Wakolda (2013)

Another Lucía Puenzo film, called The German Doctor in English. This one is set in the early 1960s in post-war Argentina.

I've seen The Boys from Brazil, I've heard of Nazis fleeing Germany post WWII and hiding out in South America, I've read about the history of it-- but for some reason, as a person of mixed Jewish descent, seeing the fact that whole compounds of ex-Nazis lived peacefully together in the mountains of Argentina, creating communities of Nazi sympathizers and continuing the regime's ideals, this was mindblowing to me. I suppose I always pictured war criminals like Dr. Josef Mengele hiding out in holes in the ground, living in fear for the rest of their lives, not travelling freely and living nearly the same way they did when the Third Reich was still in power.

Wakolda follows the Nazi "Angel of Death" through his travels in Argentina, in a fictionalized version of real events, as he intertwines with a German-sympathetic family, made up of Eva, Enzo, their two sons, and their daughter Lilith, who was born premature and is small for her age.

Mengele's true identity was perhaps meant to be a twist in the movie, as he uses an alias for most of it, but I feel it was apparent from the beginning, and didn't draw away from Puenzo's film. His obsession with the family who runs an inn where he takes up residence is chilling in this historical thriller, and the acting from both he and the child actress who play Lilith is superb as the two have a dark obsession with one another.

I've read in other reviews the opinion that the doctor's obsession with dolls was a little too on the nose-- Lilith's father Enzo is a dollmaker, and before Mengele gets involved he's making unique, dark haired, wild looking dolls that his daughter likes. Once the doctor becomes an investor, he convinces the man to change his creations to fit an Aryan standard, and we get shots of row after row of blonde, blue-eyed, perfect dolls. I was in agreement that it was a little less than subtle. But evidently, this was one the facts that Puenzo drew from real life-- Mengele, while hiding out in

La Historia Oficial (1985)

This was one of the first films my class looked at this semester, and it still strikes me as one of the most plain and entertaining dramas that we watched, compared to all of the experimental Latin American cinema we've studied. 

Directed by Luis Puenzo, father of Luisa Puenzo who I've written about previously, La Historia Oficial is set in 1980s Argentina, at the tail end of the horrific military dictatorship racking the nation. Made in the middle of the fallout of that same dictatorship, Puenzo’s film directly deals with the pain the Argentinian people were going through.

La Historia Oficial follows Alicia and Roberto, two upper/middle class Argentinians who have made it through the time of terror by toeing the party line—and their adopted daughter, Gaby. During the dictatorship, tens thousands of people were “disappeared”, including young, pregnant women. It’s been seen in the following years that many of those babies were given to high ranking members of Argentinian society.

It becomes more and more apparent to Alicia that this might be the source of her hurried and off the books adoption of Gaby, and the guilt begins to wreak havoc on her life.

I like viewing this movie not only as an expression of pain, specifically women’s pain, following national terror—but also as a more individual transformation of a woman like Alicia, who must finally confront the lies she has accepted and lived under for nearly her whole life. 

XXY (2007)

Directed by Lucía Puenzo, XXY is another one of Puenzo's films exploring adolescent sexuality. El niño pez (The Fish Child) and Wakolda (The German Doctor) were two of the Argentinian director's other films that we explored in class.

XXY explores a story and a perspective I feel largely goes ignored-- that of a intersex teen. Alex is 15, and has lived as a girl though she possesses male and female genitalia. Her mother is very intent on having her daughter live a "normal" life, pressing her to continue taking female hormones, and keeping her sheltered from their surrounding town, even going so far as to invite her friend and her husband a plastic surgeon to their home for a consult, without informing Alex or her own husband.

Alex's father is more accepting of the ways his troubled child views her own gender-- actually, his sometimes stumbling attempts to connect to Alex and understand where she's coming from were by turns the most endearing and embarrassing moments from the film. At one point, the man recounts the story of her birth, and the surgeons that wanted to operate her as soon as they saw her "deficiencies"-- and he describes knowing she was perfect the moment he laid eyes on her. Though, in what came off weirdly comical to me, there was another plot point through the movie that her father assumes that Alex wants to live as a man (simply because he learned she likes to have penetrative sex...) and then stalks a trans man from their community that he'd read about in a newspaper, to see how it worked out for him.

But Alex, however she herself might be confused and still questioning her gender identity, manages to express that she doesn't want what either her mother or her father want for her: she wants to live as both, something in between male and female.

The use of marine life and water motifs were very well employed. Alex's father is a marine biologist, and runs a sea turtle rescue off the coast of a fishing village. Even Alex and her family's last name, Kraken, is a creature from the deep. Trans and intersex kids often identify with creatures like mermaids, because what they have below the waist doesn't matter. And the fluidity of many marine animals' sex was a good metaphor for Alex's gender exploration.

I think Puenzo explored the ramifications of a complex gender identity very well, looking at several categories of conflict-- Alex's internal conflict about her own gender, her conflict with her family, her romantic, platonic, and sexual explorations with different love interests throughout the movie, and the outside conflict of people in the town who view her as a monstrosity.

One thing I don't think was explored as complexly was the relationship between Alex and Álvaro-- by movie's end, it appeared like the two couldn't be together because Álvaro was simply gay and wanted someone with a penis. That's a bit ludicrous as far as understanding sexuality goes, and I felt like it came off that Álvaro really did love Alex.

Otherwise, a well made and intriguing look at intersex identity.

Profundo Carmesí (1996)

Profundo Carmesí, a Mexican crime film directed by Arturo Ripstein, dramatizes the real life serial killers known as "The Lonely Hearts Killers."

Ripstein's movie takes somewhat of a refuge in audacity with the brazenness of his two characters: Nicolas Estrella, a balding con-man who makes his living romancing rich old women from the personal ads, and Coral Fabre, a bitter and mercurial nurse who falls completely in love with him. Nicolas flies into a rage when seen without his wig, Coral sticks old men with needles when they don't pay her enough attention. Even after Coral quickly discovers his true intentions, Ripstein's film makes you feel exactly what Coral believes: that the two are absolutely made for each other.

via Wikipedia

I think the absurdity that lays in Profundo Carmesí is there for that reason-- it has to be absurd, over the top, to make you understand this type of all-encompassing, narcissistic, obsessive love that the two share for each other, the type of love that convinces people that it's absolutely worth killing people. The romantic (and ridiculous) melodrama of the film also echoes the tone of the soap operas that Coral used to listen to, imagining that a man like Nicolas might come into her life. That style, alongside some of the extremely morbid black comedic moments that come out of Coral and Nicolas' exploits, honestly made this one of the most entertaining movies we watched this semester. I loved it, would recommend for those that share the strange obsession with serial killers that so many people have.

Terra Estrangeira (1995)

Terra Estrangeira, directed by Brazilian filmmakers Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas, is a film-noir esque mystery following two young Brazilian expats living in Portugal. The film is set amidst the economic crisis that wreaked havoc in Brazil, when President Fernando Collor de Mello froze all private bank accounts above around $1000 USD.

via adorocinema.com

One of the most shocking things to come out of this movie for me was the fact of that crisis itself-- such a wild abuse of power, happening such a short time ago, was astounding to me, especially in that the film portrays it so solemnly, with an acceptance of reality. It hammered home to me (not for the first time in my school career) how US-centered my education has been.

Otherwise the film was notable for a few reasons-- it was one of the only films in Portuguese that we watched this semester. And it was one of the few black and white films, which was an artistic decision on the part of Salles and Thomas, I think to hammer home the mystery aspect of the film. Paco, one of the film's main characters, is a young man living in Brazil when his mother dies unexpectedly. Overcome with grief, and drowning in debt due to the economic crisis, he gets involved in a smuggling operation in order to movie back to Portugal, and then Spain, where his mother grew up. Meanwhile, Alex, played by the stunning Fernanda Torres, is a fatalistic woman living in Portugal, having already abandoned Brazil for its lack of opportunity. The two's stories become intertwined by the action of the smugglers' ring that enlists Paco, and the violin filled with jewels he was supposed to deliver.

The decision for black and white, alongside this old-school mystery style filled with murder and betrayal and a hunt for smuggled artifacts-- it all felt like a reference to old noir classics like The Maltese Falcon, though Terra Estrangeira wasn't overcome with melodrama like you might expect out of a film like that. I really appreciated Paco and Alex's relationship through the movie, as it developed at a pace that felt real to me. Coupled with the political intrigue, some stunning cinematography, and very good acting from their leads, this was a very entertaining drama.

La Teta Asustada (2009)

Claudia Llosa's 2009 film La Teta Asustada (which in the movie is translated to "The Milk of Sorrow" but which literally means "The Frightened Breast") looks at the pain shared by women post-terrorism in Peru. The title comes from a condition that Quechuan women believe babies get when their mothers are pregnant or breastfeed while undergoing trauma.

I have to be honest, I loved absolutely everything about this movie. Magaly Solier's performance as Fausta, the young indigenous protagonist who has to deal with the legacy of her mother's rape, is quiet and provocatively curious. Her fear of men is subtle but has a tangible presence throughout the whole movie, as in one scene where Fausta, who goes nowhere without a family member escorting her, storms down the stairs built into the hill leading to her home, her escort having walked too slowly. She walks furiously until she sees a stranger, a man, casually coming their way up the stairs. Fausta is frozen, and looks back to her cousin for help. The annoyance in her cousin's expression quickly melts into compassion, and she catches up so the two can descend the stairs together. No dialogue is necessary for that entire dynamic to be conveyed.

The cinematography is equally quiet, but unique, and colorful. Llosa's style, as well as the work of cinematographer Natasha Brier (and I love that so many women were involved in the making of this movie!) incorporates a lot of wide, empty shots and allows for eye-catching moments. One moment that stood out to me was when Fausta and her employer, who is a fading composer, each come into frame from opposite sides, crawling on their hands and knees on the bathroom tile as they pick up the pearls from her employer's broken necklace. The pearls themselves come to symbolize not only Fausta's mission to earn enough to send her mother's body back to their home village (as she begins trading original songs for pearls, day by day) but they also represent the power dynamic itself between Fausta and her white, upper class employer.

It might seem like this movie would be weighed down, or made too serious due to the graveness of its subject matter, but it isn't. Fausta's story is unique, and captivating, and it's conveyed through beautiful, beautiful film. I...loved this movie. (And the Academy did enough to nominate it for best foreign film in 2009. So it's not just me.)

Post Mortem (2010)

via IMDB

The first half of Post Mortem, dir. Pablo Larraín, honestly left me baffled. The effect was probably compounded by the fact that, watching in a classroom setting, we had to stop at one of the most confusing moments and continue from there days later. But really, for the first 40 minutes or so I swore we were just watching random moments in the life of a sad, serious man during the times of the 1973 coup in Chile. Sad Mario making eggs. Sad Mario being obsessed with his neighbor lady. Sad Mario calling his colleague a whore. I was confused and didn't really understand why I should care about Sad Mario Cornejo.

That is, until I was clued into some missing background knowledge, in between the two halves of our viewings. Namely, that Mario Cornejo, based on a real man, was present for President Salvador Allende's autopsy, in which his death was (allegedly) fraudulently declared a suicide.

Larraín gave a comment in an interview to the effect of "I don't think Mario is as eccentric as people believe he is." Mario's bleak day-to-day is supposed to be normal, but, in a world as absurd a one where Presidents supposedly just "kill themselves" in the middle of hostile takeovers, or bodies pile up in morgues with no explication, everything registers as "eccentric." Or just off.

A baffling movie about a traumatic and baffling time.