Artigas - La Redota (orig. La Redota - Una Historia de Artigas) [2011]

Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1820494/

Artigas - La Redota (orig. La Redota - Una Historia de Artigas) is a film directed and co-written by Uruguayan film-maker César Charlone along with Pablo Vierci about Uruguayan "founding father" / national hero José Gervasio Artigas (played int he film by Jorge Esmoris)  The film played recently at the 28th Chicago Latino Film Festival.

The movie begins in 1884, nearly 35 years after Artigas' death with Uruguayan painter Blanes (played in the film by Yamandú Cruz) commissioned by the then Uruguayan "powers that be" to paint a heroic portrait of Artigas, who had been a homegrown revolutionary at a time when whole region was in flux -- Argentina to the south and west had just won its independence; in face of Napoleonic invasion, the Portuguese King had fled to Brazil to start a Portuguese empire to the north, and Montevideo which eventually became Uruguay's capital remained the last bastion of imperial Spanish presence in southeastern South America. 

But precisely because Artigas was a homegrown revolutionary, leading a band of "miserable ones" composed of Spanish speaking frontiersmen and still Guarani speaking natives with ties to their kin in Paraguay, Blanes' task was not easy.  The "powers that be" would like a portrait of a "heroic leader" of the Enlightenment mold (a George Washington or Simon Bolivar).  Yet, Artigas and especially the band of supporters that grew around him looked more like the band that grew around Pancho Villa in Mexico a few decades after Blanes finished his work.  How to give the "Powers that Be" what they want and yet be true to oneself and to the historical record?  That is what this film is about.  Blanes does come up with a solution but it's not what one would necessarily expect.

As a historical period piece, I found the film to be well done.  Further, I was appreciative to the Chicago Latino Film Festival as well as to the makers of this film for the opportunity to learn something about Uruguay.  I always suspected that there was probably some connection between Uruguay and Paraguay simply because of the similarity in their names.  Yet the two countries are quite distant from each other.  This film helped explain to me the connection as well as the rather difficult circumstances in which Uruguay came to be -- surrounded on all sides (Argentina to the South, Brazil to the North and even Spain across the Sea to the East) by rather powerful neighbors.

So all in all, this was a satisfying historical film that teaches its viewers something about a country and a leader that most people outside of Uruguay would probably not know.  And yet the problem that Blanes faced in making the portrait of Artigas is one that many artists and historians across the world have faced.  So the story here is about Blanes, Artigas and Uruguay, but it is also about more than just about Blanes, Artigas and Uruguay.  It's story is bigger than that.  Good job!


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Day of Black (orig. Dia de Preto) [2012]

Fr. Dennis (4+ Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1971371/

Day of Black (orig. Dia de Preto) is a masterfully shot and sound edited Brazilian film, written and directed by (alphabetically listed) Marcos Felipe, Daniel Mattos and Marciel Renato, which played recently at the 28th Chicago Latino Film Festival.  It recounts the story of the first African slave in Brazil to gain his freedom -- a prized cow (vaca) of a landowner (a "patrão" played by Paulo Abreu) had wandered off the landowner's property.  Under threat of death, the landowner sent a black slave ("o Preto", lit. the black man played by Marcelo Batista) to find the lost cow.  He finds it the next day on top of a hill on the landowner's property.  The landowner is so happy that he commissions the building of a church on top of the hill where the black man found the lost cow and gives the black man "papers" declaring that he is free.  But how "free" do mere "papers" make a former slave?

So except for occasional flashbacks to the original story recounted above, the movie actually takes place at an upscale Shopping Mall in the present day.  A Black Man (again Marcelo Batista) is about to leave the shopping mall in his car when he is prevented from doing so by a "Corno" (Brazilian Portuguese for basically "a-hole" played by Guillerme Almeida) leading a Posse (played by Andrea Cassali, Naiara Hawaii, Heráclito Junior, Deivid Araújo), a posse that could have been straight out of Quentin Tarentino's Kill Bill [2003/04].  Prevented from leaving the parking-lot, the Black Man flees back into the Shopping Mall, eventually hiding out feet up in a bathroom stall.  When he finally feels it safe to leave the bathroom, it's dark and the mall has long been closed.  He has to now find his way past a Patrão (played again by Paulo Abreu) of one of the stores who's looking for his wayward Daughter ("Vaca" apparently a rather derogatory slang term for "girl," translated in the movie actually as "b...." played by Vanessa Galvão) and of course "Security" (o Chefe played by Ricardo Bonaverti).  Can he make his way out of the Labyrinth of the Shopping Mall to freedom?

I have to say that with the exception of the fact that according to the two from the team of three who wrote, directed and produced the film (who were available for questions following the screening of the film) Dia de Preto was made for a cost of $100,000 (plus many, many hours of their own time editing the final product), both the sound and cinematography in the film were of the quality that make comparisons to Lars von Trier's Meloncholia [2011] or Terrence Malick's Tree of Life [2011] come to mind.  The sound was that sublime and the visuals were that eye-poppingly good!  How could that be possible?  I suspect that part of the answer lies in the fact the "day job" of the two film makers present for questions after the screening was in advertising, and commercial ads both in the United States and abroad often have an sophisticated, eye-popping quality to them.

Still, my hat off to the makers of this film!  The story was excellent and it was produced in a superbly chic, eye-popping manner that certainly catches attention.  Whether the future of this team of Brazilian film-makers is in making films or simply starting a world-class "post production company" based in Rio de Janeiro, I told them that honestly with this film, which is going to play the Latino Film Festival circuit in the United States and then go on to Portugal, they ought to really see if they could get this played in Venice or Cannes.  I really do believe it is that good!


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Under My Nails [2012]

Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing


Under my Nails (written and staring Kisha Burgos and directed by her husband Ari Maniel Cruz) is a movie filmed in Puerto Rico and New York, which played recently at the 28th Chicago Latino Film Festival.

The film, a drama, is about a young and very lonely/isolated Puerto Rican woman named Solimar (played by Kisha Burgos) living alone in a spartan one bedroom flat somewhere in the Bronx.  Born in Puerto Rico, she had lost both her parents when she was only about 8-10 years old.  Her mother apparently abandoned her and her father.  Her father then committed suicide (by drowning) soon afterwards.   Apparently she was largely raised afterwards by a (presumably) gay uncle named Amalia (played by Antonio Pantojas) living in New York who remains pretty much her only family.  Indeed, aside from Rose (played by Maite Bonilla) a coworker at a neighborhood nail salon where Solimar works, Amalia is pretty much the only person that Solimar ever talks to or confides in.  Thus it's a pretty cold and lonely existence, heightened all in the film by the fact that the scenes shot in the Bronx were taken in the winter with the streets full of snow.

During the course of the film, a Dominican couple moves to the flat next to hers.  Actually the man, Roberto (played by Ivan Camilo) is Dominican.  His wife, Perpetue (played by Dolores Pedro) is Haitian.  Moving in / living with the two was also Roberto's mother Goya (played by Rosie Berrido).  It becomes rather obvious rather quickly that Roberto's mother Goya doesn't like or respect Perpetue and Perpetue doesn't like her mother-in-law either.  Solimar can hear the sounds of a lot of fighting from that neighboring flat.  She also comes to hear some rather noisy love making as well.

With her uncle having left for Puerto Rico for a number of weeks after his long-time companion dies at the end a long illness (AIDS?), Solimar's already small horizons become even smaller, now restricted to her largely empty one bedroom flat and her hours at the nail salon a short if cold distance away.  So she becomes increasingly focused on the noises, both angry and sensual, coming out the neighboring flat.  Much, often very sad/tormented ensues ...

I found the movie to be excellent if in its realism often very depressing.  As is often the case at film festivals, the director Ari Maniel Cruz was present after the film to take questions.  After fielding several questions from some of the viewers somewhat disappointed/irate at the film's portrayal of Solimar, with the director assuring them that this portrayal did not come from him but from his wife Kisha Burgos who wrote and starred in the film, I asked him a similar question:

Beginning by saying that I honestly thought that the film was excellent, and that it reminded me of works by, say, Italian American director Martin Scorsese (who incidentally was also from New York) whose similarly unflinching/graphic portrayals of gangsters and so forth actually angered a fair number of Italian Americans because his films actually ended up supporting a number of negative stereotypes of Italian Americans in society (that "Italian Americans have supposedly been 'largely gangsters' in this country), I asked the director here what he would say to those who would criticize him for doing something similar in this film.  After all, this film was about a young Puerto Rican woman living in the Bronx who was (1) poor, (2) obviously had "some issues" from a tormented childhood and (3) chose to enter into an abusive and rather degrading relationship with a man who wasn't her own.  One could therefore fear that a movie like this could actually support some unfair/negative stereotypes of Puerto Ricans.

I thought that director Ari Maniel Cruz's answer was excellent.  First, he noted, that his and his wife's intention was not to produce "commercial cinema" but "real cinema," that is, that he didn't particularly care if non-Puerto Ricans seeing this film could perhaps use it to put-down Puerto Ricans (he intended the film for serious audiences, not mindless ones much less bigoted ones).  Second, he maintained that "real cinema" has to speak/confront the truth.  (Who cares what non-Puerto Ricans may think of this film? Traumatized and lonely characters like Solimar exist in this world, as do (Dominican) Robertos (who by being Dominican are often looked down-upon by Puerto Ricans) and even Perpetues (Haitian, who often are looked down-upon by both Puerto Ricans and Dominicans).  As such, the scenario may not be pretty, but it's real.  And the director insisted that real cinema from any country or culture would generally not be pretty either.  Yet such cinema speaks the truth, as any art that is true). 

So my hat off to Ari Maniel Cruz and Kisha Burgos.  This is a simple yet unflinching and powerful film.  Parents note that it is a film that if rated would certainly be rated R.  But I do believe that it tells a story that deserves to be told and from the perspective (largely from the perspective of the main character, Solimar's) that it is told here.  So once again, as has been the case of virtually everything that I've at the Chicago Latino Film Festival over the last 2 years, my congratulations to the film-makers and the cast for a very very good job!


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Damsels in Distress [2011]

MPAA (PG-13)  Roger Ebert (3 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1667307/
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120411/REVIEWS/120419995

Damsels in Distress (written and directed by Whit Stillman) is a delightful and IMHO insightful film about four young good-looking and do-gooding women undergrads at "Seven Oaks," a small liberal arts college located presumably somewhere in the North Eastern United States.

The group, friends though they were, was nevertheless led by Violet (played by Greta Gerwig).  The others in the group included the ever positive Heather (played by Carrie MacLemore); the (at least in her estimation) more worldly Rose (played Megalyn Echinkunwoke) who went to London for six weeks as a child and came back "a Londoner," accent and all, which she studiously hadn't lost ever since; and finally Lily (played by Analeigh Tipton) who appeared to have been the most recent addition to Violet's group, who didn't completely buy Violet's pontificating (though never completely able to express why) and who Violet nonetheless accepted (if with an occasional shrug) into the group because as she put it: "It's good to have a challenge."  Violet was no dictator.  So convinced of her own rightness / goodness, she didn't feel that she had to be one ;-).  I just love this movie ;-) ;-)

These four good looking college women, who could easily have chosen to hang-out with similarly genetically/financially elite college men choose, in fact, to hang out with the men of the campus "loser frat", the D-Us.  And actually they do this in part to save/redeem the whole Greek (err at Seven Oaks 'Roman') system:  When the girls hear the fairly attractive editor of the school paper, the "Daily Complainer," call the "Greeks" elitist they don't let him get away with putting down entire group of people on their campus like that,.  First they correct him: "There are no 'Greeks' at Seven Oaks, only 'Romans' (a trivial difference one would suppose, apparently "Seven Oaks" requires fraternities to use Roman letters rather than Greek ones ...).  However, then they point specifically to the frat that they like the most -- the D.U.s.  "They're not elitists, they're a bunch of morons."  And even the previously arrogant/complaining editor of the school newspaper is stopped in his tracks.  He has to agree.  The D-Us really are a bunch of "dufuses" (or is it dufi? There's actually a discussion about that in the movie ;-).

But saving the D-Us or the Campus Greek/Roman system isn't the full extent of Violet's / her friends efforts to change the world for the better.  The four dutifully staff the campus' "suicide prevention center."

And they really care.  The first thing that a person gets when he/she comes to the center is a nice fresh donut.  Violet explains that "studies have shown" that "fresh pastries, in the United States especially a nice fresh donut, immediately evoke happy emotions and memories in test subjects."  So everyone coming into the Seven Oaks College suicide prevention center gets a nice fresh donut.  ONLY, if it turns out that the person isn't really suicidal (or at least very depressed... for instance, someone "just seeking information" ...) then they quickly snatch the donut away! ;-)  "We're an NGO, our sponsors are very strict on these sort of things ..." ;-).  So donuts go to only the very depressed.

Then, they've come up with this whole line dancing, dance therapy.  Again, Violet dutifully explains to someone one that "studies have shown" that apparently people in dance groups because they all have to work together learn to both depend on each other and have no time to be depressed (or something like that ...).  Indeed, very early on in the movie, Violet tells Lily that she wants to do something really important during her life, "like start a a dance craze."  And she's totally serious about this.  She's convinced (herself at least) that Richard Strauss (instead of Johann Strauss) who she credited as the inventor of the Waltz (in either case wrongly, though the latter would probably be closer to the truth than the former, but never mind...) ; the inventor of the Charleston who she believed (wrongly) was named Charleston rather than the dance being named after the city); and finally Chubby Checker who she (I believe finally correctly) credited as the inventor of the Twist; all "made the world a better place."  The latter part of the movie is devoted in part to Violet's attempt to start said "new dance craze" around a dance she invented and called "the Sambola..."

I found Violet's confidence (and really that of all the other girls in her group) in face of messing-up the facts just unbelievably endearing.  Yes, Violet was often strong-willed / opinionated.  Yes, she was often wrong, even completely wrong.  But she was utterly sincere (as only a 20-something 'wide-eyed' college student could be).  And she didn't really impose her opinions on others.  When challenged (as she was often by Lily) she just shrugged, accepted that not everyone was going to agree with her, and went on with her business.

I just found this to be a beautiful insight into young / up to early 20-something innocence.  And all four of the young women manifest this.

Anyway, Parents should note that though rated PG-13, I still would still rate it R.  Yes, there are a few (not many but a few) matter-of-factly made sexual references made by the characters in the film that I do think would more appropriate to an R-movie than to a PG-13 one.  More importantly however, as generally innocent as the movie is, I don't think that someone under 17 would really understand the movie anyway.  Yes, there are things in this film that would seem funny to just about everyone of any age.  But I do think that the movie would work best for someone college aged and above.

That said, I have to say, I really, really enjoyed the dialog and the acting of all four of the lead actresses in this film.  And I found the innocence and general positivity of this film simply wonderful!

Have you seen Lupita? (orig. ¿Alguien ha visto a Lupita?) [2012]

Fr. Dennis (4+ Stars)

IMDb listing

I have to admit that I honestly never expected Have you seen Lupita? (orig. ¿Alguien ha visto a Lupita?) a Mexican, Spanish language-English subtitled film directed and cowritten by Gonzalo Justiniano along with Marina Stavenhagen and which played recently at the 28th Chicago Latino Film Festival take the direction that it did.  However, looking-back to pretty much the first line in the movie, the hint is already there.

In  that first scene, a bouncy / cute Mexican teenager (played by Dulce Maria [IMDb]) comes back into her heavy-on-the-pink, sweetly adorned room of her upper-middle class family's home, giggling, puts her new smart video phone on a table or something, turns it on, and starts talking into it.  Then as "solemnly" as any teenager bubbling with excitement over getting a new smart phone would do, she introduces herself to all the future viewers of her video diary, which she declares she's making "for all her future children," (and since we're watching her do all this, she's actually introducing herself to us) with the words: "My name is MARIA GUADALUPE DEL PILAR DE LA CONCEPCIÓN DEL SANTO NIÑITO JESUS... but to most people who know me, I'm just Lupita." ;-).  In that line, my friends, is the clue for understanding the entire movie ;-) ;-).

I would like to stop my review here, except perhaps to note (1) that a movie like this is inevitably risky and (2) I do think that director Gonzalo Justiniano produces a movie of such innocence that I do believe he pulls it off.

Gonzalo Justiniano was present at the film festival to take questions after the film's screening.  So I did ask him, noting my background (that I am a Catholic priest from an Order called the Servants of Mary) and my surprise and admiration for what he and the others involved in the film appeared to pull-off, how he and the others involved in the film (most notably probably the cowriter Marina Stavenhagen) even came-up with the idea to make it.  Noting also the obvious and obviously intended allusions made in the film, he answered by saying that he intended to make a movie for young people of today and one that defended them and their point of view.  Often enough young people are put down/dismissed as being silly or crazy when they really are not and that this film appeared to be a good vehicle to do so.

The director also said that he was showing the film at the Chicago Latino Film Festival as well as others in hopes that he could find an American distributor for the film.  OH BOY, DO I HOPE THAT HE FINDS ONE!  This is a highly original, gentle, light-hearted film that (as often is the case with such films) turns out to be surprisingly profound. 

So ¡Felicidades Gonzalo Justiniano, Marina Stavenhagen y Dulce Maria! and the rest of the cast / crew! Yes, your subject matter was tricky, but I really do believe that with your persistent innocence you pulled it off!  ;-)


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Grandfathers (orig. Abuelos) [2010]

Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1815579/

Grandfathers (orig. Abuelos) written and directed by Ecuadorian film-maker Carla Valencia Dávila is a documentary that played recently at the 28th Chicago Latino Film Festival, about the filmmaker's two grandfathers: Remo, Ecuadorian and Juan, Chilean.  It makes for a compelling story.

Remo was a pharmacist, who in his 40s contracted a brain tumor.  Given little chance for survival, he decided to hit the books on his own and, experimenting on himself, he eventually came up with a pharmaceutical cocktail that defeated the tumor allowing him to live for decades more.  Indeed, Carla narrates that he was convinced that Carla and her generation could, in fact, through the various cocktails that he became adept at making, become immortal.   And he did come to have a rather extensive and international following.  People from all over the world, given no hope for survival would write him for help, and (according to the documentary) he did have his successes.  A good number of the people who wrote him came to be cured by the medicines that he sent them.

Juan on the other hand, was a political activist living in a desert provincial town in northern Chile where he had grown-up, working for Salvador Allende's coalition, the Unidad Popular, prior to the 1973 military coup led by Agusto Pinochet against Allende's government.  Shortly after the coup, Juan was arrested, taken to a notorious concentration camp in northern Chile and a month later was one of the first to be executed there.

How did  Carla Valencia Dávila's parents meet?  Well, this in itself becomes fascinating to a Westerner: they met in 1970 in Soviet Russia, both being Soviet sponsored foreign exchange students there.  They were still living in Moscow where Carla was born when the 1973 coup in Chile occurred, presumably returning eventually to Ecuador rather than Chile after their studies were finished.

Thus the film becomes a window in the life of the young Latin American Left of the late Cold War era (1970s-).  Playing some of the old Chilean left-wing LP-records that her father either brought with him to Moscow or bought there, Carla notes that on them were songs of a Chile that no longer exists.

For someone fascinated in both history and people, it all makes for a very fascinating film.


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100 Cuban "Sones" (orig. Los 100 Sones Cubanos) [2010]

Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2355701/

100 Cuban "Sones" (orig. Los 100 Sones Cubanos) directed by Edesio Alejandro and Rubén Consuegra
is an excellent Spanish language-English subtitled documentary about the Cuban musical style called "Son," which played recently at the 28th Chicago Latino Film Festival and I do believe would enchant both music and history buffs. 

I first formally encountered this musical style through buying a number of musical anthologies, including Congo to Cuba and Putumayo Presents Cuba produced by the Putumayo World Music.  That company dedicates itself to "indroducing people to the music of the world's cultures."  I had been mourning my impending departure from a parish, St. Catherine of Siena in Kissimmee, FL that I deeply loved.  So I wished to buy a number of albums of music that I heard in and around the parish on a daily basis.  Actually, the parish was mostly Puertorican, Colombian and Haitian with also a fair number of Anglo-American retirees, mostly from the northeastern United States, rather than Cuban.  Cuban Americans tended remain centered in southeastern Florida / Miami.  However, that Putumayo title Congo to Cuba intrigued me and so I bought it and upon listening to it was hooked, soon purchasing besides Putumayo Presents Cuba, also Putomayo Presents Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Colombia and the French Caribbean. So I wept listening to these albums for a number of months after coming to Chicago, before discovering the Mexican-American station WLEY ("En Chicago manda La Ley ..." ;-), which of course plays a totally different style of music but then while I do like the rhythms in various styles of music, I mostly like the interplay of a song's rhythms with its lyrics.  As such, I've loved both Blues and Country music all my life.  And I've found that Cuban Son and Mexican Norteña music to have similarities to Blues and Country music respectively.

So when I found that there was going to be a documentary about Cuban Son music playing at the Chicago Latino Film Festival this year, I made sure to attend.

Okay, what is Son music?  According to both the documentary and the wikipedia article on Cuban Son, it is a style of music with African roots that originated in the mountains and countryside of far eastern Cuba and eventually made its way west to Santiago de Cuba and from there eventually to Havana and New York.  The instruments used in a Son ensemble often appear simple but combined produce, of course, a remarkable a rhythm and sound.

When I say that the instruments _appear simple_, I mean that among the instruments talked about in the documentary was, for instance, the role of the botija (a clay jug) played (blown into) like a bass wind instrument.  One would think that this, a clay jug after all, would be as simple an instrument as one could be.  Yet, the botija shown and discussed in the documentary was 300 years old and was originally made (from a particular mud) found only in Spain.  Rhe musician owning the botija in question talked of it with exactly the same fondness as the owner of  a Stradivarius violin.  Tapping its ceramic shell, he proudly told the interviewer: "You simply wouldn't be able to find or make a botija today that would make the same sounds as this one."  Remarkable and I do love it!

Remarkable also to Son and then to Latin music is that it can only be produced by an ensemble, again not necessarily by an ensemble playing rarified instruments (though the often humble instruments used are, as the botija, in their own ways special), but necessarily by an ensemble.  It's a style of music where the sum of the whole clearly exceeds the individual parts.

Thus it perhaps would not be surprising that the still-Communist regime in Cuba would happily allow the filmmakers access to make this documentary because Son music does, in fact, provide an example where community action (the ensemble) produces a result greater than that which would be possible by the individuals alone.   And the regime here would be right.  Is is always right?  Of course not!  (As plenty of Cuban-American refugees/immigrants in Miami, most of them Catholic would testify)  But here at least, when it comes to Latin music, they do have a point.

Anyway, I found the documentary to be remarkable and thought provoking.  One day, probably fairly soon, the Castro brothers will have gone to meet their Maker.  On the other hand, Cuba and its music and culture will go on.


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