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To begin to understand Argentine cinema, I recommend ten movies that span Argentine genres and historical periods. These films are introduced below.
1. Beyond Oblivion. (Más allá del Olivdo) 1955, 85 min.?
Directed by: Hugo del Carril. ?
Starring: Laura Hidalgo, Hugo del Carril, Eduardo Rudy, Gloria Ferrandiz.
Around the 1950’s, Hugo del Carril was already popular for his acting skills and his tango singing. Perhaps nobody would have imagined that this handsome young man could in fact direct movies with both skill and mastery. Genuine proof was Beyond Oblivion, a melodrama in which Fe
rnando de Arellano (del Carril) tries to recreate a lost love through a series of randomly available women. With a subtle and refined staging, the film is amazingly similar to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958).
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2. Rosaura at 10. (Rosaura a las Diez) 1958, 100min.
Directed by: Mario Soffici.
Starring: Susana Campos, Juan Verdaguer, María Luisa Robledo, María Concepción César.
Literary adaptations do not always produce good results in cinema. Great literary plays have generated mediocre movies and lesser novels have transformed into formidable films. This is not the case with Rosaura at 10, a movie based on a novel of homage by writer Marco Denevi. Don Mario Soffici knows how to fully exploit the audiovisual potential of Denevi's excellent novel, and the film is narrated with cinematographic precision into an attractive detective story.
3. Three Times Ana. (Tres Veces Ana) 1961, 115 min.
Directed by: David José Kohon. ?
Starring: María Vanner, Luis Medina Castro, Alberto Argibay y Walter Vidarte.
The 60’s. The Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) was having an impact on mainstream cinematographers and cinema was questioning its forms of representation. A new cohort of young directors with literary concerns and cinephile sensibilities acquired at cinema clubs were being fruitfully incorporated into the national film industry. Among them was David Kohon, who in Three Times Ana – a story of three different women played by the same actress – offers a reflection on cinematic forms that founds, from the periphery, a singular renovation in Argentine cinema.
4. The Hour of the Furnaces. (La Hora de los Hornos) Documentary, 1968, 264min.
Directed by: Fernando Solanas.
It was the ‘60’s and Latin America was bursting with struggles, social revolts and passionate debates. Echoing this spirit, the documentary The Hour of the Furnaces defied the dictatorial government of Argentina during this period, being screened underground at labor unions, parishes and faculties. With a clear and direct style and unmistakable voice over, Solanas openly addressed subjects such as liberation, dependency, ideological war and neocolonialism in an extreme, devastating and truthful political movie.
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5. To Dream, To Dream. (Soñar, Soñar) 1976. 85min.
Directed by: Leonardo Favio. ?
Starring: Carlos Monzón, Gianfranco Pagliaro, Nora Cullen, Oscar Carmelo Milazzo.
Two likable losers who long to triumph as artists in the city of Buenos Aires appear in To Dream, To Dream. But perhaps “what’s told” is the least important element in Leonardo Favio’s movies. The precision of the camera placement and the visual poetry with which each scene is framed are of overwhelming power. Critic Gustavo Noriega said: “In national cinema there are directors who are good, directors who are bad and one who is extraordinary. That is Leonardo Favio.”
6 - PIZZA BIRRA FASO (Pizza Beer Joint) 1997, 80 min. Directed by: Adrián Caetano and Bruno Stagnaro. Starring: Hector Anglada, Jorge Sesan, Pamela Jordan, Alejandro Pous. 1997 was a paradigmatic year, the beginning of the Nuevo Cine Argentino (NCA, New Argentine Cinema). After a long period of ossified films, a new generation of directors would renew Argentine cinema through independent production. Pizza impressed with its realism and showed street kids talking as street kids without fanfare. One of the co-directors, Adrian Caetano, would become a benchmark filmmaker in the NCA with films such as A Red Bear and Chronicle of an Escape. 7 - Mundo Grúa, (Crane World), 1999, 82 min. Directed by: Pablo Trapero. Starring: Luis Margani, Adriana Aizemberg, Graciana Chironi, Federico Esquerro. With a very small budget and no more pretensions than to tell a simple story, Pablo Trapero tells the tale of "el Rulo," a warm and kind man who is presented with the opportunity of driving a crane. Like other films of NCA, Mundo Grúa featured a non-actor in the lead role, imprinting a needed dose of realism on the over-the-top theatricality dominating the national cinema at the time. To date, Trapero has completed five feature films that constitute an undeniable filmography. 8 - Nueve Reinas (Nine Queens). 2000. 115 min. Directed by: Fabian Bielinsky. Starring: Ricardo Darin, Gaston Pauls, Leticia Brédice, Tomas Fonzi. By 2000, the NCA had consolidated a style. Nevertheless, its directors were not likely to shoot films of a particular genre. This reality was made possible courtesy of Fabian Bielinsky, a director from the industry. In Nine Queens, the appealing adventures of a so called "white glove robber" and his unsuspecting partner became one of the Argentine films of greatest international impact. The film even had a Hollywood remake (Criminals) produced by George Clooney and starring Mexican actor Diego Luna. 9 - La Cienega (The Swamp). 2001, 102 min. Directed by: Lucrecia Martel. Starring: Graciela Borges, Mercedes Moran, Martin Adjemian, Sofia Bertolotto. Almost in its entirety, the Argentine cinema has been molded from a masculine and a “porteño” (resident of Buenos Aires) perspective. The Swamp is a contravention of these principles. Its director, Lucrecia Martel, is from the northern province of Salta, and her viewpoint is transferred not only by genre, but through one of the more personal and oblique visions in our cinematographic history. Martel has noted that in The Swamp, we observe "...a bourgeois family from a rarefied space.”
