La vie des poissons

I came to movie for curiosity and because I've heard from someone, so I came home with the movie and push the play button when I was totally comfortable to see it...so I began to hold my breath, because the movie start with no advice, and If you don't really pay attention to the dialog's you will miss a lot of the movie, because the characters say things that are so intrusive that maybe you feel like someone is questioning you, or you been played at that moment of the character dialogs. I decide to pause a little the movie I was overwhelmed for by the characters and the way they relate to each other, I was getting to much involved in the movie, so when I looked to the played time I noticed 40 minutes have passed, and I was feeling like just no more than 15 minutes have played.

Is a great movie to show you that no astonishing sceneries needed to make a good film, everything happen in the same house here and there over the place. The director do a good job on subjectives cameras, and shots where we have a shirt stories just for what he shows.

You'll have a lot of emotions with this film, Is a romantic film thats worth seeing.

I had never seen a Chilean film before the 'Life of Fish' was screened during a Spanish language film festival here in Perth, Western Australia.

I do not understand how MdIndeHond could find this film boring, I was mesmerised by its slow pace, the use of silence (there was almost no soundtrack), the constraint of filming the entire action within the confines of a house, the believable characters and dialogue and the utterly compelling acting.

'Life of Fish' may appeal more to older viewers than 20-somethings. I certainly am aware of missed opportunities in my own life and could relate to Andres dilemma.

If 'Life of Fish' is typical of the quality of Chilean film making then I shall certainly make an effort to see any other Chilean films that happen to reach 'the most isolated major city in the world'.

This movie is sort of a "Uncle Vanya" or "August" type of movie, but with people of thirty years old: the poignant story of a guy who wasted his life, and is suffering the remorse of having abandoned his friends and his love. He's stuck in a strange party where his ghosts begins to haunt him, and he's faced with memories, choices, loneliness, nostalgia and remorse. It was emotionally perfect: the acting was great, the dialog and scenes were carefully crafted, and the music score is just perfect. Perhaps the movie has some minor issues in the editing and dialog, but those are only details. It's one of the best movies made in Chile of the last decades.

10/10

La vida de los peces starts out with an abrupt conversation, in which Andrés, a journalist working for travel magazines, just returned to Chile after 10 years of absence. His friends asked him if he has "talked to her," referring to Andrés's ex-girlfriend Bea. As Andrés and Bea finally encounter each other and strike a conversation (after spending much time avoiding the subject they want to talk about - that is their relationship), we discover the reason Andrés left town and went to Germany, Bea's current married life, and that they still have (lots of) feelings left for each other. While the setting is purposely made to be a confined space crowded with people, strangers and friends alike, the winding paths Andrés and Bea took to avoid each other and to finally meet each other are the journeys to find themselves, especially Andrés. Regardless of the ending (and they say it's not the end that matter, but rather the process of getting there), I really enjoyed the conversations between the two protagonists that seem very realistic, the strangely romantic moments where they were just standing there looking at goldfish circling around recounting their memories of the past, and especially the final scene, which must have been one of the best ending scenes ever in all the movies that I have seen.

Matías Bize's 2010 film LA VIDA DE LOS PECES (The Life of Fish) takes place over a single evening at a Chilean house party. Andrés (Santiago Cabrera) is visiting Chile for the first time in 10 years, but he's due to fly back to his adopted Berlin the next day. The action of the film consists solely of Andrés wandering from room to room, catching up with people dear to him that he hasn't seen in a long time. Conversations with the friends of his youth hint at the tragedy they shared, which ultimately drove Andrés abroad, but it is Beatriz (Blanca Lewin) who ultimately lies at the centre of Andrés' youth, and their reunion after a decade leads them to a difficult choice.

For the most part, this film is intolerable melodrama. The script is unfocused (there's a bizarre scene where some pre-teens ask Andrés a series of graphic questions about what sex acts he's partaken in), and the acting lacks any subtlety. The soundtrack is the emotionally gushing pop music one associates more with late '90s teen television dramas like "Party of Five" than serious films. Now, the ending of his film is satisfying enough that I'm happy I held out and watched the whole thing, but it's bizarre that Chile thought this film worthy of submission for the Best Foreign Film category at the 2011 Academy Awards.