El abrazo partido

A Jewish Argentinian young man, a little confused, a little depressing; a father that went away to Israel when he was a just a baby, a mother that seems to be living in a fantasy world, a polish grandmother who thinks that "there in Europe they want to kill all the jews", a brother who has sort of an export-import business in which he sells all kind of useless stuff, a lover married to an old man, a commercial gallery full of weirdos ... AND TONS OF Argentinian SARCASM!

Lively dialogues, the Argentinian verbal-diarrhoea which is present in every sequence, the innate naturalness of Argentinian actors, and a filming style pretty similar to latest north-European cinema, Von Trier, the DOGMA manifesto, and all that ... That's (maybe) the weakest point of "El Abrazo Partido": too much camera movement, so much that in some sequences it gets a little annoying. (I'm not very in favour on making a whole movie with the camera on your shoulder).

In short: a film about ordinary people, plenty of Argentinian sacastic humour.

My rate: 7/10

In Buenos Aires, the twenty and something years old Jewish-Argentinean Ariel Makaroff (Daniel Hendler) has quited the architecture university and spends his time wandering through the downtown gallery where his mother has a lingerie shop and his brother runs an importation business; shagging the owner of a little Internet business; and trying to get his Polish passport and move to Europe. Ariel has never understood why his father left him when he was a baby to fight in the Yom Kippur War in 1973. When his father returns to Buenos Aires, Ariel discovers the reason why his father left his family.

"El Abrazo Partido" is a disappointing little personal drama with uninteresting and dull characters and awful camera work. The lead character Ariel is an alienated shirker and his motivations in the story are never clear, since he does not study and has no work; no religion in spite of being Jewish; no sense of nationalism; no girlfriend (he left Estela without any reason); no respect or feelings for his family; no nothing but intercourse with the next door neighbor in the gallery Rita and an apparently interest in having an European passport. His mother, his grandmother, his brother, his father, the neighbors in the gallery, none of these characters is interesting. The style partially recalls the Danish filmmaker movement Dogma 95, since the movie is done on the location; with ambient sound; use of hand-held camera; colored with no use of filters; very realistic plot; etc. However, the hand-held camera work is awful, recalling "The Blair Witch Project" or "Cloverfield" and the division in parts with subtitles seems to be a pretentious trial of intellectual style. But the acting is great and my vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Abraço Partido" ("The Broken Hug")

"Lost Embrace (El Abrazo partido)" is like a modern Sholom Aleichem story set in a Yiddishkeit neighborhood of Buenos Aires that feels very much like NYC's Lower East Side.

Here, the village full of multi-generational eccentric characters is a small mall in the middle of the city where each of a variety of Jews and other immigrants is long familiar with and tolerant of the other's idiosyncrasies and mysteries.

As played by Daniel Hendler, Ariel is an adorable slacker who thinks the solution to his ennui is to become European but ends up searching this community for his full identity and heritage -- as a Jew, as a grandson of Polish immigrants, as a mother's son, as a son of a father in Israel, as a lover, a brother, friend and Argentinian. His loving relationship with his brightly henna-haired mother as he helps out at her lingerie shop is both unusually sweet and mature and a nice counter-point to how Jewish mothers are usually portrayed.

Co-writer/director Daniel Burman uses the midrashic technique of having each question asked by the central character answered by a story, with titles appearing on screen as chapter headings. Each story is open to Talmudic-like interpretation by the participants and leads to unexpected revelations. For example, the joke from "Fiddler in the Roof" of traders arguing about whether it was a mule or a donkey is here an ongoing feud about whether it was in pesos or dollars.

While his quest greatly impacts the others he questions as each makes important changes in habits, it is a bit confusing that the more Ariel gradually learns about his history and just how entwined he is in his community, the less he is able to assimilate it into his image of himself. He does seem to learn forgiveness or maybe at least tolerance and empathy, but the sum totaling of all the charming anecdotes is that he can accept eating a certain symbolic sandwich.

Ah, life goes on in this easy-going tale.

I have seen the movie several times now, and keep loving the very porteño lines, the perfect way in which the filmmaker captures the unique setting of Once (and a little of Abasto), as well as the tone of 2002/2003 there in Buenos Aires. The delicate portrayals of emotion and spirit are heart-rending and hilarious together. For anyone who knows Buenos Aires beyond the bullshit vended to you by some tourism operator, this film will delight you. It also has enough appeal and quirkiness to charm broader audiences that have some curiosity about slice-of-life films from elsewhere. If you have seen Berman's film "Esperando al Mesías," many people will look familiar in this movie, but it's only the actors, not the characters who are the same, and even though only a few. Like that other movie, there is also much emphasis on Argentine Jewish everyday life, but not in a way that is insular at all -- bringing in, instead, the rest of life that can combine effortlessly or create the conflicts and commotions that keep life and culture vibrant. Berman also seems to show a strength across his movies in grappling with the importance of longer-standing histories in their very simple, quotidian upcroppings. In all, an excellent film by an excellent filmmaker.

"Abrazo partido" is a very subtle, true to life story about the middle classes in Buenos Aires after the economic crisis 2001. Those that have been to Argentina will undoubtedly recognize some of the beautifully stereotyped protagonists: the melancholic youngster, the budding bric-a-brac entrepreneur, the disillusioned pensioners recalling Argentina's glory days, the disrespected immigrant labourer. These characters make this idiosyncratic country, and indeed this movie, so likeable. Even the people's underlying optimism and the love for their country, which -in the light of Argentina's demise- may surprise visitors, shines through. I highly recommend the movie 9/10.