With the LA Film Festival coming June 22nd-July 2nd, I thought I’d post some articles I had written for last year’s AFI Fest on this site. If you’ve never attended one of the many cinematic extraveganzas throughout the year, make some time for this summer’s fest. You’ll come to find the modern cinephile as passionate as ever, engaging in the sublime practice of aesthetic indulgence. If that doesn’t fit your bill, grab a Hebrew National Hot Dog, some popcorn, and have a good time.

Cinema, Aspirin and Vultures: A Film by Marcelo Gomes

By Alejandro De La Cruz

Contrast: check 1, 2. Contrast: check 1, 2.

The rediscovery of naivety within the human spirit is comforting to a society bombarded by the immediate gratification of knowledge. However, we’ve lost a portion of innocence somewhere. Yet, filmmakers all across Latin America have prescribed an order of cinema that penetrates memories bound to a time of great hope and great suffering: a contrast projected only by the courageous. Director Marcelo Gomes is an example of that bravery.

Upon arrival, I couldn’t help but adhere to the atmosphere the filled seats created. The emotion and enthusiasm of the audience brightened the screen before anything had been projected. The stir was a hint of the beauty I was to experience. This aroma had been constant throughout the festival this year. Maybe it was the scent of a cinematic stew that induced a hunger that this freelance journalist yearned. Maybe it was the fact that Rick Ruben had brushed my shoulder in the crowd outside. Perhaps it was merely hope.

Wherever the excitement manifested, it was clear, strong, and obviously present. This year, the Latin film contingent has reveled, marveled, and quenched the hearts of audiences. Brilliant cinematography, minimalist storytelling, and a desire to disrupt the pompous flow of Hollywood filmmaking, caressed a crowd of cinephiles into believing there is hope left in cinema. Maybe this whole festival is about hope; the ability to change course in the face of adversity. Cinema’s adversity today is simply not looking like a raging whore.

Hear me out for a second. Hollywood manipulates the masses by supplying a fictional world enveloped by tragedy and disgust, while never alleviating the human imagination’s attempt to indulge in something hopeful. They aspire to show greatness and leave you mummified; stripped of all your natural organs; an imagination vanquished, and the audience stuffed with depression; a schizophrenic society if you ask me.

However, I have hope. You can find it abroad; in the outskirts of the world; in the arid wonderlands that Hollywood deems unworthy of exploration. Without question, you can find hope in this film.

Cinema, Aspirin and Vultures is the first feature film from director Marcelo Gomes. Winner of the Prix de Education Nationale at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, the film is a venture into the everlasting hope that converging paths can coexist within a time of great distress and profound technology. The story is a blend of two characters searching for a new way of life, while dealing with the dense differences in their culture and personalities.

Set in 1942, the film represents the human spirits finest attribute: tolerance. “Johann” is a German man who has fled the tumultuous atmosphere of war-torn Europe, and has taken it upon himself to deliver a new found medicine, known as Aspirin, to the rural sites of Brazil. Along the way he encounters the blistering “outback” of North-East Brazil, and to his fortune meets a man named “Ranulpho.” The two characters endeavor to reach the grand city of Rio, and along the way they infiltrate the dreams of rural peasants with a new technology known as cinema. Fleeting pictures and amazing images enchant the arid land of Brazil and a quenching of the imagination is left behind. The film is a testament to the innocence within an imagination lost forever.

A portrait filled with breathtaking shots and insightful dialogue, Cinema, Aspirin and Vultures intertwines the harmony of multiculturalism at a time when the world struggles to identify with identity. How relevant is this piece in the world today? It simply couldn’t have come at a better time. The film’s character is defined by authentic music from the 30’s and 40’s. The colloquial slang, jokes, and stories establish a profound realism that adds to the overwhelming charm of the film. This is a creation of brilliantly shot images fleeting away from you and returning back again, placing the audience in “Louvre-like” hallway of Renaissance, where your eyes roam everywhere in a daze; marveled by profound beauty. Yes, the film left my eyes yearning for more.

Cinema, Aspirin and Vultures is a declaration of hope towards a future categorized by passion, rather than indifference. The 21^st century arrived in upheaval, and has struggled to embody the essence of unity. This film takes you back to a time battling with similar experiences. It is a valid testament to the idea that we can learn from history; and rediscover ourselves in the past.

The movie will be screened for the last time Saturday, Nov 12^th at noon. AFI Film Fest 2005 ends Nov 13^th.

© 2005-2006 Citoyen du Monde Inc.™

“Tattooed”: A film by Eduardo Raspo
by Alejandro De La Cruz

“Broken guitar strings: forgotten…”

The distinct product of a nation’s history rests upon the fundamental significance of their culture’s past. The clash between memories unleashed and truth bestowed empowers a society to rediscover the perplexing mixture of misery and hope within their society. Distinctively, cinema represents a type of medium that unleashes an arsenal against the metaphorical walls that we, as a society, tend to build against art. In a brilliantly exposed “minimalist” style, “Tattooed” extends the arena of a country’s “social welfare”, while inviting the audience to witness a piece of humanity that is never easy to confront: the truth revealed within a nation’s past.

I’ve been profoundly impressed with the magnitude of each Latin Series film I have seen at this year’s festival. “Tattooed”, a film by acclaimed director Eduardo Raspo, is a portrait of the tumultuous relationship between memory and truth. The relationship underscores the touching story of a father and son coping with the residual effects of a mother lost. Simplistic in composition, the film’s dynamic confrontations and encounters with the harsh truth of a past forgotten, illustrates the debilitating effects of love forever lost. A
mixture of constant movement intertwined with the strange arrangement of Paco, his girlfriend, and his father, establishes that this film is the epitome of how large a crater can be created through such a minimalist drama.

The story’s epicenter is found within the longing of a young man named Paco and his intent to decipher a peculiar tattoo of a mongoose biting a snake. Inscribed on his forearm by his mother at the tender age of three, Paco struggles to identify the truth about his mother’s sudden abandoning. The desire to eradicate the lack of truth in his life compels the young man to leave his renewed family, and abandon all relations in order to believe in something real. The teenage boy encounters the harsh truth that the memories he has treasured for so long, may have been conjured up by the misery of growing without a mother. Inevitably, the boy’s choice proves pivotal in the reconstruction of his youth; as well as the strengthening of a bond with his father.

Let’s take this out of the immediate vicinity of visual stimulation, dialogue, and brilliant acting. Within this film, director Eduardo Raspo attempts to meticulously extract the subjugation of a nation’s history, in this case Argentina, and represent the clash between the legacy of dictatorships and truth within the story of this boy. The signifiers are subtle, but poignant; and remarkably intriguing.

I believe it may be a stretch, yet the film cannot be viewed without a governing social awareness tapping you in the back of the head, directing your senses to the subtle instances within the film that are there for the purpose of disclosing a story about a nation. One example lies within the strange accounts that Paco’s girlfriend recites with ease. Stories of cults, witch men, and citizens forgotten on rural roads and towns speak to the darker side of Argentina’s history; i.e., dictatorships and totalitarian governments.

There is no involuntary suggestion here. Director Eduardo Raspo creates a simple plot that speaks dynamically to the story of the young boy, while supplying an underscore to the reality that there are certain social issues within Argentina that have gone unnoticed. Maybe it is the duty of every nation to discovery an inner desire; one in which the brunt force of that desire will be directed towards searching for a lost identity abandoned by the consequences of overzealous leaders that have manipulated history in order to reconstruct the story of a nation. Remember, you are reading this in Citoyen du Monde Inc.

It is not so strange to think that nation’s have gone to monumental lengths to extinguish one truth and reinvent another; all in an effort to manipulate the truth that is bestowed upon the masses. Is this film a far cry from ousting this way thinking? I think not. And I don’t believe I’ve missed any obvious point in the film. If you think this, I will suggest that you have underestimated the brilliance of Latin America’s filmmakers: they embrace their nations like a writer with his muse.

Could the mother’s disappearance, fourteen years before, symbolize the upheaval of the social construct in Argentina? There is much more to look into. Yet, it is undeniable that director Eduardo Raspo has courageously embraced a piece of Argentina’s soul and allowed the world, at least for a moment, to gaze in and ponder.

© 2005-2006 Citoyen du Monde Inc.™