La antena

LA ANTENA (Esteban Sapir - Argentina 2005).

A completely unique take on silent cinema in this fairy-tale like story by Esteban Sapir, beautifully shot in black-and-white and practically without dialog, "La Antena" is a feast for the eye and a must for lovers of German expressionist cinema, with most of the nods to the works of Fritz Lang and Friedrich Murnau.

'The City without a Voice', 'La Ciudad sin Voz', is ruled by Mr. TV. He has taken the inhabitants voices and is in total control of all spoken words and images, forcing everyone to eat his own brand of TV-food. Mr TV is not just a monopolist, he is the personification of evil and totalitarianism, even the swastika appears as a symbol a number of times. He secretly works on a hypnotizing device to control all the citizens minds through his television broadcasts. For this purpose, he kidnaps the only one left with The Voice, a beautiful singer, but a TV repairman witnesses the kidnapping and flees to an old TV antenna in the mountains in order to halt Mr. TV's evil plans.

The production design is stunning with beautiful sets and imagery. Although shot primarily with the basic language of silent cinema, Esteban Sapir also adds a number of fresh techniques of his own, like a combination of typographic and animation techniques. Everyone talks with each other through text balloons (usually floating near their mouths), the louder they talk, the larger the characters. The texts themselves can be pushed away or crushed. In the opening sequence, we see a book, titled "La Antena", that opens and a city of paper rises from the pages. There are hardly any references to Argentina. It's constantly snowing, which gives the film a very un-Argeninian feel, while the surreal setting suggests any large city in the Northen hemisphere, with only some of the songs revealing the film's Argentinian background.

The pace is swift and there is so much happening on screen, it's hard to keep track of the film's surreal narrative. Not only breathtakingly beautiful to look at, we're also given a few messages about media monopolies, corruption and totalitarianism, but they are breezily packaged. One of the most original films I've seen in years. A delight.

The film was shown as the opening film at the IFF Rotterdam 2007.

Camera Obscura --- 9/10

For those who appreciate the intersection of silent cinema and social commentary, this is a unique film. Part homage to German expressionism, part allegory, the film is replete with visual symbolism and an artistic style that rivals anything seen since the 1920's. Moreover, the attention to period detail and the visual composition of the scenes as an instrument for advancing the story is stunning. Aside from this, the plot offers an interesting commentary on the role of the media in society and its effect on social voice, perception, and opinion. In truth, it's not so much the silence that permeates the film as it is the loss of voice and the loss of words to communicate and express thought that inevitably follows. In sum, this film is something not often seen and, as the producer of the film said in the Q&A that followed, will leave you thinking about its meaning well into the next day.

I've seen this movie twice on Transilvania International Film Festival(TIFF), the movie is in competition and I really hope that Esteban Sapir will get one of the awards (at least the best image award).

As a silent cinema fan I'm interested in contemporary movies that quote or recreate the language of the yester-year cinema. The previous reviewer emphasized the quotes from Fritz Lang and Fr. W. Murnau. As I see it, the movie references directly Lang's Metropolis, and the allegorical-parabolic character of his plots. But I didn't see Murnau in it. There's a more obvious Melies-homage though: the Moon with a (here cigar-smoking) human face, and the paper-made, painted mountains and city-landscapes. I enjoyed the film mostly for its visuals, and in the meantime I found very interesting the story on muteness, and the creative means of communication used by the inhabitants of the voiceless city. From this perspective this movie is an unique reflexion on the muteness of the silent cinema, because in the films of the silent period one can hardly find stories with mute characters. In this case can be questioned whether the story on the stolen voices was the motivation for the silent film form, or there's an intention to play upon the muteness of the silent films. Another example of this kind of reflexion I found in Guy Maddin's Careful,where the inhabitants of a mountain-village have restrictions in using their voices. I intend to write a paper on it, if you know movies related to this topic, please let me know!!!

I highly recommend Esteban Sapir's film to every moviegoer (one of the critics called it: the jewel of the festival).

PS: Winners were announced, and the film won the award for best cinematography!

Having recorded this film from the television as many as four months ago, it'd been waiting in my to-watch pile for an achingly long time. Something about its premise put me off from watching it for so long; foolish considering that no premise could accurately sell La Antena.

In a big city of voiceless denizens in a time unspecified, television has a unique control over the masses, the soothing singing of the uniquely gifted "La Voz" (The Voice) fascinating them. The be-hooded singer does so under the employ of the evil Señor TV in order to earn eyes for her blind son, who—through a mistaken address—befriends Anna, the daughter of a recently dismissed television technician.

The summary I have just composed is both entirely accurate and completely irrelevant. Such is the nature of La Antena, a film which immediately announces itself as rather more than just a narrative—wild, wacky, and wholly original though that narrative may be. Firstly, the film is aesthetically stunning: composed in a beautiful monochrome; effulgently photographed; and composed of a miasma of fantastic effects which hearken back to cinema's earliest days. The references to the cinema of days gone by are many and frequent, in both the visuals, the lighting, the camera angles, and of course a replication of the moon itself from Méliès' Le Voyage dans la Lune. The film is completely packed with tips of the hat to German Expressionism, Film Noir, and—I'm reliably informed, having yet to see it myself—Lang's Metropolis. It is undoubtedly a film for cinephiles, the throwbacks to the silent era a delight to witness, and mixed expertly with the aforementioned early techniques. Double exposures are commonplace, used to delightful effect, especially toward the end of the film. What is modern and innovative about the film, however, is its abandonment of the classic silent film inter-title in favour of words given physical, interactive form on-screen. The words mouthed by the silent characters appear before them, echoing an earlier statement along the lines of "we still have our words". These objects are manipulatable, lending the film an odd but undeniably unique quality which furthers its memorability. As a (largely) silent film, it relies heavily upon its soundtrack, which does a solid job, often mixing with the actions on-screen in a slightly comical way. The bizarre arrangement of characters adds to the humour which runs throughout the film, a largely situational humour engendered through the oddity of this world and those occupying it. Large parts of the narrative are, unsurprisingly, unfathomable, the film much more about allegory than it is storyline. Save for two particularly detractive and diminutive pieces of symbolism in the film's final act, it functions as an inquisitive social commentary, gently criticising the manipulation of the masses by the mainstream media, and suggesting that perhaps we need a saviour of sorts from the brainless garbage which attempts to control us—a role it jokingly suggests it might itself fulfil.

Bookended by particularly wonderful sequences of a typewriter's words translating to music, La Antena is quite, quite unlike anything else you are ever likely to see. Originality is this film's forté; reference and fond recreation its cornerstone. Though its message is perhaps a little too gentle to be of any significant effect, it is the kind of film that ought to be enjoyed by all who love cinema.

The summary line is some men's wet dream for the ideal woman ... ;o) Seriously though, back to the movie, which has classic cinema written all over it (pun intended and quite literally shown in the picture, too as you'll see)!

How could someone make a silent movie in this year and age? It's not completely silent for once (take the music for instance). With great cinematography is the answer. And it's no wonder that it did win prizes (as another user stated) in this area! But it's also sometimes it's downfall. Although the pictures are great, it sometimes delves too much in them instead of moving forward (plot and time wise). If you can cope with that, than you'll enjoy it even more than me. I haven't told you anything about the story, but I'll never do that, because I don't want to spoiler anything for you ...