SFIFF54—LATINBEAT

San Francisco's film snobs and film sluts have been abuzz all weekend privy to the advance announcement offered San Francisco Film Society (SFFS) members of this year's lineup for the 54th edition of the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF54). It's been hard to keep quiet about this year's offerings but—with yesterday's official press conference, held in the spectacular Alexandra Room on the 32nd floor of the Westin St. Francis overlooking Union Square—the embargo has been lifted, though unfortunately there remain glaring omissions with regard to some of the festival's key events, namely who will be the recipient of the Founder's Directing Award, the Peter J. Owens Acting Award, and the Midnight Awards? Securing talent is specifically the issue here, Executive Director Graham Leggat admitted, adding that this is perhaps one of the most difficult tasks of his position. Let it be known that the all-important spectacular dimension of an international film festival—which all too often comes under fire from cinephilic diehards—is fraught with administrative complications like any other infrastructural arm of the festival that supports its architecture.

Leaving aside that minor disappointment in favor of anticipation, let's take at look at what we have available; first off with SFIFF54's Latin slate. A caveat: the short descriptions have been lifted directly from the SFIFF54 mini-guide, with expanded descriptions linked to the films' titles.

Asleep in the Sun / Dormir Al Sol (Dir. Alejandro Chomski, Argentina 2010, 83 min)—Every dog has his day in this beguiling metaphysical mystery set within the labyrinthine Buenos Aires neighborhood of Parque Chas, where a hapless watchmaker and his canine-crazed wife go soul-deep into a Kafkaesque world of pseudo scientists and self-possessed pooches amid period-perfect '50s decor. IMDb.

When Asleep in the Sun played at last Fall's Chicago International Film Festival (CIFF), Marilyn Ferdinand described the film as "a charming, unnerving film whose picture-postcard, 1950s setting lulls viewers into a sweet dream of nostalgia, only to turn a character's moderate neurosis into a nightmare for all those in her circle." She reported on Chomski's attendance at CIFF, where he advised that the film's genesis "arose from his friendship with Argentine writer Adolfo Bioy Casares and his admiration for his novel Asleep in the Sun. The pair talked about adapting the book for the cinema, and when Casares died, Chomski decided to push on. He retained the spirit of the book, though many plot points had to be added ... to render the story coherent. And he decided to film it as a period piece, as originally written, instead of updating it to the present because he felt the story was too delicate to stand up to today's information-soaked scrutiny. ...Chomski added a very slight political agenda to the film by showing that people often are powerless to stop bad things from happening in their countries and communities. He used the examples of Americans who opposed the invasion of Iraq and Argentinians who did not want a military dictatorship who had these things foisted upon them with no recourse. Of course, history catches up with every event."

At The Parallax View, D.B. Bates counters that Asleep in the Sun "stumbles" in achieving its dream logic by making "two grave miscalculations that undermine the film's dream-like qualities: too much foreshadowing, and too much 'realism.' " But even he admits that "the film is loaded with elements worth admiring", boasting great performances, gorgeous cinematography and impressive evocations of the absurd, circular illogic of Franz Kafka and Albert Camus.

Black Bread / Pa Negre (Dir. Agustí Villaronga, (Spain 2010, 108 min)—In the dark days following the Spanish Civil War, a young boy witnesses a brutal murder by mysterious hooded figures. When his own father is accused of the crime, he sets out to exonerate him, but the facts he uncovers in this twisted gothic underworld are far from comforting. Official website [Spanish]. IMDb. Wikipedia. Facebook.

Dispatching to The Jigsaw Lounge from the film's San Sebastian premiere, Neil Young noted Nora Navas's win as Best Actress for her role as the put-upon wife of an anti-Francoist farmer in 1944 Catalonia. Over all, however, he found Black Bread to be "a fairly stodgy tearjerker with mild supernatural touches that nod to Spanish-language forerunners such as Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth and Erice's enduringly seminal 1970s classic The Spirit of the Beehive." Young makes it clear, however, that "such comparisons are decidedly not to the advantage of Black Bread." Ronald Bergan suffered the same comparisons at MUBI, where he noted those movies "say much more in a less obvious and direct way" and complained that Black Bread was a "never-ending rambling melodrama which pretends to be making a statement on Franco's Spain, but muddies the water with a rights-of-passage drama, 'shocking' sequences, a folk tale of a monster, and a boy that wants to fly. Unfortunately, the film never lives up to its first impressive sequence of someone being killed by a hooded man, and a horse toppling over a cliff."

Jonathan Holland's Variety review from San Sebastian was decidedly more favorable. He characterized Black Bread as "grim and gripping" and noted that "Agustí Villaronga's most mainstream film retains his trademark subversive edge, quickly evolving from rites-of-passage yarn into a complex, challenging item that is both dark to its heart and breathlessly watchable." He added that the film's depiction of rural poverty was "impressive" and that "several scenes, including a dream sequence, are shot through with a raw, unsettling power." As later reported at Variety, Black Bread went on to win nine Goyas, including Best Film, Director and Actress. Notwithstanding, I can't help but wonder if this dramatic sweep wasn't by default due to the well-publicized contention between Icíar Bollain's Even the Rain and Álex de la Iglesia's The Last Circus, whose enmity appeared to cancel out each others' chances. I wonder about this because everyone I know who caught Black Bread at its Palm Springs International screening expressed disappointment and outright amazement when the film went on to do so well at the Goyas. My expectations are low.

Colors of the Mountain, The / Los colores de la montana (Dir. Carlos César Arbeláez, Colombia / Panama 2010, 88 min)—A motley crew of young boys in Colombia lives only for one passion: soccer. But when their precious new ball rolls into a minefield, their dreams are suddenly on hold. Even as the village becomes the center of a tug-of-war between right-wing paramilitary groups and leftist guerrillas, the idea of a rescue attempt is too tempting to resist. IMDb.

Dispatching further from San Sebastian, Variety critic Jonathan Holland noted that—though The Colors of the Mountain appeared "deceptively lightweight"—it was actually a "no-frills, sincere if sometimes cliched drama" that "nicely sidesteps sentimentality and haranguing social criticism, and its wobbly dramatics are compensated for by a wonderful central perf from kid thesp Hernán [Mauricio] Ocampo." Neil Young, in turn, dispatched that The Colors of the Mountain was "a more pungent examination of war's effects on young, innocent victims" than the aforementioned Black Bread. He noted that Arbeláez won the festival's "lucrative" €90,000 New Directors Award and concurred that Ocampo's performance was outstanding and "as good as anything I saw from an adult actor during my spell in San Sebastian."

At Eye For Film, Amber Wilkinson emphasizes the film's "hidden but very real threats" and writes: "Shot almost entirely from the children's perspective, Arbeláez tackles universal themes of conflict and its impact on ordinary people without getting mired in specific politics. He deftly shows how quickly normality can disintegrate when conflict appears on the horizon. And despite having serious subject matter, he has a lightness of touch, an avoidance of outright displays of violence and an eye for the comedic that means older children could enjoy this as much as adults." The Colors of the Mountain has been picked up by Film Movement and is already available on DVD. Their press kit includes a director's statement that, interestingly, acknowledges the film's Iranian influences.

Jean Gentil (Dirs. Laura Amelia Guzmán, Israel Cárdenas, Dominican Republic / Mexico/ Germany 2010, 84 min)—Jean Remy is a Haitian man struggling to find employment in the Dominican Republic. Confronted with rejection and discrimination in the city, he sets off to try his luck in the countryside. Imbued with a naturalistic grace, this deeply sympathetic portrait speaks eloquently to the trials of humanity. IMDb. Facebook.

Following up on their debut feature Cochochi—one of my favorite films at the 2007 Toronto International—Guzmán and Cárdenas received a Horizons special mention at the Venice Film Festival and a jury award at Thessaloniki for Jean Gentil, yet Variety critic Boyd van Hoeij still found their most recent effort "relentlessly dour."

Joy, The / A Alegria (Dirs. Marina Meliande, Felipe Bragança, Brazil 2010, 106 min)—In Rio, a group of young students (played by a memorable cast of nonprofessionals) transcends the hard truths of their lives through spirit and imagination in this magical realist urban teen adventure. Led by the charismatic Luiza, the group creates poetry and mirth in a collapsing world.

Jay Weissberg's Variety review is unapologetically dismissive. Not a good sign. This might fall under what Jonathan Marlow terms a "dodgy" entry.

Mysteries of Lisbon / Mistérios de Lisboa (Dir. Raúl Ruiz, (Portugal/France 2010, TRT 272 min w. intermission)—Counts and Fathers, Marquis and Madames, orphans and nobility all spin their yarns in Ruiz's magisterial new gambit on the art of storytelling, based on a 19th-century Portuguese novel [by Camilo Castelo Branco] yet more like Dickens filtered through a surrealist's gaze. This costume meta-drama from the director of Time Regained (SFIFF 2000) is set in a decadent, baroque old-world Portugal. Official website. IMDb. Facebook.

My favorite film of 2010! I am thrilled to have the chance to experience this masterpiece again. As I wrote earlier, my first Ruiz film arrived as a guest and took a cinephilic slave. A sensual conquest has never been more swift and predetermined. I'm afraid I had little choice but to be overtaken by Ruiz's masterful amusement on the ambitious follies of youth and the nostalgic recapitulations of the elderly. I've resisted writing about the film since its world premiere at the Toronto International only because I felt it warranted at least one more screening before committing myself to such a pleasurable—if challenging—task; but, the truth remains that Mysteries of Lisbon might require multiple viewings. It's that rich and multi-layered.

Souls more informed—and infinitely more prepared than I am—have already weighed in, however. Not only has Rouge provided the definitive online primer for Ruiz, but at MUBI David Hudson has rounded up the first reviews from the TIFF world premiere, the New York Film Festival, plus commentary on the welcome announcement that Mysteries of Lisbon won France's prestigious Louis Delluc Prize. Eventually, I'll get around to drafting a critical overview of those entries; but, for now, am impressed with how Ruiz has crafted a film with a running time of four hours plus that feels breathtakingly only a little over two. Comporting with programmer Rachel Rosen's observation that—if there is any trend to be seen in this year's roster of films—it's that these films seem to find their own lengths. This length is not to be missed!

Nostalgia for the Light (Dir. Patricio Guzmán, (France / Chile / Germany 2010, 90 min)—The renowned Chilean documentarian goes to one of the highest, driest places on earth, the Atacama Desert, to examine the work of astronomers who search the skies to understand our universe at the same time that relatives of those disappeared under the Pinochet dictatorship search the sands for the bodies of the victims. IMDb. Facebook.

Encouraged by Boyd van Hoeij's Variety review from Cannes, I made a point of catching Nostalgia for the Light at the 2010 Toronto International. It rapidly ascended as one of my favorite films of the festival let alone the year and I maintain that this searing and poetic documentary should be a leading Oscar®-contender for 2012. If it's not acknowledged with at least a nomination, it will merely be further confirmation that Americans have not only forgotten their own recent history, but how to judge a work of documentary art that will achieve relevance over time. I remain grateful for having had the opportunity to talk to Guzmán about the film. That conversation is up at MUBI, where David Hudson has been customarily thorough in monitoring the critical response to the film, first from Cannes, then Toronto, then its New York Run at the IFC Center.

I wish more mention had been made at the SFIFF press conference regarding Guzmán's attendance at the festival, by way of the Pacific Film Archive retrospective Afterimage: The Films of Patricio Guzmán. B. Ruby Rich and I agreed that it's an unfortunate embarrassment of riches that SFIFF's master class with Jean-Michel Frodon has been programmed against Guzmán's on-stage conversation with Jorge Ruffinelli at PFA. "I now have a conflict," I bemoaned to Ruby. "Yes, you do!" she confirmed.

Tiniest Place, The / El lugar mas pequeño (Dir. Tatiana Huezo, Mexico 2011, 100 min)—Years after the Salvadoran military destroyed the village of Cinquera in that country's civil war, survivors have returned to rebuild their community. This amazing debut is an evocative testament to place, memory and the power of life to rebound from tragedy. International Premiere. GGA Documentary Feature Contender. IMDb. Facebook [Spanish].

Ulysses / Ulises (Dir. Oscar Godoy, Chile / Argentina 2011, 85 min)—The emotional life of a Peruvian immigrant in Chile is the subject of this nuanced character study of a man uprooted from home by economic necessity and suffering loneliness and dislocation. Higher wages can't fill the void created by separation from everything that is important to him. World Premiere. New Directors Prize Contender. IMDb.

Useful Life, A / La vida útil (Dir. Federico Veiroj, Uruguay 2010, 67 min)—A man who has spent his entire adult life working in a film archive faces a new beginning with the threatened closure of the institution in this loving black and white ode to a life lived among the reels, a deadpan comedy of cinema and obsolescence from the director of Acne. (With short Protoparticles (7 min).) IMDb. Wikipedia. Facebook.

This is one more gem I caught at TIFF 2010 that I can heartily recommend to SFIFF audiences. It's a heartfelt valentine to cinephiles everywhere. My interview with Federico Veiroj is up at MUBI, where Dave Hudson has likewise gathered up reviews from the film's run in New York. I feel a shout-out is in order here to San Francisco's own Global Film Initiative whose prescience to pick up the film for distribution presumably provided SFIFF the print to show at their festival.

Cross-published on Twitch.

CARANCHO SCAVENGES BAYSIDE

One of my favorite films from 2010 is the Argentine dark thriller Carancho (2010), for which I've already provided a critical overview, as well as an interview with the film's director Pablo Trapero. Strand Releasing has picked up Carancho for distribution and I'm happy to announce that the film opens in the Bay Area March 25, 2010 at Landmark's Lumiere Theatre in San Francisco and Landmark's Shattuck Cinemas in Berkeley. Carancho is also scheduled to open April 8, 2011 at Camera 3 in San Jose.

Landmark's synopsis: "In Argentina, more than 8,000 people die every year in road accidents, with each victim representing millions of pesos in medical and legal expenses. Behind every tragedy, there is an industry. Set in Buenos Aires, the film noir thriller Carancho stars Ricardo Darín (The Secret in Their Eyes) as Sosa, an ambulance-chasing, disbarred attorney with questionable ethics. Luján (Martina Gusman, Lion's Den) is a young doctor from the provinces, trying to make a living out of many jobs. Alone, with a work rhythm that barely allows her to sleep, she tries to establish herself in a city unknown to her. After Luján and Sosa's paths repeatedly cross (she's trying to save a life; he's trying to add another client to his portfolio), the two form an unlikely romance that is threatened by Sosa’s turbulent past. With traffic accidents as the number one cause of deaths in Argentina, bodies are currency, and a black market strives to get rich from the personal tragedies that literally litter the streets."

Cross-published on Twitch.

FIRST PERSON RURAL: THE NEW NONFICTION—Lisandro Alonso On La Libertad

"Film must provide audiences the opportunity to discover questions."—Lisandro Alonso.

When I interviewed programmer Diana Sanchez at the 2010 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), she admitted—within the parameters of curatorial taste—her fascination with the appearance of a new genre she was noticing in such films as Pedro González-Rubio's sophomore feature Alamar (To the Sea, 2009), Oscar Ruiz Navia's debut feature Crab Trap (El Vuelco del Cangrejo, 2009), and the films of Lisandro Alonso, José Luis Guerín, and Miguel Gomes; a genre that she described as "a mix of documentary and fiction with a real sense of play between these two forms."

The Pacific Film Archive (PFA) celebrates the appearance and critical popularity of this new documentary-fiction hybrid with their upcoming series "First Person Plural: The New Nonfiction." Jason Sanders observes in his program notes: "In the past decade a new breed of filmmaking has emerged, not quite documentary, fiction, or experimental, but a combination of—or liberation from—all three genres. Lisandro Alonso's La libertad (2001) and Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Blissfully Yours (2002) heralded the beginning of this movement, which, while ranging across years, filmmakers, and continents, still shares several elements: quiet, observational long takes; direct-sound recording; and a 'narrative' that unfolds like a documentary, seemingly just 'happened upon' while the camera was rolling, which is sometimes true, but often false. Tellingly, Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Ilisa Barbash, makers of Sweetgrass (2010), refer to themselves not as 'directors,' but 'recordists'; the concept that reality is merely being recorded, not 'directed,' is key (as is, of course, creating the illusion of this). Most of all, these films share an embrace of a cinema of and for the senses, a way to document and prioritize the natural world through both sight and sound. A pastoral cinema, true, but one that investigates humanity's complicated relationship, or lack thereof, to its environment. This series is largely drawn from the 2010 Flaherty Film Seminar, which considered how film explores work and the agrarian ideal.

"The influences are many: the avant-garde landscape portraits of James Benning; the ethnographic details of Jean Rouch; the contemplative fictions of Pedro Costa, Albert Serra, Lav Diaz, and others. For these sensory recordings of the rural landscape, however, categories like documentary, ethnography, fiction, and avant-garde seem not only outdated, but ultimately worthless. It is the image, the senses, and what viewers find on the screen, and in themselves, that matters."

The series kicks off this coming weekend with Lisandro Alonso's 2001 feature La Libertad, and I felt now would be a good time to revisit my notes taken from Alonso's presentation of the film at the Northwest Film Forum's 2009 retrospective "At the Edge of the World"

* * *

La Libertad (Freedom, 2001) screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, and scored nominations and wins on the film festival circuit, including the FIPRESCI prize. The son of a cattle rancher and disinclined to carry on with the family business, Alonso was a 25-year-old recent graduate of the Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires when he made La Libertad; "outside of Buenos Aires but within Argentina." Alonso met the film's protagonist Misael Saavedra on his father's ranch. Misael, logger by trade, epitomized non-urban youth for Alonso; his reaction to the then-popular trend in Argentine cinema to revel in urban narratives. Perhaps it was Alonso's rural background that granted him familiarity with Misael's incommunication?

Alonso spent eight months in the Argentine Pampas with Misael. It was a difficult cohabitation because they had little in common to talk about; but, slowly, they developed a trust. Once he gained Misael's trust, Alonso proposed making the film. Fueled by his anger that his film proposals were not being considered by the Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires, Alonso took on La Libertad independently. The shoot consisted of 10 days with a 12-person crew. The film remained "in the box" for eight months because neither friends nor family liked it. He was frustrated. But then—unexpectedly—La Libertad became a festival darling.

Alonso's method of filming consists of long takes (usually four minutes) which he restructures in the editing room, making minor manipulations to create—as he puts it—"strange expressions of natural everyday things." The result is—as the Harvard Film Archive program capsule

James Quandt observed in his insightful essay "Ride Lonesome": "So matter-of-fact and uninflected is the film's recording of Misael's daily routines (faithfully re-created from weeks of Alonso's close observation of the man's actual life and edited so that several sequences seem to adhere as real-time) that describes—"a poetic meditation on labor and landscape."La Libertad has been hailed as the apotheosis of Bazinian realism."

Quandt further tracked that at Cannes "the film elicited inevitable claims that the boundary between fiction and documentary had been blurred, collapsed, or straddled." Alonso, however, argues that La Libertad is not a documentary, though he grants audiences the sovereignty to think however they want about the film. He stresses his concern is more with the point of view of the audience than his own.

The issue of labor chafes against the film's title. "La Libertad subtly questions the 'freedom' and identity alternately gained and lost by the daily burden of hard labor," the Harvard program capsule concludes. At Slant, Ed Gonzalez notes that "the film's long takes and the cyclical, labored nature of the man's daily grind force the spectator to question the nature of freedom." At Parallax View, Jay Kuehner comments: "Clearly, here was a director who had denuded his cinema down to its sheerest essentials, and what remained was a nominally minimal but ultimately voluptuous portrait of a beautifully forlorn landscape inhabited rather efficiently by a man and his work. Nature, and civilization. The banal, and the mythic. The story was not new—who hasn't worked an arduous day's labor at some time? But the grammar with which it was told was. Radically so." At Elusive Lucidity [broken link], Zach Campbell wonders whether the title is ironic: "Is the protagonist, Misael, free in the nature of his labor and solitude, or is he burdened by its necessity?" "The irony," Robert Koehler concludes at Film Journey, "is that there's nothing absolutely Argentine about La libertad. Its freedom is a freedom from nationality, time-space, narrative laws, camera laws and the expectations that audiences instinctively impose on themselves. But pay attention to the actual translation of the Spanish title: 'Liberty'—a harder, more profound word than 'freedom,' a word pointing to a greater leap, a commitment to an ideal, an identifier for an equation that even describes its opposition—oppression. Liberty is harder-won. Liberty is that thing that the films that really matter aspire to. This one just has the balls to take it as its own name."

In the film's final "quietly confrontational" sequence, Misael munches on roasted armadillo and then stares directly at the audience "as if"—Ed Gonzalez suggests at Slant—"daring us to question or challenge the integrity of his way of life", or what Sean Axmaker describes as "the integrity of the quotidian." "As if" becomes a convenient way to extrapolate Alonso's otherwise notoriously withheld motivations. Alonso admits that by encouraging Misael to look directly into the camera, he deconstructed documentary expectations and created a direct relationship with the audience. Alonso simply told Misael to "act" as if were looking at someone who was eating across a table from him.

The film's original ending had Misael laughing outloud while looking into the camera—achieved by Alonso unexpectedly dropping his pants; but—persuaded by the Cannes Festival to (as Quandt puts it) "remove this Brechtian breach"—Alonso settled for the somber, more atmospheric ending.

Many critics of the film have suggested it would have sufficed better as a short; but, aware that no one recovers costs on a short film, Alonso chose to make a feature in hopes he might recover some of his family's investment. His father was the film's producer.

When La Libertad premiered at Cannes, one of the critics from Cahiers du Cinema complained that Alonso treated his non-actor Misael like he was a monkey. "I'm sorry to tell you, but he's wrong about how I direct my actors," Alonso asserted defensively. "I'm not trying to make any money from the films. I'm not trying to use them." He knows he's working with non-actors and has to develop specific approaches with them. He can't ask them to behave like professional actors. Nonetheless the question of Alonso's artistic sincerity clouded the film's Cannes reception. As Jay Kuehner summarized at Parallax View: "The question persisted whether Alonso's film was, to reduce the argument, an act of abstract humanism. Was it possible that esteemed auteurs held a kind of deep faith in their wounded protagonists yet had little regard in reality for their more immediate brethren?"

Cross-published on Twitch.

PERUVIAN CINEMA: CONTRACORRIENTE / UNDERTOW (2009): The Evening Class Interview With Javier Fuentes-León

Positioned in the Awards Buzz sidebar of the 2011 Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) as Peru's official submission to the Foreign Language category of the Academy Awards®, I thought now would be a good time to revisit my conversation with Javier Fuentes-León, conducted when Undertow screened in Frameline34's spotlight on South American queer cinema. It won that festival's Outstanding First Feature Award, having already scored the World Cinema Audience Award (Drama) at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Our conversation can be found here.

PSIFF 2011: CARANCHO—The Evening Class Interview With Pablo Trapero

Pablo Trapero was born in San Justo, Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1971. He wrote, directed and edited the short films Mocoso Malcriado (1993) and Negocios (1995) before directing his feature debut, the award-winning Crane World (1999), a black and white 16mm film that proved to be a breaking point in Argentine cinema and that encouraged dozens of young directors into their first features. Crane World was released internationally at Venice, harvesting awards and critical acclaim at film festivals around the world.

In 2002, his second feature El Bonaerense premiered at Un Certain Regard in the Cannes Film Festival, again to critical and audience acclaim. That same year he opened his own production company Matanza Cine in Buenos Aires, from which he has produced ever since not only his own features but also those of other Argentine and Latin American filmmakers, including Lisandro Alonso, Enrique Bellande and Raúl Perrone. "Matanza", Trapero informed me when we met at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), is the name of the neighborhood where he was born and raised and literally means "the killing." El Bonoaerense was filmed there, as were several sequences for Carancho (2010), Trapero's sixth feature and Argentina's official submission to the Foreign Language category of the 2011 Academy Awards®. It's been picked up for North American distribution by Strand Releasing and has been programmed into the Awards Buzz: Best Foreign Language Film sidebar at the 2011 Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF).

As a director, between shorts and TV films, Trapero's credits include Rolling Family (2004), Born and Bred (2006), and Lion's Den (2008). My thanks to Marcus Hu of Strand Releasing for setting me up to interview Pablo Trapero at TIFF and to Doug Cummings for initially publishing the transcript of our conversation at the AFI Fest website.

* * *

Michael Guillén: Let's start with the title of your film. What does carancho mean?

Pablo Trapero: Carancho is a vulture; but—how do I say this?—it's handsome in a way; it's goodlooking. The feeling you have in front of this bird is not like the feeling you normally have in front of a vulture. Still, they eat roadkill.

Guillén: Is a carancho different than a zopilote?

Trapero: Yes. You only find a carancho in the countryside, in the pampa. It's a big bird. The idea is that it represents the character Sosa (Ricardo Darín). Interestingly enough, after the film showed in Argentina, people began using the term carancho to describe these types of lawyers. Recently in Argentina, in fact, the anti-carancho law was announced.

Guillén: Carancho immediately reminded me of a comment made by Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano that the term "accident" to describe a car wreck is inaccurate. Galeano argues that there is nothing accidental about car wrecks; that, in fact, from the moment cars were manufactured and set loose on the roadways car wrecks were inevitable. He said a better word to describe a car wreck would be "a consequence", rather than "an accident". In the case of Carancho, it might be said that it's also a consequence that cars would be rigged to crash. I'm intrigued that you've used a love story to reflect upon this corruption. Why did you move in that direction?

Trapero: The idea was to create a love story within a war zone; to show a love that comes from desperation or an extreme situation. Both ideas began at the same time: the love story and its environment. From the beginning I had the two characters of the lawyer and the emergency room doctor: they're two professions that one sees all over Argentina. I did a lot of research to learn about their worlds. Also at the beginning was the idea of creating a film noir.

Guillén: I'm surprised that you reference film noir because—though others have referenced it as such—you've initially called Carancho "a classic black thriller", which I feel is more accurate. For me, Carancho is not a film noir; it's more a straightforward crime drama. So I want to make sure what you mean by using "noir" in this reference: are you referring to using a relationship to reflect a dark social situation? Social problems that could be considered dark?

Trapero: That's right. But not by talking about those problems. More by having them be present in the background. That's how I mean noir. Through this love story we can guess the bigger picture.

Guillén: One of the pleasures of Carancho for me were its scenes of unexpected violence in situations where I wouldn't have anticipated them. For example, when the drunk man Luján (Martina Gusmán) is trying to help assaults her in the ambulance or—even more so—the gang war in the emergency room. The latter scene, especially, came off thrillingly comic. The audience I was in actually laughed at that scene.

Trapero: Ah, really? Great!

Guillén: Can you speak to your usages of violence, such that at times it's funny and other times not?

Trapero: In both of the scenes you mention, the violence serves as a way to let off steam. It's an escape valve for the intensity of the emotions. Of course, the violence serves a black humor in the film but not everyone understands that and some take it very seriously. But I meant it to be enjoyed, as you say you enjoyed it. And that enjoyment has to do with the contradictions in the situation; the contrast between what Luján is trying to do—she's trying to help others—and instead there's violence against others. In that is a black humor.

Guillén: And no one is better at capturing these contradictions than Ricardo Darín. The carancho is a perfect metaphor for his character because on one level he's contemptible for being an ambulance chaser; but, he's also somehow charming about it. As you described the carancho, there's something seductive in Sosa's predatory nature. In fact, I'm frequently amused in Darín's performances in how he goes about seducing his female leads.

Trapero: Which is the same as saying how he seduces his audiences.

Guillén: Exactly. Though his characters—and particularly Sosa in Carancho—possess questionable ethics, he charms you into accepting his seedy ethics. He's what I would call an operator. What was it like working with him? It was your first time, no?

Trapero: Yes, it was my first time to work with him. Of course, I've known Ricardo since always. I met with him to discuss this project when he was shooting Juan José Campanella's The Secret In Their Eyes (2009). At a very early stage of developing the treatment, I contacted him to see what he thought, if he liked it, and if he would like to be in the movie? We kept in touch about all developments on the story.

Both of them, Ricardo and Martina Gusmán made a good team. I could feel their chemistry from the very beginning. We knew from their first meeting that it could work; that it should work. I spent a lot of time with both of them reading the script in table rehearsals, talking about it, having lunch, having drinks, talking and talking, even more than true rehearsals with the scenes. We went straight from those discussions to filming the scenes rather than directly rehearsing them too much. This was the opposite of how Martina actually works. She spent six months researching her role, once a week doing a 24-hour shift in an actual hospital emergency ward. In effect, she became an assistant to the emergency doctor. Her approach to the role was very old-fashioned, you know? She became the character, little by little.

Guillén: This is your third time to work with Martina Gusmán. What is it in her talent that you keep wanting to film in your movies?

Trapero: It's funny, because when we met a long time ago she was working in a production; that's how we met. But since she was four years old, she's been studying as an actress. When she was 17, she worked with a famous maestro named Carlos Gandolfo, which was unique for her being so young. Martina has deep formation as an actress. What I like about her work is how she goes through her characters. Her attention to detail—movement, her way of looking—this is more important than simply reciting the right words at the right moment. Both Martina and Ricardo are technical in their craft. If I tell them to move from here to there, they always hit their marks; but, at the same time, they can improvise as needed. I like to add new elements to a scene while we're shooting. Take by take, I'm always trying to improve the film, trying to make each take unique. Both of them are good at that. Of course, Martina knows me too well. But it's great to have that foundation and trust.

Guillén: I loved her performance, of course, in Lion's Den; but, have to say I loved her performance even more in Carancho. Let's shift to your sound design. You've used much ambient traffic noise, of course, which I'm presuming was fully conscious?

Trapero: I mentioned earlier about the idea of a war zone, an environment that's really tough on the characters, but I didn't want to just film that on camera. I wanted to bring the mood of it to the scenes, to suggest that life is really tough out there. All the noises and sounds are a way of providing information to the audience, even if Sosa and Luján are just cooking or watching television or resting quietly on the sofa, the audience hears all the living city sounds drifting in from outside their window.

Guillén: Can you speak to working with your cinematographer Julián Apezteguia to capture the feeling of confined vehicular spaces?

Trapero: It was strange to film in such tight spaces and we had a lot of long sequence takes, some as long as eight minutes. We didn't use a steadicam or anything like that. Julián always used a handheld RED camera, though with the assistance of a harness, and we shot in real cars. As for locations, we shot in real hospitals for the ambiance but we also built sets within the walls of the hospital to shoot the scenes in the emergency room. These sets had hidden access doors so that we could effect the long takes going through these small rooms.

Guillén: Lately I've been intrigued by what constitutes a "contemporary" film, especially from the directorial vantage. As your films frequently directly address social issues—such as the insurance fraud in Carancho—do you consider your films contemporary? What does that term mean for you?

Trapero: I like the idea that my films have a dialogue with what is happening in the world off screen; but, I'm not sure if that could be called "contemporary." Maybe it is? My films are more a witness or a portrait of the moment. Even if you are shooting a science fiction film you are commenting upon the moment when you are shooting. It's not a matter of just being contemporary in terms of time, but in views of reality. That's what I like. When you make a film, you can feel the time when you were making the film; but, you can also feel it working on you now when you watch it. I like that a film can last for years and that it reflects the time when it was made; but, can still talk to audiences many years later. That for me is a contemporary film, even if it was shot 80 years ago. I like the idea of talking with movies over time.

Guillén: Can you talk a bit about your production company Matanza Cine? Do you have a signature style to the films you produce? A certain look? Or a certain message you're trying to get across in your films?

Trapero: No, no. What I enjoy doing with Matanza is to help directors throw it out there, to do it in the way that is proper to them, in the way they want to. I help them to have creative control. I give them the tools to help them go through the production of a film and to do it in such a way that the necessary production of a film does not hurt the soul of the film and a filmmaker's unique vision. I try to help them survive the process because sometimes making a movie fights against the spirit of their vision.

Cross-published on Twitch.

PSIFF 2011: CARANCHO—A Critical Overview

Programmed within my favorite sidebar at the Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF)—i.e., Awards Buzz: Best Foreign Language Film (which this year is featuring 40 of the 65 official submissions to the 2011 Academy Awards®)—Pablo Trapero's Carancho (2010) chases the shrill sound of ambulance sirens. I first caught this film at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and feel now is a good time to revisit those notes.

As synopsized by PSIFF: "Rooted in the reality of the corruption and violence of Buenos Aires, this gritty modern-day noir features Ricardo Darín (The Secret In Their Eyes and The Son Of The Bride) as Hector Sosa who, like the titular vulture-like bird, swoops down on unfortunate victims of Argentina's shockingly commonplace road accidents. Having lost his law license, he is relegated to the role of ambulance chaser for his thuggish employers who profit from a flourishing industry of false claims and insurance scams, fleecing victims of the bulk of any settlement received through their 'foundation.'

"When he meets Luján [Martina Gusmán (Lion's Den)], an overworked medic who is wrestling with her own demons as she tries to save the lives of Sosa's 'clients,' he has a dramatic change of heart, but his plans to escape this life and change his ways go horribly awry. With crisp, tight editing, this lean and suspenseful thriller takes us through accident sites, hospital wards, and seedy interior settings that would be perfectly in place in a Hollywood noir. Carancho is the latest example of director Trapero's trademark socially realistic cinema."

Carancho explores the notion that "behind every tragedy, there is an industry." As Diana Sanchez detailed in her program notes for Carancho's North American premiere at TIFF 2010, Trapero's film is "a story drawn from the alarming violence on his country's streets" and "an engrossing love story set among people who trade in sudden tragedy and death." Tracking the film's press notes, Sanchez writes: "Each year, more than eight thousand people are killed on the road and over a hundred thousand are injured. As a result, a disturbingly large part of the Argentine economy revolves around traffic accidents, and a profit stands to be made from the ongoing flow of medical expenses and insurance claims. Trapero's sixth feature plunges into this murky world of opportunism, spotlighting the crooks that swoop in on emergency rooms and accident scenes."

At Twitch, Todd Brown reported from the film's Cannes premiere: "A film that fuses stellar character work and intimate drama with larger thriller and heist moments with a few elements of shocking violence thrown in for good measure, Carancho is a masterful piece of work from writer / director / producer / editor Pablo Trapero. Trapero serves notice here that he is one of the very best film makers in the world today. Period. The complexity of his characters, the technical quality of the film work, his ability to balance intimate emotion with realistic and brutal action sequences, his obvious skill in working with actors—though that is made easier when you have actors the caliber of [Ricardo] Darín to work with—Trapero is at the highest level in all of these. Flawless? Carancho comes pretty damn close." As if to cinch the deal, Brown has included Carancho in his year-end top picks, emphasizing that "Ricardo Darín anchors Pablo Trapero's Carancho with a riveting, complex performance as a broken man slowly unraveling thanks to the tiny moré of conscience he retains. Classic noir in content if not in style, Trapero's film spins its amoral tale of insurance scams and ambulance chasing in as unaffected a style as possible, letting events play out in a cold, almost clinical fashion as his characters stumble inevitably to a bad end. The always stellar Darín has never been better and he's perfectly matched to both director and story."

At MUBI, Daniel Kasman praises Trapero as a steady, sure-handed genre craftsman. Kasman reported from TIFF: "Carancho has the solidity of construction and reliance on conventional character types and story arcs to effectively normalize a highly specific and localized setting. The result, like an early '30s Hollywood entry, is a workman film, one made by a director prodigious enough to pick such a unglamorous setting and proceed to cast it in a reliably realistic and unappealing light—'cause that's the way it really is. ...The film is so solid that any room for ambiguity is left out of the digital masonry of the mise-en-scène, which builds a clear schema where, simply, anyone involved in the nocturnal world of deaths and near-deaths, accidents and 'incidents' is implicated in the gloom, no questions asked. Thus the modest ambitions of a genre film stay within its modest limits, rather than escaping into the unease of the shadows, blossoming within gray shades of morality, or aesthetically expanded in risky angles, lighting, and other stylistics."

Cross-published on Twitch.