If Leonardo Favio excelled at portraying life in small-town Argentina, David José Kohon was primarily the filmmaker of the city. A family drama set in a small town, _Así o de otra manera_ is thus the oddity in Kohon's career, but it is nevertheless an outstanding film.
While her father finds work, María (Beatriz Barbieri), a teenage girl from Buenos Aires, spends some time in the country with her distant relatives, Teresa and her husband Juan. The evident mutual attraction between María and Juan does not make Teresa happy, and she insists on sending María back to her parents. Juan, for his part, keeps looking for ways to be alone with María.
Reminiscent of Luis Buñuel's Mexican films (I'm thinking, for instance, of _Susana_), _Así o de otra manera_ could be described as an Argentinean response to Kubrick's _Lolita_, which was released two years before Kohon's film was made. The victim of censorship, _Así o de otra manera_ was not shown in theatres until 1996.
Like many other female characters in Kohon's films, María is assertive, if a little self-destructive; Kohon's men, on the other hand, tend to be naïve. Beatriz Barbieri, who actually bears a resemblance to Sue Lyon, is simply perfect in the role of a girl on the verge of womanhood. Her career did not take off, however, and she only appeared in three feature films, of which _Así o de otra manera_ was the last.
With _Así o de otra manera_, Kohon proved that he could tell stories both in the urban and in the rural settings, with equal success. This may be his least representative film, but it is as gripping and memorable as any of his other works.
