No somos animales

"No somos animales" is a film you'll either love or hate...and this is obvious when you look at the ratings which either are 9s or 10s...or 1s....with little in between. I can certainly understand this after watching the movie, as it looks like an indie reworking of "8 1/2"...and it's not the sort of movie the average person would rush to see.

Instead of a traditional narrative, this film feels like someone took some home movies and pieced them together. Some folks might recognize what is happening...but most will just feel that the plot is disjoint and confusing. What you DO know is that John Cusack plays a famous actor who is tired of Hollywood and he heads to Argentina to make a film. Other than that...there really isn't a ton of plot.

For me, I'd much rather watch "8 1/2" because it is more coherent and enjoyable. Additionally, the film lacks energy and after a while, I just didn't care about anything and wanted it to end.

When I first started watching this, I had my mind set to write a completely sarcastic review and summarize this as a tale of a man who once won a sizable amount of money on a popular game show while wearing his magical Wonder Woman wristbands, only to later in life be reduced to begging on GoFundMe for attorney retainer funds after being charged with methamphetamine possession following a Grindr hook-up gone wrong. But then something about this movie made me very sad, in a very deeply painful, aching kind of way. I can't completely explain it. Maybe if you have horrible attention deficit disorder like I do you'll sit through the whole thing while eating a large burrito. This movie might make you question your sanity, sort of like a psychopath or narcissist does when gaslighting a person, making them wonder what actually is reality.

Warm little movie. A collage of digressions and partial thoughts, no apt for who is looking to be caught in a melodrama. To see great actors playing with such a freedom, makes me think on the cynical and shallow part of this art form.

As soon we have the chance to liberate our mind, we dream, and snore. As soon we seat front of the TV, we are forced to dream the dreams others, sometimes just money makers…

This movie have much of a dream, but is enough imperfect, rough, and sometimes nonsensical, that you can hear your own mind without feeling being used.

That's why I give it a 10 from Uruguay. As a normal movie it probably would have deserve only a 6 or 7. But this is another kind of "thing". Personally made me feel close to the characters, as never a movie made me feel before. I could call it an ODE to friendship. The "thing" never tried to manipulate me, from the start shows that taste of parody, makes you part of a crazy party, full of contradictions, drinks,different points of view, and space for personal thoughts...

Anyway, Cusack shows his best, or a my say himself after so many forgettable films. I wish it could be a serial, with those friends saying what come to their minds. After watching the last Argentine blockbusters designed to be that, like The Clan etc., or the "artistic movies", that are film school pastiches of old classics, overall french, No Somos Animales got my heart. Makes me believe that cinema could be something different that manipulation and money, something more simple, and participatory.

I love Argentina, finally a film from that beautiful country discusses sad historical topics in a relaxed, humorous way, without making a pamphlet, or using so much suffering in a commercial way.

In a time when cinema is violence, rape, drugs or narcissistic pose, to see people like Cusack and Pacino so close to us and themselves, talking politics and art, with no fear of being disconcert by our times, makes of this movie something very special.