Otra vuelta

Otra vuelta (2003) Santiago Paravecino Argentina

This feature length black and white film is a slow moving, contemplative attempt at neo- symbolism. I say attempt, it is more like a nine tenths successful film. It was billed as director's first (feature length?) but apparently it was not his first film.

This is a thinly veiled meta-referential piece whose name: "otra vuelta" can be read on multiple levels. On a first level, it refers to the return to the director (cleverly renamed with the same initials) to his hometown of Chacabuco. On a second level, it refers to his addressing the making of a film based on a story by Haroldo Conti, (also of Chacabuco and disappeared, it would seem, in 1976) called "La noche perfumada" whose validity as subject matter is questioned throughout the film by the protagonists various interlocutors. Curiously "Los perfumes de la noche" was a medio-metraje (mid-length film) made in 2002 based on a play by the very same Haroldo Conti and adapted by Santiago Paravecino. In this way the second time around is the return to the subject matter of his previous film. On a third level it can be read as Paravecino's (or his incarnate film double's) following the geographical path of the author Conti, home. And lastly it can be read in the echoing parallels between the story of "La noche perfumada" and the end of the life of his friend who recently committed suicide.

Visually stunning, there is a relatively strong rope of intertwined stories reducing memories to the plane of the ephemeral, reducing art to shreds that explode in the night, but perhaps a few too many loose threads for the film to realize its maximum potential.

Cites the left-behind lover of the recently deceased: "At the end, after it is all over, there are no more images left, only words... or was it the other way around?"

An old movie made by a young man. This Argentine movie deals with a twenty something man returning to his hometown of Chacabuco, where he wishes to make a film about a story from Haroldo Conti, a writer also from Chacabuco, who was murdered by the military dictatorship in 1976. In the process, he meets people who knew Conti as well as local acquaintances of him he hasn't met in a while, since he left for the big city. Shot on black and white, this film is leisurely paced (that is, it is pretty boring), and has the look of a film made decades ago. This doesn't mean that a sort of retro program is in the director's intentions (in the way of someone like Guy Maddin). It is just his view of the world. Look, I understand if a 50 or 60-something director makes this sort of movie, but it seems amazing to me that with so many things happening and facing the youth of Argentina today that a young man would make such a boring, dated, aimless movie.

9/10 For bravery, bold choices, stunning visuals and elliptical exploration of mortality, poetry and the politics of expression.

Of course there are flaws, but the work of a first feature (and particularly one of this ambitious nature) are bound to contain them.

The film's beginning promises less than it delivers. The actor/filmmaker is searching for something -- a way into this short story, a validation for his motivation, a tick from above. His journey is almost that of a detective -- one who is learning to co-exist as a sociologist and a human (grieving and alienation from one's own experience are some of the film's central questions).

The images reflect the filmmakers own inner turmoil -- do i distance the audience or allow them to feel? Am I to pillage the young girl for experience or am i to relent to powerlessness? Extreme wide shots of the man wrestle alongside tender close ups. Especially when we arrive at the sequences of the young girl as she demands the background of the filmmakers actions (the white dress climbing the staircase et all) The music (and sudden disappearance of music) with image and darkness is not so effective for me. Perhaps the device is used too much but I also understand the sound mix was not final. I think without the black the film would have felt more surefooted. But this is maybe an aesthetic bias for me. However the choice of music is fantastic. The piece towards the end is very high in drama and my initial reaction was to balk -- but the sentimental piece could possibly be paying tribute to the innate romantic indulgence of some type of cinema. And as an audience member, we were aware of the manipulation -- which was what, I expect, Palavecino was trying to achieve.

In light of this, the audience is never sure whether Palavecino is playing satire of the filmmakers intention of paying it self-reflexive homage. The uneasy mix is good, however, as to rely too formerly on the latter would suggest a kind of immaturity. But instead Palavecino always chooses to walk a fine line between satire and earnest emotion -- reminiscent of "Contempt" "8 1/2" and "Day for Night" but closer to the school of Godard I believe.

The scene in the cafe where he receives criticism for his unfaithful adaptation is where the real magic of this film begins to unfold. The couple at a nearby table could almost be characters from the unmade Conti film -- and from this point on the film works with these double levels.

In the end, I am left with a story about uneasy ambition, artistic expression, loneliness and love -- and the artist's uneasy choice to either be caught up in the maelstrom of experience or detached from it.