Ariel Rotter's "Sólo por hoy" is among the remains of a promise that the so-called New Argentine Cinema implicitly made and now seems to be fading away. I'm talking about something we can perceive in any film by Pablo Trapero (to name a director that kept the promise, if there really is such thing); something Rotter knows very well and repeated six years later in "El otro": the desperate need of showing the desperate.
"We are what we do every day", says Morón (Federico Esquerro) as we watch the footage he's filmed, to prove a theory that you can know a person by asking them three questions. We never learn, specifically, what these questions are; but we listen to a lot of answer and it becomes clear that Morón is on to something. And isn't everyone?
Rotter's firs film is very important in our cinema because it understands this statement. That everyone's desperate; everyone always wants something more, everyone is waiting for his or her moment even if they seem to be desperately seeking it. There's no need to understand 'desperate' here as something urgent, I'm trying to say. The desperation of "Sólo por hoy" and of many other films after it lives with the contradiction of 'getting through the day'. That's what the title of this movie implies and we can see it in the philosophy of its characters. Furthermore, the film is brilliant because we don't only sense each way of viewing life in the script and the situations, we literally see it in the look of the film, which seems technically made for that purpose.
"Sólo por hoy" exists because of its characters and these are the ones that shape its form and aesthetic. The credits in IMDb don't show it –it looks as if he doesn't exist- because the terms get confused, but the camera of the film was in charge of Guillermo Nieto. This man's hands, I firmly believe, are crucial in the building of the imaginary promise that this film and others share. Isn't it too much of a coincidence that this is probably the first full-length feature in which Nieto worked his camera? His camera is magical, and probably the reason why "Sólo por hoy" is what it is; this meaning the origin of something we don't see much of today.
The director plans it, the camera knows where to stand and the music gives the final touch. Morón's comprehension of everyday life, we see him only during the light of day, with a smile and a sort of paternal way of treating the friends he lives with, which are not few. Equis (Mariano Martínez), a cook with a search of an inner peace and the change of humor and perspective that he suffers with every thing he experiences: a romantic break-up, many revelations, a random encounter. The camera finds his best angle while he looks at the planes in the sky, imagining the future; the music by Gustavo Cerati breathes fully in one beautiful composed moment near the ending.
Toro (Damián Dreyzik), a 28-year-old aspiring actor who works cleaning rooms in a hotel and when asked about it describes it as "touristic cleaning industry"; he is convinced of his greatness but there's a recurrent shot of him laying on his bed, with posters and toys all around him. Maybe he can still get somewhere, unlike Fer (Sergio Boris), Morón's brother who once lost his track and probably will never find it again.
But he wants to; we learn from his voice in off. Everyone has something to say through their voices in off and we listen to it. Everyone but Ailí (Aili Chen). She has already found her peace, and while she may not be convinced about her talent, all that she needs is an impulse; an impulse she looks-for wandering in the night on her motorcycle. And it's finally the night the one that finds all of these people, lost in a confusing series of chords with an electronic music background. People just like you and me? Maybe, but it's not the point...These characters live their own lives and many crucial moments in the movie leave it clear.
This way of making cinema, the explicit use of technique to show the implicit, lost its charm as it became more evident or decided to show different things. The charm can be found in full splendor in "Sólo por hoy", a movie that we must necessarily go back to; a drama that finds his comedic partner in Juan Villegas' "Sábado", where the promise of desperation is less obvious (because of the comedy). At the same time came Trapero's confirmation; Caetano's confirmation, his power and violence; Martel's enchantment; later came Szifrón's intelligence; Di Cesare's combination of elements; Sorín's minimalism and who knows what else. I haven't seen everything.
And maybe I'm inventing a 'promise' I don't know about, but I'm sure about this: the desperation is there, everywhere, with all its complexities.
