El viento se llevó lo que

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.

a taxista in buenos aires one day gets bored with her life there and heads south in her taxi with no particular destination in mind other than keep heading to the extreme south of patagonia. so begins the film. the windswept plains and rolling hills, bleak and deserted create an atmosphere of delicious melancholia. she ends up the village at the end of the world, where the only contact people have with the outside world is via cinema -- a man on a motorbike comes there every couple weeks with a film whose 16 mm reels are all mixed up. the entire village gathers in the cinema in the plaza every evening to watch the film in a different order each night, and over time, most of the characters have become a bit eccentric as well. much of the film is about the lives of the people in the village. one day some trucks arrive and put up a TV tower. Henceforth the once bustling plaza, center of activity and coherence in the village is now empty, with the glow of TV in every window.. and maria soledad, the taxista decides its time for her to move on somewhere else.. a classic exposition of the argentine melancholy temperament. i wish i could buy the DVD somewhere.

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.

Tragic comedy is THE Argentine genre. All the characters are amazing great. The plot is ingenious, funny and original. Argentina's magic is captured in every scene. Lastly, but not least, the idea of Dumont's three inventions is a wonderful one.