Lugares comunes

LUGARES COMUNES (Common Ground) is yet another sensitive Argentinean film that has the courage to deal with the bumpy political life of Argentina as well as the equally rocky road to aging. Based on the novel by Lorenzo F. Aristarain and directed by Adolfo Aristarain this is a film of sunlight and shadows - and those clouds that promise to unveil the sun despite passing darkness.

Fernando Robles (Federico Luppi) is a writer and university professor in Buenos Aires who is informed before his planned trip to Madrid to visit his son Pedro (Carlos Santamaría) and daughter-in-law Natacha (Valentina Bassi) that he is being placed in early retirement: the crumbling government of Argentina cannot support such things as education! After an exquisite farewell of sage advice to his students on what is important in the role of a teacher, he goes home to his loving wife of many years Liliana (Mercedes Sampietro) to prepare for their journey to Madrid. At the airport Liliana senses sadness in Fernando and he confesses that he has been 'fired', that they have little money to live on in Buenos Aires: he covers his sadness by buying Liliana perfumes she loves. This couple is bonded so beautifully it makes us weep.

In Madrid the couple is forced to stay with the son and daughter but the closeness of this familial proximity is intolerable when Fernando informs his son of his financial situation. Pedro is cold and harsh and is in life for money and refuses to assist his parents. The couple leaves, returning to Argentina where they under advice from lawyer Carlos (Arturo Puig) sell their home and move to the country where they plan to grow grapes - a return to the purity of the land. But fate intervenes and the story ends in a manner that leaves the viewer sad but wiser.

The cast is sterling and the direction is first rate. This is one of those films that should be required viewing for many reasons, but especially for people who are approaching the time of retirement and the fear that holds. Highly recommended for a large viewing audience. In Spanish with English subtitles. Grady Harp

Aristarain is one the greatest film-maker in Argentina; if he were born in an other country (more economically powerful) he would probably be a sort of classic film-maker in the history of cinema. Aristarain belongs to an old generation of argentinian artists who has been wise enough in order to keep on with his believes and aesthetics but without being stuck in the past. His movies are fresh and sharp. He doesn't lose his grip which makes his narratives very well deployed as well as subordinated to a couple of constant topics: the lost of national identity, or the dialectical swing between subjectivity and social life which is doubled in another kind of paradoxical choice between remain faithful towards oneself or to give up and obey the conservative imperative of petty-bourgeois which demand to fit in the status quo. Lugares comunes looks like a minimalist film, but it is a essential one because whatever is unnecessary in this story is not included. Luppi, by the way the best actor from Las pampas, is a literature teacher, a prototype of middle class member who is retired in advance. He is a leftist man who have found that the dream of another society started in 1879, and after that date that longing for another kind of society has been systematically betrayed. Sampietro, his wife, is an spanish woman who work with the poor. After being left with a miserable pension they have to reconsider where they want to (and can) live. They finally end running a farm. The film has many virtues: for instance, one is able to see how social history determine and comprise the psyche life of individuals. Moreover, Lugares comunes is a document of Argentinian decadence, a very satisfactory tale of how people manage to keep its decency. But it is also a love story and a philosophical meditation about getting older, the limits of reason, and how to live when there is not any transcendental meaning except the fact of being alive. The name of the film is an ironic antithesis because Lugares comunes is at odds with common sense: it is a honest critic of each ideological gadgets which has made of Argentina a ghost and creepy territory where people want to fade or voluntary exile if they still strive for being alive with any gesture of human integrity.

There's no other way to describe Lugares comunes but as a beautiful movie. It's a well constructed story that revolves around a literature teacher who's forced into an early retirement due to his ideals. From the beginning he's writing lose notes about the way he feels, and this is useful as a voice in off that narrates high points of the plot as it is also the key that serves mainly as an inner perspective in some matters. He talks about revolution and democracy in the state in an Argentina beaten by the government, depicting the economical and social issues as well as it's day to day surviving culture. The other characters here are his wife (who's from Spain) their son (who lives there) and a close friend of the teacher, who happens to be a lawyer dating a younger woman. Then, by their precarious situation, the couple sell their flat in Buenos Aires and move to the country. That's basically the screenplay: how they learn to live with their new situation.

Luppi, as the professor, is wonderful; he has a natural driven force that get us in the inner struggles of the character, and his insights are clever, methodical and somehow illustrative, describing and dissecting terms like lucidity (in words and feelings). The dialogues are well guided by a smart hand so, even when there's plenty of them, never get to bore. The others characters are well performed, rounding the experience and adding strength to a tone that goes from somber to bright, and even when it's premise is mainly sad, never turns into one to weep at; it is one to wonder and makes us think rather than sink our mood into mourning or feel sorry for them. It is, as my title says, one long and well played tango based on a biting reality which goes smooth hence pretty delightful.

I give it four stars out of five.

Fernando (Federico Luppi), a Professor of Literature in his sixties in Buenos Aires and his wife Lili (Mercedes Sampietro), a social worker are respected in the community and loving partners. Their world is turned upside down however when Fernando receives notice that he is being asked to retire early. The enforced retirement, a result of the economic crisis in Argentina, comes as a complete shock and he and his wife are forced to make drastic decisions that threaten the foundations of their comfortable life. Based on the novel "The Renaissance" by Lorenzo F. Aristariain, Common Ground, the new film by Argentine director Adolfo Aristarain (A Place in the World, Martin), is a story about love, getting older, and discovering what is important in life. It is also an acid social comment on the current state of life in Argentina where thousands of Argentinans have had to face a similar end to their secure middle class existence.

Fernando and Lili have a son Pedro (Pablo Rago) who lives comfortably in Spain with his wife and two children. A leftist man of strong convictions, Fernando tells his son about his meager pension left to him by the university but refuses his assistance. Instead he berates him for abandoning his country and selling out to make money. When the couple returns to Argentina, they are forced to sell their apartment in the city, purchase a farm and bravely set out on a new style of living. Their adjustment to rural life has its moments of sadness but their striving to live out their lives with dignity and purpose is profoundly human. Though Common Ground does not reach the heights of Aristarain's A Place in the World, it is an honest film and one that celebrates the strength of a loving family.

How to start again when all the hopes are over? How to keep loving the same woman during all your life? How to change without loosing your ideals? How to get old and feel as the first day of your youth?

Basic questions, with basic answers that not everybody is willing to hear. Common places where most of us try not to go.

This film is poetry into a movie. One of the best scripts contents of the Latin American cinema. Aristarain shows one more time to be one of the best ever Argentinean directors.

Take your time to enjoy it.