In 2020 the struggle of getting the people into an actual movie theater to see something that many would dismissively call a "talking heads" movie - no CGI, no 3D, no chases and thrills, no galaxies far away and such - is more real than ever. So it is with films like this one by Fernando Salem that the beautifully human stories find a voice and an audience. Despite being tightly intimate and introspective, the film never loses its cinematic quality, being visually and sonically poetic through every scene, never intrusively so, never pretentiously so.
The acting is "invisible", its fluency, effortlessness, its raw yet perfectly measured quality (in the entire ensemble) never take away from the eerie vibe of the narrative, with only hints at flashbacks, the connections into the past that are strong as ever and those with the present that are fragile and often dysfunctional.
The snowy landscapes of Argentinean Patagonia add to the atmosphere, reflecting the inner struggles of the characters and being juxtaposed to them at the same time. The music finds its way into the picture in a most organic way, like another verse, or another rhyme in this poem of a film.
The plot has been described in the synopsis section, and there is not much information about the actors on this page, so I am omitting the detailed analysis of both. I must, however, express my admiration to an amazing screen debut of Antonella Saldicco who enchants you with her charm and her truth from the first second you see her, as well as applaud the courage and heartbreak so gracefully expressed by Susana Pampin in the role of a mother who lost her daughter; Agustin Sullivan gives his character this quality of being so explicitly and disarmingly lost in life, this man-child with a child.
I absolutely recommend this film , one of the best to have come out of Argentina in the recent years - to the cinema lovers, to those who appreciate "cine arte" and festival style independent movies - this one will resonate with many on so many levels - we all have to deal with our losses, we all at times struggle through the life that we have and face our crises, and this delicately told story (an adaptation of the novel "Agosto" by Romina Paula) might give a necessary perspective of things. The film breathes and pulsates, its rhythm never allowing any scene or any moment to drag, always moving along, always engaging.
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