News

Eliseo Subiela, the director of the magic realism school who directed 1992 rom-com The Dark Side Of The Heart starring Dario Grandinetti, has died. He was 71.

Argentinian trade body Asociación General de Directores Autores Cinematográficos y Audiovisuales de Argentina released the news over the weekend.

The immediate cause of death was unknown, although Argentinian newspaper Clarín reported that he recently suffered a heart attack.

Subiela was born in Buenos Aires on December 27, 1944. Besides The Dark Side Of The Heart, his most renowned directing credits include Last Images Of The Shipwreck and Man Facing Southeast.

Subiela died two days before what would have been his 72nd birthday. He was previously married to Mora Moglia.

There are many good examples of poetry in movies (On film, Film & Music, 29 January). One that springs to mind is Argentinian director Eliseo Subiela's 1992 film El Lado Oscuro del Corazón (The Dark Side of the Heart), where the main character, Oliverio, is a young poet living in Buenos Aires and making ends meet by selling his ideas to advertising companies. In the movie Oliverio is constantly reciting poems by Juan Gelman, Mario Benedetti and his namesake Oliverio Girondo. Needless to say, the film was a success in Ibero­america, where it introduced these important Latin ­American poets to a younger generation.

Mario Lopez-Goicoechea

London

• A native, I've just returned to London after 26 years in New York City. While still in wonderment at how much richer London is now, I am also very aware of the economic turmoil in which it finds itself, along with much of the world. The...