Um Lugar no Mundo

It is not so often that one comes across a film whose every frame, every scene is magnificent. As it speaks about ordinary people with extraordinary will power to change things, Argentinian director Adolfo Aristarain's "A place in the world" can be considered a masterpiece as it is a film made with utmost honesty. The theme of good versus bad is handled by a luminary of talented actors namely Federico Luppi, Cecilia Roth and Jose Sacristan. They play roles of strong characters who have the ability to remain apolitical while harboring implicit political ideologies. Apart from some shots of urban locations, the entire film has been shot in a small but picturesque location. The notion of honesty is disappearing fast in modern times but this film shows its usefulness by showing how a young boy returns an important sum of money received as tip merely for not having earned it. The greatest reason why one should watch this film is that Adolfo Aristarain illustrates how a man's place in the world would be made only when men stop exploiting other men for their selfish motives.

Adolfo Aristarain's Un lugar en el mundo is influenced by westerns. An influence articulated in the use of horses, the settings, and the often wide shots that capture the landscapes. The movie illustrates the difficulties haunting people in exile, dreams of a better life elsewhere, and the feeling of belonging to a place that became part of an individual's identity in a coming-of-age that follows Ernesto, played by Gaston Batyi, who returns to the town he called home and awakens memories of a time past that still resonate with him. The impact those years had in his life, how they marked him, is the reason for his coming back and the telling of his story as a twelve-year-old teen. Life back then was with Mario and Ana, his parents, living in a remote valley after fleeing Buenos Aires due to the Argentinian dictatorship of those years.

The movie is engaging from the start. There is an approach in the dynamics and the rules of the world Aristrarain constructs that successfully connects with you. Dialogue is the strongest aspect of the movie, and it isn't a casualty considering Aristarain's idea of dialogue as something immanent to cinematic lyricism, something akin to action in itself. The characters and their idiosyncrasies are clearly defined to then build not only sympathetic interpersonal connections but also the reasons for friction. Un lugar en el mundo is thematically interested in depicting weakness versus strength, social classes articulating power as a political weapon. Mario, played by Federico Luppi, is an idealist union worker on a crusade to stop capitalists' abusive economic conditions against workers like him. This idealism is also found in other characters of the movie in their articulation of potential emancipatory escapes to a reality that finds them unsatisfied. They all have unhealed wounds and are marked by the past. This is the reason for the multidimensionality of Aristarain's feature. There are many layers to the story, some political about the years of the National Reorganization Process, the last Argentinian military dictatorship that ruled from 1976 to 1983, and some religious about the role of religion as an institution and in an individual's life.

Adolfo Aristarain's Un lugar en el mundo is an entertaining and well told story whose message, while not symbolic, might not be completely at surface for audiences to fully grasp without context. This is not accidental considering the situation Argentina went through in the seventies and eighties with a dictatorship banning artistic freedom.

Up until the 1980s, films from Argentina were heavily censored by their rightist government and films critical of the system were unheard of in this country. However, when this government fell, many films critical of this old system began to proliferate and the most famous of these internationally was "The Official Story"--which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. "A Place in the World" debuted a few years later but was not submitted by the Argentines for this award--and so the filmmakers tried submitting it was a Uruguayan film! Later, the film was disqualified, since it WAS from Argentina and was about the country--a very odd footnote, as it's only one of two films every removed from consideration after submitted to the Academy.

When you watch "A Place in the World", you might not see that the message is political--and it's not nearly as obvious as in "The Official Story". Instead of being directly critical of the federal government, the film is a socialist commentary about the abuse of the landlords and the need for the common men to work together to receive equality. In this case, a jerk rich guy is intent on buying up all the farmers' wool at HIS price...or else. However, when a German geologist arrives in town, the local agitator (the school teacher) is encouraged to fight back for what is right. At the same time, the story of a sympathetic nun is a metaphor for the traditional relationship between the church and state in the land. The story is told as a flashback from the teacher's teenage son's point of view and unfolds slowly and beautifully. The acting is nice but the direction is the star to me. Well worth seeing.

I got to see this movie by chance after reading an interview to Cecilia Roth in La Nacion online newspaper. When asked for her favorite film, she mentioned "Un Lugar en el Mundo". This movie, as suggested in many places, it's as good (or better) as "La Historia Oficial", which is one of the best Argentine movies ever. Personally, I liked this one more. It's a very warm movie about the the relationships of the characters between themselves and with the place they inhabit. Certainly, the place to shoot it was chosen wisely. Argentinian pampa and Patagonia desert have a special appeal, very difficult to describe unless you visit them, some kind of special magic. The movie depicts also the strong gravitational effect that the Catholic Church has in Argentinian culture, mostly in the countryside. As you will see around the movie, besides the frequently shown green ford falcon, diesel train, horse carriage and old ambulance, the other constant are the gatherings in or around the church. A very strong recommendation if you liked "Un Lugar en el Mundo": "Historias Minimas". This is movie shares the same type of narrative it's about human relationships of a group of people in Puerto San Julian, an Atlantic town down south in Patagonia. The difference is that Un Lugar en el Mundo has a very heavy duty cast, all consummated actors and actresses. Historias Minimas only relatively known actor is Javier Lombardo, the rest are mostly first time plays.

Interesting, thoughtful mix of two genres – a coming of age film that's sweet, nice, (if occasionally a touch sappy), and a deeply moving, complex political morality play about the price one pays for trying to live by one's ideals.

Two leftists, almost killed by the Argentine generals, raise their son in the backwoods, trying to help organize the people there against the local land baron.

Into their lives comes a charismatic, sympathetic, but cynical geologist, unhappily working for the land owner, but unable to buy into his new friends' idealism, leading to all sorts of emotional and plot complexities.

I'd like to re-see this, and I could imagine rating it even higher, but the over the top score, and few more clichéd elements stopped me from really flipping out for it, while still finding it a solid, strong, thought-proving film.