Filled with Latin-American clichés and an screenplay some people may find funny and some foreign audience may not understand it all. Stills a good try to revive Ecuadorian's cinema. Some performances are good but they fail to be alive because of the little screen time they are given. The big problem here is that there are so many characters the writer fails to develop any of them often giving hints of what could happened, what happened and what will happen but never allowing the audience to feel connected to any of them, the only exception may be Paulina Obrist who literally bares herself to the point her emotions make you feel like being in a roller-coaster and make you miss her when she's off the screen, a true revelation. The techs are good, a very well improvement for this third-world cinema which's just starting to grow. Overall a very good conceived idea with a disappointed ending that will left audience wondering what happened during the last two hours but that will make people recover faith on national's filmmaking.
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Iván Mora's ensemble character study, Sin otoño, sin primavera (No Autumn, No Spring) is set in one of Ecuador's largest and most densely populated cities, Guayaquil, which seams together the story of ten middle class lives, some directly connected, others only by proximity. The film is a comment on love, life, sex, and drugs, all within the confines of Guayaquil's diverse borders.
One of the most endearing aspects of the film comes from Mora's choice to place the focus not on a single character but on a group. By doing so, Mora shifts the focus from a singular experience to something more universal. This also allows for Guayaquil itself to become a character in the film, arguably the film's most important. The city takes on a visual vitality, while simultaneously being undermined by the characters' reactions to it. Mora, along with cinematographer Olivier Auverlau, allows the colorful nature of the city to both harbor feelings of vibrancy as well as oppression. There is a palpable sense of alienation, desperation. Mora is adept at presenting this duality, neither completely condemning or praising the city for the actions of its citizens.
Mora's style is impressive but he often flaunts his prowess through a series of unnecessary camera movements and angles that do little more than call attention to the cinematography. In one shot the camera flips with a box, as it is positioned 'right side up.' The purpose of this shot, which is included during a trivial montage, is completely unnecessary, coming off as nothing more than a gimmick. The film is littered with such directorial decisions. Beyond the often- jarring cinematography, the real heart of the film seems to lie in Mora's concepts of sexuality. Almost all of the film's most moving scenes include some kind of sexual component. While most of the actors put forward strong performances, they, with a single exception, tend to blend with each other and fail to transcend their place within the film. The exception is Paulina Obrist, who plays the terminally ill Antonia. Secluded within her lavish home, Obrist's natural performance imbues Antonia with a realistic sense of pathos, sensuality, and vulnerability, she is stunning.
By and large, the biggest obstacle of the film is finding a way to compartmentalize its many characters, story lines, and plot points. Mora's spastic visual style — jump cuts, non- chronological editing, etc — and an ambiguous temporality combine to create something of a jarring experience for viewers. While this is also instrumental in the delivering the film's overall message, which aims at presenting a snapshot of experiences taken from the diverse city of Guayaquil, it ultimately creates a disconnect between the audience and the characters. Identification is limited to mere fleeting moments. The hodgepodge of disordered stories leaves the viewer in a state of constant flux, working towards pieces together the puzzle. In spite of the small failure by Mora to never completely allow viewers to recover from a sense of disassociation, Sin otoño, sin primavera is still a challenging a worthwhile experience.
(Originally reviewed on Stage Buddy) -
It is good to see an Ecuadorian film trying to be known around to the world. The message that this film is trying to give is to how you can overcome the obstacle and how anyone could achieve happiness. The camera techniques and the shots are good while the acting is descent. The problem is the story and the ending. First problem is that too many stories happen so fast in the beginning that as a viewer it feels confusing as you don't know what is happening or what to follow. As the movie progresses the stories began to make more sense which gives you the illusion that at one point all of this stories will clash together and will make an impact to all the characters it never happens. There is one story about two girls where the older one watches the young one in a voyeurism style. Then there is another story of the character Martin. There is another story of a student who can't compete with the system so he gives up. There is another story of a drug dealer. Oh yeah, and there is a story about a guy who wants to be free and another story of a girl who is about to die and etc. The point is that there is too many stories happening at once and in the end after watching for almost two hours long, they don't have an impact with each other. Once again it uses the same cheap exploitation style like any Latin American film in order to catch the attention of the viewers through the use of drugs, sex, violence, poverty and corruption. The ending felt too rushed and abrupt which gives me the sense that there was no more budget so they had to end it as quickly as possible. The solutions are way too easy to be solved that it felt like if you watched a two hour film of a person trying to open a door and in the final 5 minutes of the film, it was revealed that he had the key in his pocket the whole time and he was aware of that.