Felicidades

crazy dumb. Think pulp fiction with stale plots. This film aspires to convey a sense of hope in the face of despair, but falls short. Real short. I highly recommend this film to people having trouble sleeping because i have come to find (it took me 3 days to watch the entire thing) that this piece helps quite a bit.

"Felicidades" is a great movie, overlooked by its poor merchandising and the unknown nature of the director, which is an important propeller. The movie talks about people lost in a city that vanishes for one day, in Christmas Eve. Some are trying to get to their families, some do not have any. Some are finding them, some are in a rush, everyone is looking for another one.

This choral story goes around presenting extravagances and eccentricities, and funny but road-less characters. The city is dark, but not as dark in "Evil". As dark in lonely, when all lights shut off and you are the only one still awake.

The movie is fantastic, smart and coated by a script flowing on true, pure human feelings. The loneliness that it transmits is impressive. The unreceptive echoes, the subdued lights, the empty roads. It seems that in every character's life, this Sad Side on Christmas will last forever.

so many odd characters make it impossible not to recognize one at least. or even get identified with your own darkest moments, especially when nothing happens as it is supposed to. to enjoy this delightful movie, it is advised to open up one's mind and strive to see the bright side in this one too.

FELICIDADES is Argentina's Y2K Oscar submission for Best Foreign Film. Director Lucho Bender, who also participated in the screenwriting, was tired of Christmas films in which everything works out, and FELICIDADES is his antidote. A Mitzvah entertainer, a novelist, his girlfriend, a doctor, a wheelchair bound man, a father out looking for a last-minute present - all are tied together without necessarily knowing it, both by circumstances that bring their lives to intersection, but more so by longing. The pace is fast, the characters engaging, and in the end, there remains the promise of better days to come.

It has ups and downs. Extremely good moments, and moments that you ask yourself what is the story trying to tell you. Some moments of the best acting Argentina has ever given (Alfredo Casero as a `buchón') and some of the most boring.

Nevertheless it is worth seeing it. It helps you think about the loneliness during Christmas time and the light relationships of our times.

It is a modern tango story (without tangos) but with the same taste in the mouth.