Voyage en famille

Rolling Family tells the story of a large group of people, more or less members of the same family name, journeying from one side of the nation of Argentina to the other so as to service a long standing and much loved member of their family. It begins and ends with this same elderly woman observing an item, physical in the sense of the opening in the form of some old mementos; but concludes with a pausing and a pondering of something once everything that's happened has happened: new memories have been forged and life goes on. The film has a knowing and sweet eye on life as an item, the bonds that form; the various degrees of love for someone else that unfold; the sacrifices we take on and the hardships we all grind through together. Despite beginning and ending on the same individual, the film is as much about the family within the film as it is her and what she's going through; culminating in an interesting and thoughtful mediation on a number of characters with a number of traits.

Pablo Trapero has written and made a piece that will remind you of another Argentinian film, this time from 2001, in La Ciénaga; alá The Swamp. Its sticky, intimate, close-up, cramped feeling is difficult to shake when you watch it; it's heated, not just by way of the weather but also the attitudes certain characters have towards one another at certain times while its wonderfully free flowing feel will guide you effortlessly from one clutch of characters, young or old; male or female, and their problems to another clutch, all the while shifting tones and atmospheres with the minimal of fuss. But Trapero applies certainly the aesthetic of that to a road film arc, taking everything from that enclosed and very rural, very isolated country house and applying it to a film about a large family crammed into a mobile home as they journey from the Buenos Aires outskirts to the town of Misiones.

People have compared it to 2006's American film Little Miss Sunshine, but it's a bit better than that; it underplays its material, its more interested in its characters than it is interested in attempting to create some sort of 'cult' item by way of the idea that a broken down, dilapidated yellow VW camper van might act as an iconic image of some kind. It doesn't buckle into providing well known actors playing individuals in the most archetypical of manners; rather, we are provided with rough and ready looking people whom have more of a genuine feel to them as these personal and intimate thoughts and studies are played out. Certain characters here react to different things and each are going through changes in their lives at various points, with a middle aged married couple struggling with one another and their child; adolescents feeling certain feelings for their cousins and gruff looking fathers and husbands raging at both toll booth prices and with members of the constabulary, therefore with the state itself, in what is a varied but focused spread.

The film's opening of a large gathering in which a lot of fun is had and many bonds are seemingly enhanced is only the beginning. Elderly woman Emilia (Chironi) announces to everybody at that congregation that she is to travel to the said town of Misiones so as to attend a wedding and contribute heavily to that. The rest of the family take it upon themselves to travel with them in a somewhat rickety mobile home and the adventure is on. Some of the people at the early gathering seem to think they know each other, that they can get along whatever the situation but they learn that it is relatively simplistic to merge with one another at a large and open gathering, when everyone's there to have fun anyway and there's always another space to venture off to with space to manoeuvre. Rolling Family will later consist of enclosed and cramped conditions, in which people are there to journey to a destination with any emphasis on any sort of 'fun'; they are locked in a place in which one may not merely shift to another part of the locale if someone else annoys or frustrates them and they will come to accept a truer form of family bond.

Trapero balances the long and wide open Argentinian roads complete with rural nothingness surrounding them really well with the enclosed interior scenes inside the mobile home. Like The Swamp, Trapero is able to get the most out of both the premise of the situation but additionally make the mostly rural locales they find themselves in as sweaty and itchy as the rest of the film. Here's a film, or a pair of films, less interested in quaint cinematography revolving around beautiful foliage part of a forest but the hot and humid border-line jungle that these characters find themselves traipsing through and existing within so as to reach their destination. I can understand a film about a frustrating road trip to a far off locale as individuals with flaws exist within close proximity to one another in a film with a lazy and sticky aura being a tricky sell, but Rolling Family is worth the effort as these characters and each of their predicaments are given due attention.

There are certainly some wonderful interesting roads in this movie and they certainly do engender the desire to get in a car and drive from Buenos Aires to Misiones; but really at core, this film is about interpersonal family dynamics. This movie is so beautifully observed and dare I say it, made with 'a love of family' perspective probably impossible in the UK. I found it utterly spellbinding. Call me an old soppy but just the opening shot of the great grandma sitting on her bed looking through her box of family photos had me sobbing tenderly. OK there was drama and incident along the route, but the way the family accepted each others foibles and gave each other space, seemed totally magical to me. I know they probably did know each other well in non-film reality, but the way it has been captured on screen is almost visceral. Hey man it was like you were there! I hope Mr Trapero goes on to make more Cool-Greatgrandma pictures and never hands over the casting of his films to an agency.

Unusual, fresh, entertaining and interesting would be the words to describe this movie. It isn't a classic, but it IS a good watch. As I've never been to Argentina, I think it says a lot about the film's quality that it was able to evoke a strong sense of place, and of Argentinian life, and I felt as if I was there.

I see some of the other commenters have complained there was no development or drama - and to some extent they're right, but they're also missing the point that this movie isn't about thrills and surprises Hollywood-style. It's about one normal family doing something unusual, and how they deal with the various problems that occur on the way. That was incredibly enjoyable, not to mention very involving. Lots of humour, some very moving scenes, great direction and acting - it's all good, really. Highly recommended.

A dozen members of a Buenos Aires suburbs family starts a single weekend trip of 1000 km to take grandma to a wedding, in a motor home. Every character in the movie plays a great part (this is Trapero's best film), relationships are shown with quite a simple eye, but with a lot of sensitivity. Some kind of argentinity is shown, the movie takes the spectator along the way with this family members who will show incredible capability to survive and pass on obstacles, and also amazing human vices, good and bad, but particularly and specially human. The way Trapero engages in dialog with the audience is extremely mature, the director finds the way to balance between not underestimating the audience shooting unnecessary and not pretending to find deep sociological or anthropological plots, just showing how everyone works.

I have to admit that I totally disagree with the unfair comments from the previous viewer as I thoroughly enjoyed watching this film. Obviously if you are a fan of fast pace films, such as American blockbusters, then this film will definitely not be your cup of tea. What this film does is to take an ordinary family out of their natural environment and explores their feelings and emotions. There are conflicts throughout and tension among most of their components. It is a journey of discovery. The fact that Grandmother is invited to a family wedding in Misiones (1,200 kilometres from her home in Buenos Aires) is an excuse for the director to deeply explore and investigate how the characters will react and come to terms with their own feelings. The caravan is a very small environment and it is hard for the family to live in such a close boundary. I did not find this film boring in anyway and I will highly recommend to anyone who is interested in human relationships (including mechanics! Haha). The only disappointing thing is that the subtitles does not always give a true representation of the dialogues from the original language and, if you do not speak Spanish, that may be a daring task to follow.