In its new film, Leonardo Favio brings to us -as always it does- a pure, simple and magical story where it turns to the Romance of the Aniceto and the Francisca (Romance del Aniceto y la Francisca), that he had filmed forty years ago. This new version is a ballet wonderfully performed and filmed in simple but realistic designed scenes. Like in most of Favio's great films, any spectator can locate the story in the time: the car that occupies the scene in the first sequence says clearly in which decade we are. Shortly, almost no other temporary reference appears, except for a Wawanco's classic cumbia, that says -in addition to the decade in which the story occurs- that we are in some place of South America. The irrigation channel, with its floodgate next to the car, gives a more clear-cut location: a desert zone with irrigation. As people speak Spanish, it may be located either in Chile, either in the Cuyo region or in the Andean Northwest, both Argentina. But the speech is Argentine, so there no doubt, we are in Cuyo, either in Mendoza or San Juan Provinces: the region where were born and early raised Favio and its brother, the author of the tale on which the script of Aniceto is based. So, in five minutes, we know when and where the film story occurs. The film, technically speaking, is a filmed ballet, which scores are based to a great extent on Argentine popular music, mainly tango. So it is a filmic ballet, the sort that the Spanish director Carlos Saura, another great film-maker, cultivates very frequently. But Favio enlightens a new magic: his dance performers, besides to dancing outstandingly well some great choreographies, act like real professional actors. Hernán Piquín - the Aniceto-, Natalia Pelayo - immortalizing the Francisca- and Alejandra Baldoni - the Lucia- put in evidence the difference between the drama and the tragedy. Because in the real great cinema (like Bergman, Fellini, Pasolini, Welles, Kazan, Trier, Herzog, and so on), never there is drama, but there is tragedy, no doubt Aniceto is a great film. And as it must be in the tragedy, it is possible from the beginning to known in what historical and cultural territory passes its story, a story that is also a universal one.
