by Nick Pierce and Tom Dunn
If
variety is the spice of life, then judging by the programme at Manchester
Cornerhouse’s 18th annual ¡Viva! Spanish and Latin American
Film Festival, contemporary cinematic culture in these parts of the world is –
ahem – rather hot. With a selection that covers animation, fantasy, political
drama and horror, ¡Viva! ensures
that audiences experience the full breadth of Latin cinema today, with a number
of particular treats waiting in the wings.
If
casting one’s eye over the contemporary landscape of Spanish and Latin America
cinema can be said to offer any reflections of where the world - and
specifically these regions of it - are at in 2012, then the programme of recent
films showing at the ¡Viva! Festival seem to allude to the familiar
anxieties of our era, with a fear of oppression and its lasting legacy being a
key theme across many of the feature presentations.
Pa Negre (Black Bread) for one is a
perfect illustration of our continuing preoccupation with the troubled history
of the 20th century and the lingering spectre of European fascism. A
companion piece of sorts to Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, it
tracks the rude awakening of fresh-eyed innocent Andreu (Francesc Colomer) to
the compromise and complicity of the world of adults with Franco’s oppressive
regime. As a narrative, it’s arguably bleaker and more ethically complex than
Del Toro’s magnum opus. Some of the grown-ups in that dark fairy tale resembled
knights in shining armour, standing courageously and steadfastly against the
broadly-drawn evil of fascism. In Pa Negre however the apparent knights
– particularly Andreu’s Communist-sympathising father – prove errant, their
armour of moral superiority to Spanish government concealing a degree of
hypocritical accommodation with the regime that exposes it to be flimsy as
tin-foil.
It is surely significant that in the case of
both of these examinations of Spain’s past, the central protagonists should be
children. These babes in the woods effectively function as substitutes for the
eyes of the new generations of Europe, looking back on the actions of their
ancestors with bafflement and incomprehension, much as a child might struggle
to fathom the decisions of its parents. Of course, whether this incomprehension
can be taken at face value is another question. It might be interpreted as a
means Europeans have used of distancing themselves irresponsibly from the past,
as it is much easier to classify 20th century atrocities as an
aberration of previous generations than to engage honestly with their causes
and possible recurrence. To his credit, director and screenwriter AgustÃ
Villaronga addresses this through the increasingly skewed moral development of
Andreu, intimating thereby that the innocence of new youth need not necessarily
overcome or avoid the errors of the past. The drama cleaned up at the Goya
Awards in its homeland – including becoming the first ever Catalan-language
winner of the award for Best Picture – and it’s certainly hard to imagine a
similarly ambiguous and haunting dissection of American history receiving the
same treatment from Oscar.
También la Lluvia (Even the Rain) on
the other hand transpires to be a somewhat more conventional melodrama in the
Hollywood mould: well-made and often gripping, but ultimately falling short of
its worthy ambitions. It documents the production of a period drama by Mexican
filmmaker Sebastián (Gael GarcÃa Bernal) and his right-hand man Costa (Luis
Tosar) intent on recreating Columbus’ first voyage to the New World and his
subjugation of the native population. Filming in South America’s most
impoverished country Bolivia, the crew hire locals to play the parts of the
indigenous folk exploited by the Spaniards, paying them a pittance. Predictably
enough, the filmmakers’ ruthless, unethical behaviour begins to mirror the
story they are telling and the evils of Columbus and his cronies. This allows
the film to make an unsubtle if thought-provoking point about how the emotional
pornography manufactured by Tinseltown may in fact help to conceal contemporary
injustices, rather than merely condemning those of the distant past.
Unfortunately, Lluvia somewhat blunts
its core message by having Costa undergo an implausible moral u-turn at the
last minute, assisting the locals in their fight for the water supply to their
village against the oppressive Bolivian government. In effect, by giving the
film industry this easy exit screenwriter Paul Laverty undermines the
ostensible aim of the picture, and Lluvia transforms into one of those
examples of exploitative Hollywood-esque fluff the movie criticises. Of course,
one could interpret the last act as an ironic commentary on the
self-aggrandisement of the motion picture business, which is often obsessed
with bigging up its own social consciousness, but the prevailing tone of
po-faced seriousness makes that hard to believe.
However, as a piece of pure entertainment it
performs efficiently, carried for the most part by the solidly charismatic
performances of Bernal, Tosar and Juan Carlos Aduviri as Daniel, a Bolivian
native cast in Sebastián’s picture and committed to civil disobedience in
protest to the government’s actions.
Lluvia draws its plot from the recent
history of the water crisis in Bolivia, and the presence of the past also makes
itself felt in the moving animation Arrugas (Wrinkles), albeit in an
altogether different fashion. Here the ‘past’ manifests itself in the elderly
characters living out their days in an efficient yet impersonal nursing home.
The problem the movie raises is precisely how these ‘clients’/inmates have been
relegated to the realm of the past by society: forgotten by their families and
handled like defunct objects. With the unavoidable fact of an ageing population
in Europe, this subject matter is certainly timely, and perhaps even a little
uncomfortable. Director Ignacio Ferreras steers clear of polemic in favour of
the personal, however, with the blossoming friendship between Emilio, a new
resident succumbing to Alzheimer’s Disease, and the cynical, streetwise Miguel who
spends his days fleecing the other patients of their money taking centre-stage.
Although the themes offer little fresh insight, it succeeds through its
poignant marrying of black comedy and tender emotion. Alongside the works of
his peer Sylvain Chomet, Ignacio Ferreras’ melancholy rumination on
obsolescence and compassion suggests that there remains a promising future for
hand-drawn animation in providing a more thoughtful, adult alternative to the
whiz-bang pyrotechnics of computer-animated kids’ flicks. One small warning: if
you’re of a sensitive disposition, come the end Arrugas may well have
reduced you to a blubbering wreck.
By comparison Terrados, a low-key tale
of unemployed thirty-somethings coping with Spain’s job crisis by escaping from
this bleak reality via spending their days hanging out on the rooftops of their
city, fails to engage. The time is definitely ripe for artistic explorations of
the social impact of the economic downturn, but the characters and their
situations are far too sketchily drawn to fit this bill. Aside from the
dramatic weight afforded by the breakdown of the relationship between
stuck-in-a-rut Leo and his ambitious girlfriend Ana, it comes across as Clerks
without the laughs or likeability. At other points it has a disconcerting habit
of filling the mouths of its cast with unwieldy chunks of information about the
economic iniquities of the country’s leaders. Believe me, as a currently
jobless graduate I wasn’t exactly unsympathetic with the characters’ plight,
but I couldn’t escape the realisation that the slight premise was too
underdeveloped to sustain its length.
Diego
Lerman’s La Mirada Invisible instead
applies the microcosmic approach to the bloody introduction of democracy into
Argentina, as the country’s military junta loses public favour in the Falklands
War. An adaptation of Martin Kohan’s 2006 novel, Moral Sciences, the film follows the fall of Marita (Julieta
Zylberberg), a young, withdrawn teacher in an intensely restrictive private
school. As the lecherous head professor, Biasutto (Osmar Nunez), lectures
Marita on the “cancer of subversion” that is spreading itself through the
school, it soon becomes clear that this austere environment, bathed in silence
when not in the hymns of the nation, is a metaphor for the regime the people
are fighting against outside the school’s formidable walls. Whilst this initial
premise is perhaps rather too obviously handled, the film makes apt use of its
material through its study of Marita, whose increasingly obsessive surveillance
of the student body disguises a far more destructive infatuation with a male
pupil. When coupled with Biasutto’s attempts to ingratiate himself in Marita’s
colourless life, the film’s outcome is rather straightforward, being as it is
an exercise in simple metaphor. Zylberberg’s performance however, at once
frosty and vulnerable, is spellbinding, her depiction of Marita’s downfall
unflinching without submitting to melodrama. This, in conjunction with Alvaro
Gutiérrez’s clinical cinematography, elevates the film’s standing and provides
an engrossing piece of cinema.
In
contrast, a sense of weariness abounds whenever the topic of revolution rears
its head – and it does so frequently – in Juan
de los Muertos, famous for being Cuba’s first zombie picture. Whilst this
might be the case, Alenjandro Brugues’ take on the genre finds itself well
entrenched in the familiar staples of the field; the zombies allegorize the
long shadow of unrest in the state, with Juan (Alexis Diaz de Villegas) and his
buddy Lazaro (Jorge Molina) functioning as much more mercenary renderings of
Shaun and Ed. Through the crisis, Juan is inevitably provided with a scenario
so removed from day-to-day reality that, with the aid of his misfit pals, he is
able to redeem himself in the eyes of his daughter and emerge a fuller man. If
it’s not Shaun of the Dead, then,
with its pointed accusations toward the US, it’s certainly The Host, and the narrative threatens to buckle at the midway point
under the weight of well worn ideas. Thankfully, the film is carried through
its punctuations of, at times, genuinely inventive black comedy. Whilst this
might not be the most original zom-com you’ve ever seen, it’s certainly one of
the most outrageous, sporting gross-out humour when gross-out gore can’t be
provided. Villegas and Molina’s pairing is refreshing, their characters largely
lacking the core morality we would expect of our protagonists in favour of a
thoroughly commercial (and highly sexual) mindset. It is a testament to Juan’s
sensibility that he ensures a steady, if seemingly redundant, source of income
from the zombie outbreak and the pest control opportunities it affords, with
Villegas thriving in the role. Whether this can be said of the entirety of the
cast is debatable, but Juan de los
Muertos proves itself to be worth a gander for genre aficionados, with its
grab-bag appropriation of tropes.
Hollywood
still has some way to go when it comes to matching the likes of Balada Triste de Trompeta (The Last Circus), however. Opening with
a Republican Militia recruiting circus performers as impromptu fighters for the
Spanish Civil War, Alex de la Iglesia’s idiosyncratic feature quickly begins a
waltz of absurd cruelty that dances its way merrily through to the film’s
conclusion. Javier (Sash Di Bendetto), gawky son of The Funny Clown, a man
begrudgingly become war legend, has forever been scarred by the tragedy the
Civil War thrust upon him, and as such, can only function as a Sad Clown.
Joining his latest circus, he quickly meets his match in Sergio (Antonio de la
Torre), a violently unstable drunk who also happens to be a damn good joker and
the alpha male of the big tent. Infatuated with Sergio’s headstrong lover,
Natalia (Carolina Bang), Javier decides to stand up against the abuse of the
so-called Happy Clown and prove himself a true gallant to his paramour. What
follows is a tit-for-tat battle for supremacy that quickly escalates into
something exquisite in its savageness - at once hilarious and horrifying. White
paint gets swapped out for sodium hydroxide, cream pies for bloody trumpets, as
Sergio and Javier give in to their individual psychopathic tendencies, with
Natalia caught in the middle like a rabbit in headlights. Beautifully rendered
through the eye of Kiko de la Rica, Iglesia’s feature – heavy on visual
metaphor – moves beyond grindhouse parody into something a little more
fantastical, and a lot more European. The
Last Circus is undoubtedly one of the festival’s highlights.
Speaking
from a country still gripped by armed conflict, Jairo Carrillo’s animated
documentary, Pequeñas Voces, gives voices to Colombian children affected by a generation
of violence and war. The film, having recently won both the Grand and the
Special Jury prizes at the International Gold Panda awards, adds to the variety
and breadth of ¡Viva!’s programme, though is perhaps a little too
worthy for its own good. Carillo’s feature takes a series of monologues related
by children affected by war, and marries them to a single cartoon world; rather
than merely produce distinct, anecdotal animations for each story, the
narrative moves between speakers whose generic characters (sometimes embodying
a number of no doubt unrelated speakers as a single child) interact through
mime and monosyllabic utterances during transition sequences. It’s a strange stance to take, in that it
produces a pseudo fiction that at best comes to feel forced, and at worst,
disingenuous, particularly during several emotional climaxes that are clearly
added for the purpose of drama. There is too great a disparity between the
spoken word and the filmmakers’ additions for the two to unite and suspend
disbelief. That said, the film’s use of actual children’s drawings as figures
in this landscape is a smart move, well conveying the paradoxical innocence the
likes of child soldiers and war refugees still enjoy, and is something Carrillo
should have extended toward his three protagonist figures. The tale of said
child soldier is a particularly harrowing reminder of the realities that
permeate guerrilla warfare, and is perhaps the standout narrative of Pequeñas
Voces.
Unlike Juan, we needn’t fear the walking dead
just yet: if there’s one thing this year’s line-up proves, despite the absence
of international brands like Del Toro or Almodóvar and the predictions of gloom
‘n’ doom surrounding art-house filmmaking, it’s that Spanish and Latin American
cinema is still alive and kicking.
