A marvelous, minimalist movie, laconic, elliptic, constantly ambiguous, all along unforeseeable ; it starts as a thriller, at full speed in every respect : sentimentally (love at first sight of a skinny, heartless, full of bravado punk-girl nicknamed Mao, for Marcia, a plump heartbroken shy sales-girl : a study in contrasts !) and literally (kidnapping of Marcia by Mao, clearly a LEADER, and her mate Lenin, more the following kind, in a hijacked taxi) ; as soon as the trio leaves Buenos Aires, thriller turns into road-movie ; the asphalt jungle hardly behind them, they're in full flight : but little by little everything slows down, finally settling for GOOD in the straggling town of Rosario (what could be quieter than a place called rosary ?), where Lenin calls on an old aunt who agrees to HARBOUR them, on top of the two tenants she already has : a woman painter, a male biology student ; the road-movie now turns, slowly but surely, delicately, imperceptibly, into an intimate Chekovian comedy : so far, there had been mainly OUTER events, now there will be mainly INNER events ; a trio of people incapable of giving comes into contact with a trio of people who can give : the aunt first, who gives naturally : just by being herself ; then the painter, who gives actually, generously, to Marcia : a dress, then one of her paintings ; the biology student at last, who gives ambiguously : by helping Mao in one of her shoplifting sprees. This mixture naturally brings about some changes in the «receiving» threesome ; in fact, in this rather charming household, more bohemian than anything our two punkettes could ever have dreamed of, everything is going to TONE, always as literally as sentimentally, to shift, to skid, to complexify : relationships alter, the line between sex, love, friendship and even family becomes not only thinner but blurrier. All considered, this is more a Bildung-movie, whose main three characters discover themselves as they discover real life : wrenched from her daily routine and stagnation, Marcia matures, finds herself a prey to violent emotions, even to a certain rebelliousness (she reproaches Mao who neglects her, now having designs on the student, and getting sweeter, more feminine) ; with no outlet for their rebelliousness, Mao loses some of her aggressiveness, Lenin owns up to a certain tenderness for her wonderful aunt, acknowledges her nostalgia for a family (she even consents to being called by her real name : Veronica) ; every process has been reversed. This very subtle movie, in black and white and yet all in half-tones, curiously has a moral, clear and classical : welcome the unexpected, live intensely while there's time ; but what is no doubt shown is that there are many very different ways to live, and all sorts of intensities...
This movie unreels like human life : starting with a bang, quickly off the mark, all instinct and energy, then gradually slowing down, like a spring that imperceptibly relaxes, until SUDDENLY, you become conscious : you realize it HAS slowed down ; youth is over ; for better or worse, you have found some marks...
If things change imperceptibly, there are nonetheless two symmetrical exceptions : one at the start (wrenching Marcia brutally from the slow metaphorical death that was in STORE for her), the other at the end (the sudden real death of aunt Blanca) ; the latter sequence is a gem : the whole bunch goes for a tour on a rowing-boat (her last «voyage» ?) ; she sits at the rear, in the sun, under a big straw hat, smiling blissfully (we see her pale face close-up, over-exposed, nearly white) ; imperceptibly the camera comes closer, her smile sets, her face becomes strange, A WHITER SHADE OF PALE, the frame becomes blurred, the sound dies ; next frame : the sky (her soul has gone to heaven ?) ; only afterward do we understand that she died then, thanks to the dismayed comments of those who had been close to her ; a masterpiece of INDIRECT directing (that points to, instead of showing, that makes its point without stating it) another fine example being the last frame : in the bus that takes them back to Buenos Aires, Marcia falls asleep on Lenin's shoulder ; if Mao's nowhere to be seen, it's probably that she stayed in Rosario with the student... ; a good open ending...
One thing is not ambiguous : the charm of this picture, which is real, cannot lie in the three main characters, because they have none ; so it must lie exclusively in the way it was filmed ; a deep, subtle movie, amazingly mature, both humanly and formally.
This movie unreels like human life : starting with a bang, quickly off the mark, all instinct and energy, then gradually slowing down, like a spring that imperceptibly relaxes, until SUDDENLY, you become conscious : you realize it HAS slowed down ; youth is over ; for better or worse, you have found some marks...
If things change imperceptibly, there are nonetheless two symmetrical exceptions : one at the start (wrenching Marcia brutally from the slow metaphorical death that was in STORE for her), the other at the end (the sudden real death of aunt Blanca) ; the latter sequence is a gem : the whole bunch goes for a tour on a rowing-boat (her last «voyage» ?) ; she sits at the rear, in the sun, under a big straw hat, smiling blissfully (we see her pale face close-up, over-exposed, nearly white) ; imperceptibly the camera comes closer, her smile sets, her face becomes strange, A WHITER SHADE OF PALE, the frame becomes blurred, the sound dies ; next frame : the sky (her soul has gone to heaven ?) ; only afterward do we understand that she died then, thanks to the dismayed comments of those who had been close to her ; a masterpiece of INDIRECT directing (that points to, instead of showing, that makes its point without stating it) another fine example being the last frame : in the bus that takes them back to Buenos Aires, Marcia falls asleep on Lenin's shoulder ; if Mao's nowhere to be seen, it's probably that she stayed in Rosario with the student... ; a good open ending...
One thing is not ambiguous : the charm of this picture, which is real, cannot lie in the three main characters, because they have none ; so it must lie exclusively in the way it was filmed ; a deep, subtle movie, amazingly mature, both humanly and formally.