José María Cabral's El proyeccionista / The Projectionist fills in our knowledge of Dominican Reublic cinema, a work from one of their most prestigious film makers staring another, one Félix Germán whose 2005 La maldición del padre Cardona this film references.
It's just a pity that the current film isn't more involving. It's got ambition in spades. It's telling us about the death of the photo chemical image, replacing real life with the movies and fetishising screen players to the point where grizzled Germán would rather watch his faded Kodachrome that get it on with spunky young Cindy Galán who keeps on taking her shirt off. Throw in references to the Pygmalion legend.
Traveling showman Germán is not interested in the new digital technology proposed to him, clinging to his 33 and a third records and various movie projectors while rolling round the countryside doing film shows to a dwindling audience. He has a refrigerator full of old Kodak film cans containing home movie footage of a curvy Latina become his love object.
He sets out in the truck taking his movies to barrios where they would rather sit watching their TVs. At one stage, he zaps the junction box plunging the district into darkness to restore his audience.
Young Galán is one the run from her own family problems and imposes herself on the trip despite his resistance. He's on a quest to find the secret in his dad's faded photo, tracking down a former soldier whose memory has dimmed like the physical record.
Germán's pilgrimage leads him to his crumbling one time family home where he recovers a sound record that accompanies ancient film. One of the movie's many implausibilities is the notion that a clockwork Bolex will hold synch. with a battered quarter inch tape deck.
El proyeccionista is grungey and incoherent and it ignores many of the more interesting possibilities it broaches. The (Haitian?) migrant column they encounter is no more than a target of opportunity audience. We've seen bits of this done better in Picture Show Man, Cinema Paradiso or Blow Out. In fact the 1997 Bill Morrison short The Film of Her covers the same ground better in its twelve minutes.
It's just a pity that the current film isn't more involving. It's got ambition in spades. It's telling us about the death of the photo chemical image, replacing real life with the movies and fetishising screen players to the point where grizzled Germán would rather watch his faded Kodachrome that get it on with spunky young Cindy Galán who keeps on taking her shirt off. Throw in references to the Pygmalion legend.
Traveling showman Germán is not interested in the new digital technology proposed to him, clinging to his 33 and a third records and various movie projectors while rolling round the countryside doing film shows to a dwindling audience. He has a refrigerator full of old Kodak film cans containing home movie footage of a curvy Latina become his love object.
He sets out in the truck taking his movies to barrios where they would rather sit watching their TVs. At one stage, he zaps the junction box plunging the district into darkness to restore his audience.
Young Galán is one the run from her own family problems and imposes herself on the trip despite his resistance. He's on a quest to find the secret in his dad's faded photo, tracking down a former soldier whose memory has dimmed like the physical record.
Germán's pilgrimage leads him to his crumbling one time family home where he recovers a sound record that accompanies ancient film. One of the movie's many implausibilities is the notion that a clockwork Bolex will hold synch. with a battered quarter inch tape deck.
El proyeccionista is grungey and incoherent and it ignores many of the more interesting possibilities it broaches. The (Haitian?) migrant column they encounter is no more than a target of opportunity audience. We've seen bits of this done better in Picture Show Man, Cinema Paradiso or Blow Out. In fact the 1997 Bill Morrison short The Film of Her covers the same ground better in its twelve minutes.
