Pablo Trapero is one of those people that the festival circuit picked up in his early days and then dropped. Trapero (Mondo Grua / Crane World, Famiglia rodante /Rolling Family) continued making some of Argentina's most ambitious movies and his new La Quietud is remarkable.
Trapero's wife Martina Gusman and Bérénice Bejo are a pair of sisters who meet again when their aged father Isidoro Tolcachir has a stroke and is confined comatose in the I.C.U. The film stops being ordinary when we get the scene of the two women rolling about in the bed together as they recall the black plumber they lusted after in their chidhood - bare intertwined limbs and giggling. This and a later make-out are more explicit that we are used to seeing in mainstream cinema or for that matter porn.
The family matriarch is played by the legendary Carciela Borges. She soon manages to dominate her scenes. Just lighting a cigarette is spell binding. Borges comes into ferocious conflict with Gusman. Her "the first child is special" gets to have greater meaning as the film progresses.
Diego Dussuel's images are mobile and exceptionally sharp and the film's characterisation is quite merciless. We get to know these people intensely without my really wantingnm to spend any more time with them.
The girls share Bejo's husband and Gusman's lover with events complicated by Bejo's new pregnancy. "Don't meddle mother!" Borges is warned. Meanwhile the father Gusman adores has been wheeled on a respirator into the main bedroom with a view of the grounds with the numbered horses grazing, to be attended by a relay of medics. They keep on reminding us this family is rich - cut to the thick steak being sliced on the diner table.
The servile housekeeper insists Borges come back to sign a police witness statement and we start hearing about powers of Attorney. There's a mysterious ledger (another one) in the briefcase given Gusman. The family argue over The Dictatorship.
The sexual tensions come to a head at the family funeral, done Hill Street Blues style in a complex traveling when the camera switches from one character's plot to another without an edit. The leads come out of that scarred in more way than one. Throw in the departure with the dog who wants to come too.
Borges' big scene drags the film out of it's exploitation format and into something more politically correct but also more challenging. This is not a film that will leave audiences impartial.
Trapero's wife Martina Gusman and Bérénice Bejo are a pair of sisters who meet again when their aged father Isidoro Tolcachir has a stroke and is confined comatose in the I.C.U. The film stops being ordinary when we get the scene of the two women rolling about in the bed together as they recall the black plumber they lusted after in their chidhood - bare intertwined limbs and giggling. This and a later make-out are more explicit that we are used to seeing in mainstream cinema or for that matter porn.
The family matriarch is played by the legendary Carciela Borges. She soon manages to dominate her scenes. Just lighting a cigarette is spell binding. Borges comes into ferocious conflict with Gusman. Her "the first child is special" gets to have greater meaning as the film progresses.
Diego Dussuel's images are mobile and exceptionally sharp and the film's characterisation is quite merciless. We get to know these people intensely without my really wantingnm to spend any more time with them.
The girls share Bejo's husband and Gusman's lover with events complicated by Bejo's new pregnancy. "Don't meddle mother!" Borges is warned. Meanwhile the father Gusman adores has been wheeled on a respirator into the main bedroom with a view of the grounds with the numbered horses grazing, to be attended by a relay of medics. They keep on reminding us this family is rich - cut to the thick steak being sliced on the diner table.
The servile housekeeper insists Borges come back to sign a police witness statement and we start hearing about powers of Attorney. There's a mysterious ledger (another one) in the briefcase given Gusman. The family argue over The Dictatorship.
The sexual tensions come to a head at the family funeral, done Hill Street Blues style in a complex traveling when the camera switches from one character's plot to another without an edit. The leads come out of that scarred in more way than one. Throw in the departure with the dog who wants to come too.
Borges' big scene drags the film out of it's exploitation format and into something more politically correct but also more challenging. This is not a film that will leave audiences impartial.
