L'ultimo cinema del mondo

A very clever movie, with loads of references to nouvelle vague stuff. This film lets you wonder about the effects of cinema on society, as the villagers turn into their filmheroes, but since they are edited backwards, upside down and in the wrong order, the imitated heroes become quite hillarious. Some of the characters are very interesting, especially the local film critic. Agresti hates critics, and this can be found in the interaction between the critic and the B-actor/hero, a tragic drunkard, who visits the village one day. Loads of sub-themes make this movie very lively, although some of them are not that interesting. The criticism of the argentine dictature and the introduction of television are not that great.

All goes wrong however when the infamous actor actually enters the village. One of the important points in the movie is the complete isolation of the Patgonian village, but since the actor arrives by train this fantastic concept falls totally apart. Worth a try though, or, in the spirit of the film: try a worth.

Rio Pico is a little town, not far away from Buenos Aires, but nothing really happens over there and the population is in no way ahead of the modern things in the world. When Soledad (Vera Fogwill), a female taxi driver from Buenos Aires, got stuck in the town by a car accident, things are changing. It was never the goal from Soledad to stay in the village but she got embraced by the inhabitants who are asking her to be the presenter of the local film journal which is shown in the local filmtheatre. The filmtheatre is the sole way the people have to escape from reality, even if all film copies are the ones who are rejected by the bigger Argentinian cities. "El viento se llevo lo que" (be translated as "Gone with the wind") is a hilarious top comedy that only got spoiled by the entrance of French actor Edgard Wexley (played by the overrated Jean Rochefort)who is the local film hero. Apart from that is "El viento se llevo lo que" a wonderful piece of world cinema in where director Alejandro Agresti (already a filmmaker in Argentinia since 1978) seeks a satisfying balance between hilarity and the hard truth. A South-American pearl that is recommended to anyone who loves world cinema.

The first time I got acquainted with the work of Alejandro Agresti was his movie 'Buenos Aires Vice Versa', a quite stunning movie about day-to-day life in Argentina. His next movie 'La Cruz' proved a more funny effort, but with 'El viento se llevo lo que' (in Dutch 'Door de wind gejaagd') Agresti paints a portrait of an isolated village in Argentina, whose only contacts with the outside world (i.e. the capital) are the movies that are brought in by motor. The cinema is like the central place to be. The village is populated by a bunch of very eccentric people with their own little histories. The arrival of a young woman and an old, renowned actor (who featured in most of the movies the village people have seen) set the place ablaze and very soon things start happening... Very good acting, warm characters, beautiful panoramic views of the landscape and some nice humor make up for a nice viewing experience. And underneath it all the attentive viewer can detect some cultural and political criticism too, which adds some bonus value to this movie.

This is one of the greatest movies I´ve ever seen. If you like cinema, you´ll like it as much I did. It´s funny, but it´s also touching. It´s a movie about people who see movies, but essencially a film about people... and movies.

The very first time that I heard the English version of the title "El Viento se llevó lo qué" ("Wind with the Gone"), I really didn't know what to think about this movie. I know there are other movie producers who use a title similar to a famous movie (A good example of that is "The Advocate's Devil", a TV court room drama), hoping to get more people watching it because they haven't read the title good enough to see that this is a completely different film. But as soon as I saw this movie it all got much clearer to me...

When Soledad, a cab driver from Buenos Aires, decides to get out of the city because she can't handle all the sexism anymore (she's one of only three female cab drivers in the entire city), she takes the car of her boss and drives all the way to a desolate town in the middle of Patagonia. Here she sees all kinds of weird people, none of them seems to act normal. At first she doesn't know how that's possible, but when she enters the only cinema in the town, it all gets a lot clearer. The only pass-time for these people are movies and they never get into contact with the outside world in another way. But the problem is that these movies already have been shown in the big cities, in the bigger villages, in the prisons,... and that the thins have become mixed up, the movies have been cut in the wrong way... which makes that the movies are completely ruined. But these people don't know any better, believe they were intended this way and they love it! And then one of their idols arrives in their village. He's a French B-movie actor who only got fan-mail from Argentina. Sick of having almost no fans and reading the bad reviews, he's delighted with all that positive attention and therefor has decided to pay them a visit.

I guess most of you know already know where the title comes from, but for those who didn't get it yet: The title of this movie refers to the movies that are edited and shown backwards, upside down and in the wrong order. That's how the movie "Gone with the Wind" must have become "Wind with the Gone". And watching these weird movies not only gives this film an extra and more original touch, it certainly adds to the comedy of this movie as well, although it has to be said that the actors did a very nice job too. Even though I never heard of most of them, I really liked their acting. They proved that they can play a more comical role, but that they are able to handle drama at the same time as well, which is not always within the potential of every actor.

The fact that the actors had some nice characters and an interesting story to work with definitely helped as well of course. One of the most hilarious characters is the man who 'invents' all kinds of theories and then goes to the big city to promote them. He thinks he has come up with the Theory of Relativity (Einstein's E= MC²), that he knows that everything evolves around sex (Freud) and that all people are equal and should be treated as equals (Communism). He and all the people of the village are convinced of his greatness and the fact that he'll bring a lot of richness to the village, but don't know that all these theories already exist for years.

But as I already said, the movie is more than just a comedy. It also offers some very good drama. Not only do these people behave in an abnormal way, they also get involved in the Argentinian dictatorship. Even though you don't get to see anything of it, you'll find out that the 'inventor' has been tortured for his believes. This way the movie gets a more social and political perspective in which the director tries to tell us that the regime certainly wasn't a laughing matter. Next to that, the introduction of television in their village only seems a piece of cake.

If you are interested in a movie that offers some social criticism, next to some fine comedy, some very good acting, a nice story and some wonderful images, than this is certainly a movie you shouldn't miss. I knew one Cuban and several Brazilian movies before seeing this one, but never had I heard of an Argentinian one. After seeing this film, I really look forward to the next Argentinian movie and I hope it will be at least as good as this one. Perhaps not everything was as perfect as it should be, but in the end it still worked and that's why I give it a score somewhere in between a 7.5/10 and an 8/10.