivers some of the film’s best lines as the (hopefully) fictionalized version of himself. As Rafa, Rafael Spregelburd (recognizable from The Critic) deftly balances raging insecurity and manipulative game-playing, which probably comes naturally to many actors. In fact, the entire ensemble seems to have a collective talent for rapid-fire cross-talk.

Gold Bug was co-written by Mariano Llinás, who wrote and directed the utterly brilliant Extraordinary Stories (not to be confused with Extraordinary Tales or Wild Tales). We can easily see his Russian doll influence in the narrative digressions and intriguing historical flashback interludes. It might be too clever for its own good, but anyone who has seen an unwatchably pretentious film at a festival and wondered how it got produced may find their answers here. Recommended for cineastes who do not mind a little metaphorical ox-goring, The Gold Bug, or Victoria’s Revenge screens Thursday (1/7) at the Walter Reade, as part of this year’s Neighboring Scenes film series.

AAIFF ’15: La Salada

For a Peronista, Carlos Menem’s economic policies were far better than anyone expected. Thanks to his reasonably free market reform program, the La Salada free-for-all shopping district became quite a dynamo of industriousness. Decried by the U.S.T.R. for its plentiful and inexpensive knock-off’s, the expansive market is still a recently arrived migrant worker’s best bet for employment. It is there that immigrants from Korea, Taiwan, and Bolivia cross paths as they go about their business in Juán Martín Hsu’s La Salada (trailer here), which screens as part of the 2015 Asian American International Film Festival in New York.

La Salada works just fine for old Kim and his daughter Yun-jin. After ten years in Argentina, he leases one stall in the marketplace and will soon buy a second outright. Her arranged marriage to the son of his business associate is fast-approaching, but she is ambivalent enough to half-entertain the flirtations of Luciano, an Argentinean La Salada manager-in-training.

In contrast, La Salada is not such a good time for Huang, a painfully shy Taiwanese man selling DVDs that look suspiciously boot-ish. He does decent business, but despite his best efforts, he cannot make a simple human connection. He carries a torch for Angeles, the single mother police officer who collects the monthly pay-offs (welcome to the Kirchners’ Argentina), but it is not reciprocal.

Bruno and his uncle face a highly uncertain future in La Salada when they first arrive. They left the stagnation of the Morales regime, only to find their contact has disappeared. Nonetheless, they both find work in a Korean restaurant. Bruno is not much of a waiter, but he eventually finds more suitable employment with Kim.

To his credit, Hsu really cuts to the heart of the immigrant experience in La Salada. We get a sense Kim would be successful almost anywhere and Huang would adequately scrape by under nearly any conditions. Family is important for all three, but in some cases, it is rather messy and debilitating. However, the film has precious little arc. It just sort of ends at a convenient point.

Chang Sun Kim’s performance as Kim is remarkable nuanced and completely grounded. He makes it clear Kim has more going on inside than he cares to acknowledge. Although she does not have history’s most empowering role, Yunseon Kim exhibits a strong screen presence that well serves Yun-jin’s issues of generational disconnect. Ignacio Huang revels in pathos as his namesake, but Limbert Ticona’s Sean Astin thing is hit-or-miss for Bruno.

Although we intellectually understand there has been considerable Asian immigration to Latin America—that’s what made Fujimori possible—it often seems strange to see it in films like Vincete Amorim’s Dirty Hearts. Hsu drains away any remaining exoticism and casts the immigrant experience in terms that most Americans can easily understand. It is all quite earnest and well-intentioned, but it would be nice if the cast had more to sink their teeth into. As films go, La Salada is very slice-of-lifey. Modest but hard-working (just like its characters), La Salada screens this Thursday (7/30) at the Village East, as part of this year’s AAIFF.

The Film Critic: Plagued by Rom-Coms

What was the last artistically worthy romantic comedy you have seen? If you say When Harry Met Sally, Argentinian film reviewer Victor Tellez will want to kill you, or himself. He might let you get away with Bringing Up Baby—maybe. However anything that recycles those shopworn rom-com conventions produces nothing but bile from the jaded critic. One can therefore imagine Tellez’s surprise and conflicted responses when those same clichés start intruding upon his real life in director-screenwriter Hernán Guerschuny’s The Film Critic (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Tellez is happy to explain why Cassavetes represents real cinema, but day after day he slumps through press screenings of the latest sugar-coated tripe. After coffee with his equally snobbish colleagues, he proceeds to eviscerate the latest offensively inoffensive pop culture trifle in his newspaper review. At this point, Tellez has a rep for critical stinginess, but he is not exactly flush. That is why he is so put out when a Spanish expat grabs the perfect affordable apartment out from under him.

He finds it rather strange when their paths subsequently cross, but pursues Sofia hoping to talk her out of the flat. Instead, he finds himself on a colorful first date kind of thingy. You know exactly where the story is headed from here. There will be rain showers, contrived misunderstandings, walks in the park, and fireworks. Yet, Guerschuny scrupulously observes each formulaic element in order to give it an acerbic twist. In fact, this film just might surprise you and therefore Tellez.

As Tellez, Rafael Spregelburd is a paragon of reserve and restraint, so when he gives us something, it is significant. His chemistry with Dolores Fonzi’s defiantly upbeat and middlebrow Sofia is perfectly awkward, yet strangely believable. Telma Crisanti also gives the film periodic energy boasts, nicely playing off Spregelburd as his hipster video store clerk niece, even though her subplot becomes unwieldy over time.

Frankly, how could anyone find the trials and tribulations of a principled film critic anything less than compelling? Guerschuny’s script is smart enough to pass muster even with Tellez and his grumpy colleagues and as in any rom-com worth its salt, he incorporates some lovely Buenos Aires backdrops. It is a pleasure to watch it all come together. Recommended with real affection for those appreciate sophisticated comedies, The Film Critic opens this Friday (5/15) in New York, at the Cinema Village.

Jauja: Viggo in the Wilderness

Imagine watching a pan-and-scan version of John Ford’s wide-screen masterpiece The Searchers on a smart phone. Even though the film is a classic, it would be a frustrating way to watch it. Yet, Lisandro Alonso intentionally does something similar. Probably the best thing going for his latest film is the stunning Patagonian backdrop, but he filmed the picture in the videographic 4:3 TV-like aspect ratio. Audiences should be warned, Alonso’s experimental aesthetic will always trumps their viewing experience in Jauja (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

Captain Gunnar Dinesen is a Danish land surveyor serving during the so-called late 1800s “Conquest of the Desert” and therefore culpable for genocide in the film’s eyes. The only thing that interests him in Argentina is his daughter Ingeborg, for whom he seems to have an unhealthy attachment. Perhaps out of spite, she runs off with a rakish young military officer, so her father sets off in hot pursuit. He will follow and follow and follow, as the film slowly descends into a tiresome Beckett-like exercise in absurdism. However, in the final minutes, it throws a pointless surreal reality twister at us that is probably supposed to be Borgesian, but really just invalidates any lingering investment we might still have in the film.

Frankly, Jauja is the sort of film that mostly relies on intimidation to get by. Far too many critics are afraid to call out films that are high in pretension and low in substance for fear they will be dismissed as knuckle-dragging philistines or uneducated rubes. Take it from someone well versed in poststructuralist critical theory and reasonably conversant in the history of experimental cinema—damn little happens in Jauja.

Still, it is hard to believe Viggo Mortensen is the star of both the Lord of the Rings trilogy and this film. As Dinesen, he is credibly intense in a tunnel vision sort of way, but he is mostly just out there on his own. Someone ought to toss him Tom Hanks’ volleyball from Castaway.

Perhaps you thought Jauja was the third Gabor Sister, but in this context it is a mythical city of wealth and luxury that kind of sort of represents all manner of quixotic quests. However, the film is really about obsession and European guilt, which somehow manages to come out through the characters’ stilted interactions and the meager servings of narrative. It will have plenty of critical champions, but in this case the emperor has no clothes. Not recommended, Jauja opens tomorrow (3/20) in New York, at the IFC Center.

ND/NF ’15: Parabellum

When the end of the world comes, it will hit Buenos Aires just as hard as New York—maybe even worse, because we are more accustomed to grand scale emergencies. As social order starts to break down, they might start to miss the military junta. A group of schlubby middle class survivalists do not intend to wait that long. They will enroll in a post-apocalyptic training camp—just in the nick of end times. Prepare yourself for an aesthetically severe Armageddon in Lukas Valenta Rinner’s Parabellum (trailer here), which screens during this year’s New Directors/New Films.

Alarmed by the constant reports of civil strife, Hernan Oviedo the unassuming office drone is going off the grid. After cutting his utilities, he heads off for his preparedness boot camp. He is a scrawny cat, but he is still fitter than some of his more obese colleagues. Nevertheless, they have come to learn skills that will soon be necessary, like camouflage, explosives, hand-to-hand combat, and marksmanship. Rinner observes them going about their drills with a tone of quiet mockery, but his motley characters will have the last laugh before they even get to the third act. It seems their preparations are not simply physical. They are also ready to become ruthless predators for the sake of survival.

It is hard to believe a film about a cult-like paramilitary organization running wild during the apocalypse could be so quiet and narratively diffuse. Granted, plottish kinds of things do happen, but Rinner de-emphasizes them, often relegating them to the distant corner of the screen, where they are easily overlooked. He certainly shows no interest whatsoever in his characters’ personalities and interior lives, but he loves his wide shots.

Pablo Seijo totally nails Oviedo’s world-weariness and existential disillusionment, doing the best that he can in what is far from an actor’s showcase. To put it in perspective, Rinner is far more likely to shoot his cast from behind rather than face forward, by at least a ratio of two-to-one in favor of the backs of their heads. That is immediately distancing and it gets rather dull over time.

Ironically, Parabellum initially appears to ridicule its paranoid characters, but largely vindicates their paranoia at a relatively early stage. Roundabout or even openly experimental approaches to apocalyptic subject matter can yield fruit, but it seems they are better suited to short films, like Andreas Bolm’s The Revenants. In truth, Parabellum is a tough slog with a miserly payoff. Recommended for the small handful of admirers for conceptual filmmakers like João Pedro Rodrigues & João Rui Guerra da Mata, it screens this coming Monday (3/23) at MoMA and Tuesday (3/24) at the Walter Reade, as part of the 2015 ND/NF.

Macabro ’14: Darkness by Day

Had Lillian Hellman ever written a horror film set in provincial Argentina, it might have looked a lot like this. Shades of J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla are also easily discernible in Martín Desalvo’s near two-hander, Darkness by Day (trailer here), which screens during this year’s Macabro, the Mexico City International Film Festival.

Virginia leads a sheltered life on the family’s ancestral estate in the middle of nowhere. At his brother’s behest, her father leaves Virginia home alone to check on her critically ill cousin Julia. As soon as he leaves, Virginia’s other cousin Anabel arrives in a state of extreme exhaustion. Something is clearly vexing her too. She has no appetite and only seems to rouse herself at night. These are also odd times in the village at large. There are reports of a rabies outbreak and other young women seem to be suffering from symptoms similar to those afflicting Julia.

Strangely, the confused Virginia cannot seem to reach her father by cell or land line. Yet, as Anabel strengthens, the shy woman becomes more enthralled by her mysterious cousin. This seems to greatly concern her father and uncle when they finally return bearing bad news.

It would be interesting to watch Darkness in close dialogue with Mauricio Chernovetzky & Mark Devendorf’s The Curse of Styria, which also screens at Macabro. Both favor mood and atmosphere over blood and cheap thrills, but Darkness is an especially slow builder. Unlike Styria, Josefina Trotta’s screenplay eventually embraces the lesbian overtones of Le Fanu’s classic. In fact, Darkness is quite Hellmanesque, depicting the cousins’ fathers as not just paternal but paternalistic.

Mora Recalde (Desalvo’s real life partner) compellingly portrays Virginia’s innocence and her subsequent fall from grace. She subtly hints at the young woman’s possible arrest development, without overplaying her hand. However, Romina Paula really ought to be more seductive as Anabel.

Visually, Darkness is unusually elegant, creepy, and evocative by horror movies standards, thanks to the first class work of cinematographer Nicolás Trovato and art director Fernanda Challi. That old spooky family manse was a real find. Recommended for genre fans who appreciate moodier gothic films, Darkness by Day screens this Sunday (8/24) and next Friday (8/29), as part of the 2014 Macabro. Also recommended, the thematically related Curse of Styria launches the festival with a free screening tonight (8/21).

Fantasia ’14: The Desert

If zombies have not completely jumped the shark for you after the spectacle of the unruly San Diego zombie walk, than this might be the right film to regroup with. Yes, the zombie apocalypse has fallen, but three survivors largely tune out the shuffling hordes for long stretches of time in Christoph Behl’s The Desert (trailer here), which screens during the 2014 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Axel, Ana, and Jonathan have banded together, sharing a strangely intimate post-zombie rising in a reinforced ranch-style house. Axel yearns for Ana, but she has romantically paired-off with the better looking but far less sensitive Jonathan. To serve as an emotional outlet, Ana set up a confession cam in their backroom, where she often records her innermost thoughts. That is not really Jonathan’s scene, but Axel often visits to secretly view the videos Ana deposits in the supposedly sealed trunk. As Axel’s jealousy mounts, Ana increasingly misinterprets his moodiness as hostility, deliberately antagonizing him in turn.

Into this awkward mix, Jonathan brings Pythagoras, a feral zombie he chains up in the workroom to help facilitate some unfinished business from an extremely uncomfortable game of Truth or Dare. Even during Armageddon, three is a crowd. However, four is particularly unstable when the fourth is a zombie.

Without question, Sabu’s Miss Zombie is the new modern zombie classic of the last ten years or so. Desert never reaches its heights of pathos, but there is something distinctly unsettling about its fatalistic portrayal of humanity. If ever there was a time to rise up personal resentments, this would be it. Yet, the stress of the apparently world-shattering crisis only amplifies their angst and recriminations. Behl never shows us the anarchy unfolding outside their house-that-is-not-a-home, but the confusing sounds are often more alarming than the half-baked visual effects of z-grade zombie grind-em-outs.

As the compulsively tattooed Axel, Lautaro Delgado puts on an acting clinic. It is eerie how eloquently his body language reflects his inner emotional turmoil. In contrast, Ana’s erratic character is much harder to get a handle on, but Victoria Almeida valiantly labors to sell each shift of her psyche. However, William Prociuk bears watching as Jonathan, the ostensibly boorish engineer.

At times, The Desert is too existential for its own good. Nevertheless, Behl successfully reinvents the zombie film as a four character-one set (for all intents and purposes) relationship drama, which is a neat trick. An ambitiously subtle zombie outing that works rather well on balance, The Desert is recommended for adventurous genre fans when it screens again next Tuesday (8/5) as part of this year’s Fantasia.

The German Doctor: The Man from Patagonia

Unfortunately, the physician in question is not Albert Schweitzer. It is the monstrous Josef Mengele who has ingratiated himself with young Lilith’s family. Living under an assumed name, the evil “Angel of Death” has resumed his eugenic research with the help of Argentina’s large German expat community. Adapting her own novel Wakolda for the screen, Lucía Puenzo offers some informed speculation about Menegele’s Argentine years in The German Doctor (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

Lilith is traveling through Patagonia with her father Enzo and her very pregnant mother Eva, who happens to be carrying twins (if know anything about Mengele, you recognize this will become significant later). On the road, they meet a German doctor, who asks to follow them through the forbidding landscape for safety’s sake. Eva happens to be the graduate of Bariloche’s German language school, so she can converse with Mengele in his fatherland tongue. She even has old class photos generously accessorized with swastikas.

Initially, they are only too happy to have the doctor take up residency in their chalet-style hotel. Given his friendly overtures, they are also willing to allow the doctor to prescribe a growth regimen for Lilith. However, as his manipulations become more insidious, Enzo starts to suspect something is profoundly wrong about his family’s new patron. Of course, he is still a beat or two behind Nora Eldoc, a deep-cover National Socialist hunter.

While Puenzo stops short of outright conspiracy thriller territory, she paints a chilling portrait of a monolithically complicit German-Argentine community. Eldoc’s investigation also provides respectable servings of intrigue and suspense. However, the film fundamentally serves as a yin-and-yang character study of the icily fanatical Mengele and the innocent but keenly intuitive Lilith.

Catalonian actor Àlex Brendemühl is thoroughly creepy as Mengele, portraying him with quiet, precise menace. Yet, the bigger story is young Florencia Bado, whose lead performance is unusually mature and assured. Elena Roger (star of both the recent Broadway and West End revivals of Evita) also takes a smart, passionate turn as Eldoc. Unfortunately, Diego Peretti and Natalia Oreiro are standard issue dumb parents, who could have wandered in from an old John Hughes movie.

Even though Puenzo’s pacing is a bit inconsistent, she coaxes some powerful performances out of her multinational cast and convincingly indicts Argentina (and neighboring countries like Paraguay) for either knowingly sheltering war criminals like Mengele, or at least deliberately turning a blind eye to their enterprises. It is a surprisingly compelling work of docu-fiction. Recommended for those who appreciate darkly unsettling coming of age tales, The German Doctor opens tomorrow (4/24) in New York at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema.

NYICFF ’14: Foosball

For some hardcore table soccer players, only absolutely clean goals count. That is more stringent than the rules laid down the international association, but nearly everyone frowns on three-sixty “spinnies.” However, all rule books get tossed out when an egomaniacal football (soccer) superstar challenges a nebbish table player in Juan José Campanella’s Foosball (trailer here), which screens (in 2D) during the 2014 New York International Children’s Film Festival.

Amadeo’s son Mati thinks the old man is kind of a loser. Oh, but if he only knew the full story. In his old village home, Amadeo worked in the neighborhood bar and lovingly cared for the foosball table. He soon becomes the local champion, even besting the bullying Grosso. For years, this was his moment of glory and the foundation of his relationship with Laura, his almost girl friend. Unfortunately, Grosso has returned, having achieved fame and fortune as a footballer. It seems the thuggish Grosso has bought the town in its entirety and intends to bulldoze everything to make way for his grand football complex. Naturally, his first target is Amadeo’s foosball table, the symbol of his only defeat.

Thoroughly demoralized, he only manages to save the captain, whom comes alive like Frosty when christened with one of Amadeo’s tears. Soon Amadeo’s entire Foos team is animated and reunited, along with the Maroons, their Washington General rivals. Of course, the small metallic men will be no match for the brutish Grosso, but they will coach Amadeo when he is forced to challenge his nemesis to a match on the football field.

It is not hard to see why Foosball was a monster hit in Argentina. The animation is at a Pixar level and it features all kinds of football action. It is an unlikely follow-up to Campanella’s Oscar winning melancholy mystery, The Secret in Their Eyes, but Foosball shows a bit of an analog sensibility, preferring the physicality of foosball to insubstantial video games. Viewers are also clearly invited to disdain Grosso’s nouveau riche excesses.

Without question, the little foos men are the film’s not so secret weapons. Lovingly scratched and worn in appropriate detail, they cleverly send-up archetypes that will be familiar to even casual soccer watchers. Yet for adults, Grosso’s unapologetically corpulent and equally acerbic agent often steals the show.

Campanella scores a lot of laughs in Foosball, while saying quite a bit about fair play and self-respect. It is a lot of fun, but it actually is not the best Latin American animated film at this year’s NYICFF. That would be Alfredo Soderguit’s sweet and sensitive AninA, hailing from Uruguay. Still, young boys will probably dig Foosball more. Recommended for sports fans of all ages, Foosball screens again this coming Saturday (3/15) at the SVA Theater and Saturday the 29^th at the IFC Center, as this year’s NYICFF continues at venues throughout the City.