Wednesday, April 9, 2014

13

ARTS & MEDIA

CONTENDERS IN THE INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

Some Girls shining at BAFICI fest

BY PABLO SUAREZ
FOR THE HERALD

Dummies for Marx

Morenos Rimon promises but doesnt deliver
BY ESTEBAN COLOMBET
FOR THE HERALD

@pablsuarez

Theres some kind of female

behaviour that I can see reflected in literature and cinema, and yet I find it so enigmatic in life that I felt I needed to film it. Im most fascinated by that which is irreducibly female, that which also baffles us men. I think women inhabit both sadness and happiness in a manner thats foreign to us, they reason and behave according to a different, unpredictable, zigzagging logic, Argentine filmmaker Santiago Palavecino (Otra vuelta, La vida nueva) told the Herald about Algunas chicas (Some Girls), a strong contender running in the international competition of BAFICI, which had its more than auspicious world premiere at last years Venice Film Festival. And yes, Algunas chicas is all about women. Loosely based on Italian writer Cesare Paveses Among Women Only, Palavecinos third opus brilliantly examines female depression, seclusion, and suicidal tendencies. But, luckily, not from a clinical viewpoint that wouldve been too easy to imagine. Instead, the angle here is existentialist, which makes the drama irresistibly volatile and deeply thought-provoking. The story goes like this: Celina (Cecilia Rainero) flees from a marital crisis to a visit an old friend living in the countryside. But the panorama is far from welcoming: her friends stepdaughter, Paula (Agostina Lpez), has had a suicide attempt and is trying (not very successfully) to overcome her depression. Such news trigger unexpected, obscure memo-

ries that Cecilia wont share with anyone, least of all Paulas off-beat friends, Nene (Ailn Salas), whos a bit of a psychic, and the wellto-do Mara (Agustina Muoz), a nihilist per definition. And there are the small town and the woods, both of them ominous and undecipherable. One chief asset is how Palavecinos typical elliptical narrative works wonders here. Depression goes beyond words and cannot be really discussed. Some of these women are such islands onto themselves that expressing their most intimate feelings is a true tour de force. So instead, there are the moods, the atmosphere of utter despair and gloom, and the erratic behaviour; the huge silences, the secrecy, and the small talk the only possible kind of talk. Perhaps the main thing is that Palavecino couldnt care less for answers. For one thing, he doesnt have them. Neither do the characters. What matters here are the questions, whats left unsaid, what cannot be grasped. Even if the Algunas chicas begins on a somewhat realistic note, soon enough a surreal, dreamlike air permeates it all as the inner selves of these girls surface and invade the scene the dream sequences with the swimming pool, and the woods sequence with an unknown animal (is it an animal?) are gorgeously shot and particularly eerie. Incidentally, the supernatural element is never presented as such. Its just there; its probably been there for ages. Like the girls pain.

@tebocolombet

Rimon, the new feature by Rodrigo Moreno winner of the Alfred Bauer Prize at the Berlinale in 2006 for his previous film, The Custodian was one of the most highly-anticipated entries in this years Argentine Competition at the BAFICI. But the air of expectation will quickly turn stale in this documentary-like story of a maid-by-the-hour thrust into a faux examination of social stratification. While the festivals catalogue cites the conditions of working class exploitation in the capitalist system becoming explicit as two of the maids employers spend part of their time reading Marx, it would be perhaps wiser if not strongly recommended to turn down the level of expectation as much as possible. Moreno chose to kickstart his film with a string of production notes, letting the viewers know it was done on a meagre US$34,000-budget and then breaking that figure down into days, hours, and costs of preproduction, filming and postproduction. The peculiar preamble makes way to a long and slowly moving shot of a gloomyskied Buenos Aires slum where a family is preparing a shantytown version of a Sunday barbecue. Enter Ramonathe-maid, whom the camera will follow just as slowly, in long but unrevealing close-ups, throughout her daily comings and goings from her Greater Buenos Aires town of Florencio Varela to downtown BA, where she appears to be working for a middle-class couple with a penchant for reading Marx aloud around the house and an ever-absent upper-crust man. The long hours of the maids daily commute, added to her dismal social circumstances, would perhaps make for a grave reflection and in-depth analysis of what Marxs text posits. They dont in the slightest. Morenos camera, glued to Ramonas impassive face as she talks to her relatives (or friends?) in the slum, as she boards buses and trains and crosses streets and avenues and roams the rooms she has to clean , reveals a little of everything and a lot about nothing. Her employers, on a whim typical of the shallow downtown pseudo-intellectuals her employers were likely portrayed as in the original script, call her Rimon instead of Ramona, hence the films title. Who are these people? Hard to tell and harder to describe. The Marx-perusing employers are unfortunately reduced to mere cartoonish sketches that never manage to circumvent their insufficiency as characters while also failing to incarnate the symbols of upper-class neglect. The ever away from home employer living in Carlos Pellegrini and Arroyo or thereabouts can only be described through the contents of his elegantly-furnished house, suits-stacked wardrobe and penchant for classical music. Ramona, on the other hand, gets much, too much camera time without conveying any sort of real insight. In the great tradition of new Argentine cinema,

A scene from Rodrigo Morenos Rimon. she stares a lot: at the traffic, at the camera, at the wintry cityscape from her employers window. What lies beyond her expressionless gaze is a mystery which turns flat as the film progresses. Or, should we say, as the film unwinds, because theres almost no progression to speak of. What should have been the pensive and wistful gaze of a long-suffering and dispirited woman is merely a blank stare, impassive before lifes unravelling. Taking the baffling scenario one step further, theres little development in the long-awaited argument on class divide because, while her employers go through Marxs opinions on workers rights and the time they spend, fruitlessly, on their way to work, the film only shows Ramona in these inbetween non-defining lapses and the sympathy for her condition is nipped in the bud since we hardly ever see her working. And when she actually works, the growing sense of confusion does not recede, as we see the maid stepping on the sheets while shes making the bed, doing the dishes and then suddenly picking up the phone with sudsy kitchen gloves or absentmindedly shuffling around some pillows on a fancy sofa. Whats even more perplexing, given this peculiar portrayal, is that Moreno is not using a professional actress for Ramona but an actual maid who, for some inexplicable reason, cant seem to stay in character. The directors use of crafty and convenient artifice is hardly helpful in the middle of this desolate void. The cinematography employs stark contrasts, alternating the dull greys of winter with takes of saturated colours (blackclothed Ramona against painfully white walls; violet sheets on the employers bed; Ramona wearing a blacksleeved shirt and bright pink kitchen gloves washes the dishes next to flashing-green Tupperware). The imagery of poor neighbourhoods clashing with the 9 de Julio and Arroyo location of her employers abode is far from transcendent and sometimes seems to be a mere manipulation meant to fuel a certain grotesque quality. Adding to the mix, Morenos long, slow and strangely aimless takes of gloomy skies, trees, a vegetable garden and recurring images of starving dogs in Ramonas neighbourhood seem to point more to a certain cinematographic aesthetic rather than a descriptive device that would blessedly bring some sense into a painfully static picture. The use of music is also misleading, with the stony-faced maid listening to Schubert in her spotless room, on an impressive-looking stereo flashing some tacky fuchsia lights, and also with her playing the Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun by Debussy on her employers high-tech sound system in the films last scene. In the end, the class divide argument fizzles out before actually igniting, and were left with a baffling image of a travelling maid staring into a void of her own making, complemented with the hollow figures of her Marx-quoting employers whose indifference is not directed specifically at Ramona but rather at themselves and their easygoing lifestyle. And, wonder of contradictions, the only salvageable character is the phantomlike Mr. Eduardo, the actual upperclass employer who comes out pretty clean and abuse-free. To end this review in Morenos production-notes key, the required investment was as follows: 70+ minutes watching Rimon, a couple of hours of post-screening debate on what constitutes art today, another couple of hours writing the piece, and an immeasurable level of frustration brought on by the previously mentioned items. As for costs, the failed Marxist debate can be alleviated with a highly recommended purchase of Alexander Kluges 2008 documentary News from Ideological Antiquity Marx/Eisenstein/The Capital, which screened at the Bafici a few years ago.

WHEN AND WHERE

Wednesday, April 9, at 5pm at Village Recoleta 6.

Agustina Muoz in a scene from Santiago Palavecinos Algunas chicas.

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