La vie des poissons

This movie is sort of a "Uncle Vanya" or "August" type of movie, but with people of thirty years old: the poignant story of a guy who wasted his life, and is suffering the remorse of having abandoned his friends and his love. He's stuck in a strange party where his ghosts begins to haunt him, and he's faced with memories, choices, loneliness, nostalgia and remorse. It was emotionally perfect: the acting was great, the dialog and scenes were carefully crafted, and the music score is just perfect. Perhaps the movie has some minor issues in the editing and dialog, but those are only details. It's one of the best movies made in Chile of the last decades.

10/10

Matías Bize's 2010 film LA VIDA DE LOS PECES (The Life of Fish) takes place over a single evening at a Chilean house party. Andrés (Santiago Cabrera) is visiting Chile for the first time in 10 years, but he's due to fly back to his adopted Berlin the next day. The action of the film consists solely of Andrés wandering from room to room, catching up with people dear to him that he hasn't seen in a long time. Conversations with the friends of his youth hint at the tragedy they shared, which ultimately drove Andrés abroad, but it is Beatriz (Blanca Lewin) who ultimately lies at the centre of Andrés' youth, and their reunion after a decade leads them to a difficult choice.

For the most part, this film is intolerable melodrama. The script is unfocused (there's a bizarre scene where some pre-teens ask Andrés a series of graphic questions about what sex acts he's partaken in), and the acting lacks any subtlety. The soundtrack is the emotionally gushing pop music one associates more with late '90s teen television dramas like "Party of Five" than serious films. Now, the ending of his film is satisfying enough that I'm happy I held out and watched the whole thing, but it's bizarre that Chile thought this film worthy of submission for the Best Foreign Film category at the 2011 Academy Awards.

The Life of Fish is a very accomplished little movie from Chile. Andres, a travel guide who is frequently traveling the world has a brief stop in Chile where he attends a friend's birthday party. In addition to seeing old friends, he meets an old flame in the party. They used to be in love once but now she is a divorced mum with two kids. This reunion leads them to re-examine their relationship and why they never married each other. Will she take the plunge and leave her kids with their father and join Andres on his travels? Life of Fish is played in real time and at the end you feel as though you've spent a very worthwhile 83 minutes. It is sensitively directed and beautifully acted. The soundtrack is also terrific. It is, in many ways, reminiscent of Richard Linklater's Before Sunset.

a trip in middle of a world. ordinary pieces of a party. a kind of Ulises. a kind of Itaca. only Penelope is different. because the object of introspection is the possibility of past to be another future. dialogs, silence, gestures, each - level of a smoke ladder. pieces of a broken vase. or only, old seeds on the empty land. a film like a mirror. or only shadow of possibilities as drawing lines. because the return, meetings, courtesy are only cages for dead birds.slices of fiction in heart of expectations. illusions. all is an aquarium. a large aquarium. in a house, for a stranger, like self lie as only way to accept the past. a beautiful film. like a memento mori.

A very good movie from the Director Matías Vize. Sometimes the atmosphere of the movie is brilliant, a lot of feelings inside, moments with good times of silence, when the silence says a lot of things, and sometimes nothing to say is better to know how the feelings are.

Very good actors, specially Blanca Lewin, she is brilliant to communicate a lot of things without says nothing, only with the facial things. I love the movie, and you never know how is gonna end.

During the movie is possible to see very good actors who show us that the Chileans filming industry is young but have a very good future.

If you like watching movies like "El secreto de sus ojos" or "En la cama" you ar gonna enjoy this.

Excellent movie!! Enjoy it.