fredericthys

IMDb member since December 2007
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    IMDb Member
    16 years

Reviews

Una de dos
(2004)

Powerful film about going hungry in a land of plenty
Director Alejo Taube's first film tells the story of Argentina at its democratic nadir, during the riots of 2001. Instead of setting the film in and around Buenos Aires, where most of the confrontations occurred, he sets it at a remove, in a small town in the Pampas not far from the capital. This allows him to show the irony of people going hungry surrounded by cattle and wheat fields.

To tell the story, Taube goes against some of the conventions of the New Argentine Cinema, which favors tracking shots and a deliberately unstudied air. But like that school of filmmaking, he lets the characters take center stage. He eschews an auteur style and as a director tries to make his imprint as transparent as possible.

Taube uses quick cuts to tell his story. He also joins scenes after the action has begun and leaves them before they conclude. He does this to give the viewer a snoop's view of what is going on.

Taube wants to show us the people in town not as victims but as flawed good people facing an impossible situation as the country's economy descends into chaos.

With Jorge Sesan, one of the protagonists of the masterpiece Pizza, Birra, Fazo as the main character, flawed but not doomed.

Pizza, birra, faso
(1998)

The greatest Argentine movie ever made
If you are curious about Argentine cinema, start here.

There was before Pizza, birra, faso, and after. This is the masterpiece of the New Argentine Cinema. It was the first feature-length film in the genre. Among its innovations are the use of non-professional actors, continuous shots, location shoots, the use of language of the streets, and a deliberate attempt to make the film appear unstudied.

The film tells the story of a group of friends living a marginalized life on the streets of Buenos Aires as the city descended into poverty and crime in the 1990s. It is as good as the best of the Italian Neo-Realist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. It tells the story from the perspective of the friends, using their language of the street, without sentiment and without becoming manipulative. It's a story of good people trying to survive in a merciless society.

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