Cecilia Atán & Valeria Pivato's THE DESERT BRIDE: a little movie that looms quite large

A small film that gets just about everything right, THE DESERT BRIDE (La novia del desierto) takes a sad situation -- that of a 54-year-old Chilean maid who has worked for an Argentine family for over 30 years and is now being let go, due to the sale of the house in which she has lived and labored for most of her life -- and turns it into a near-perfect character study that encompasses everything from class, gender, servitude, religious faith and more -- all accomplished, movie-wise, without beating the drums or even raising the voice.

As written and directed by Cecilia Atán and Valeria Pivato (shown above; Ms Atán is on the left) with some writing collaboration from Martín Salinas, the movie flashes back to our heroine, Teresa, and her work for that family, even as it moves gently forward on a road trip that is halted midway, taking this woman into new and quite uncharted territory.

If the film's leading lady looks familiar, that is because she should. Back in 2013 Paulina García (shown above and poster, top) made a much-deserved international breakthough as Gloria, the leading role in in Sebastián Lelio's eponymously titled film, following this up with a nice supporting turn in Ira Sachs' Little Men. In Desert Bride, Ms García lands another plum role that she makes utterly memorable via her wonderfully expressive face and her ability to give us so much of her character's inner life so quietly and with such subtlety and strength.

In the role of the older man whom she meets on her journey and who changes her route, Argentine character actor and theater director, Claudio Rissi (above), proves equally adept at creating character via small, keen strokes. The two actors work beautifully together, drawing us into their lives and their needs.

The filmmakers seem to me especially good at visual storytelling. Whether in focus or out, long-distance, middle- or close-up (the fine cinematography is by Sergio Armstrong), the landscape, with its vast distances, as well as that of the human face are both captured beautifully.

Via flashback and tiny, present-day events, character is revealed. One of the film's dearest moments comes as Teresa measures the height of the family's son, even as the depth of the relationship between these two comes clear. 

The Desert Bride may be small scale, but its accomplishment in telling its tale of life and change is a big one. And Ms García adds yet another memorable role to her impressive career.

From Strand Releasing and running a mere 77 minutes, the movie opened in New York City and Chicago two weeks ago, and in Los Angeles (at Laemmle theaters) this past Friday, May 11. This Friday. May 18, it hits several other cities, and here in South Florida it will open next Friday, May 25 --  in Miami at the Tower Theater, in Fort Lauderdale at the Savor Cinema, in Hollywood at the Cinema Paradiso, and at the Lake Worth Playhouse. To view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters, click here and then click on Screenings in the task bar midway down.

Sebastián Lelio's A FANTASTIC WOMAN opens -- it's the transgender movie that's a keeper

If the name Sebastián Lelio (the filmmaker is shown below) rings a bell, it may be due to his excellent film of a few years back entitled Gloria, all about an "older" woman who was as thrilling, memorable and alive as any female character we'd seen in a long while. Señor Lelio returns now with a movie that has already garnered a nomination for this year's Best Foreign Language Film, and although my vote, had I one, would go to The Insult, I wouldn't mind at all if A FANTASTIC WOMAN took the prize. Nor would I if the award goes to The Square. All three are top-notch examples of international movie-making at its best. (I have not yet seen the other two nominees: Loveless, On Body and Soul.)

This talented and highly empathetic director and co-writer (with Gonzalo Maza) first allows us to meet and spend just a short time with his two protagonists, Marina and Orlando, plated respectively by Daniela Vega (below, left) and Francisco Reyes (at right with Vega, in photo at bottom), before a sudden event occurs that leaves us (and the film) with only one -- with the life of that one pulled quickly and entirely from under her.

The how and why of all this is due to the fact that Marina is a male transgender on her way to becoming fully (or as fully as possible) female. This was clearly just fine for Orlando, but it is anything but that for his surviving family, including his ex-wife (Aline Küppenheim, shown at right, below) and son (Nicolás Saavedra, at right, two photos below).

Orlando's brother Gabo (Luis Gnecco, below, left) is kinder and more understanding yet still rather ineffectual, so Marina must somehow make her way through a society that rather shows some of our own red-state cretins as not too dissimilar.

These would include the local police (below, with Marina) and even a supposedly sympathetic female investigating officer (Amparo Noguera, at left, with doctor and Marina, two photos below), who seems to have made up her mind as to what happened and why due to her own history of aiding prostitutes and the transgendered rather than to the specifics of this particular case.

Ms Vega's performance as Marina has been rightly lauded. This actress possesses an innate understanding of this kind of situation, while playing her emotions so close to the vest that she could win Molly's Game ten times over. The actress brings such a strong sense of her own inviolability and strength to the film that despite some pretty awful situations, her dignity remains intact. This makes the fact of our rooting for her so strongly rise above some merely feel-good experience.

Leilo doesn't pile on the negativity, either. He rather seems to simply show a society in which this situation is so unusual and frightening to the "normal" crowd that citizens resort to the only kind of behavior they know and are comfortable with. How discomforting it is to Marina (and the viewer) is another matter.

That our girl gets through it all -- using focus, fantasy, determination and more -- makes for a pretty wondrous movie experience. Of all the films about transgenders I've so far seen (and some of these have been quite good), A Fantastic Woman is still the best. I think it will have a long life as both a breakthrough movie and as a fine example of its own special genre.

From Sony Pictures Classics, in Spanish with English subtitles and running 104 minutes, the film, opening in our larger cultural centers last week, hits South Florida this coming Friday, February 9, in the Miami area at the O Cinema Miami Beach, at the Coral Gables Art Cinema, and in Fort Lauderdale at the Classic Gateway 4. Click here then scroll down to see all upcoming playdates, cities and theaters. 

PLANTS: Roberto Doveris explores voyeurism, sex, coming-of-age and the vegetative state -- in an oddball Latin American series at AFA

Despite New York City's being a place in which -- even though Los Angeles/Hollywood claims to be the film capital of the world -- one could always see more international cinema, new or classic, than anywhere else in the USA, because this world-cinema capital regularly misses out on certain perhaps important movies that have garnered acclaim at international festivals or in their home country, Cinema Tropical and NYC's Anthology Film Archives (AFA) are joining forces to help remedy this -- so far as Latin American film are concerned, at least -- with monthly screenings, the last of which (for now) takes place tomorrow, Thursday, December 14, at 7:15 pm at the AFA, in a series, entitled charmingly and lengthily, If You Can Screen It There: Premiering Contemporary Latin American Cinema NYC. 

This final offering in the series is a Chilean movie from first-time filmmaker (who also edited his film and perhaps had a hand in the writing of it, too, but I can find no accreditation for its screenplay), Roberto Doveris, shown at left, entitled PLANTS (Las plantas). In it, a young girl, Florencia (newcomer Violeta Castillo), who appears to be in transition from adolescence to womanhood, undergoes some very bizarre experiences, feelings, ideas and reading material. The latter, a book (or maybe a comic) entitled Las Plantas, is the story of sentient plants who take over their human nurturers at night (or maybe only during the full moon: things are not always too clear here), to which our heroine becomes rather addicted, to the point at which we wonder if she herself is not imagining this story to actually be happening to her. Or not.

Meanwhile, she has the care of her comatose brother Sebastian, a very hot-looking sleeping beauty (Mauricio Vaca, below, right), whom she bathes and cares for and whose diaper she changes, all in a manner than seemed to me pretty unbelievable. (Are comatose patients so easily managed at home, while being left along for hours upon end?). Florencia's other interests range from choreography and dancing with two male friends to combing the internet for possible sexual partners.

The one she finds -- we watch, as do Florencia and her pals, as he jacks off  online and later in person through her glass doorway, above -- proves to be another very hot young man, older and more experienced than our girl, but ready for some nice hard-core action. The actor, Ernesto Meléndez, has a handsome face, a good body and proves very well-endowed in the dick department (hard and soft), so for these couple of scenes alone, the movie may be worth some viewers' time. In any case, Señor Doveris once again suggests that hard-core moments can easily be shown in an otherwise dramatic/comedic film without the world of culture coming to a sudden end.

Florencia also has a mother, above, who is ill (or doing a good job of feigning, as another relative suggests), and our poor girl has clearly been saddled with too much responsibility, though in almost all matters save those sexual, she is quite willing to slough things off much of the time.

Doveris is concerned here, among other things, with coming-of-age, sexuality, the vegetative state (of both plants and humans), and storytelling, together with its ability to entrap us. He even flirts with a touch of animation, as above, along the way. His skills include some visually stunning scenes in which color (bright lavender and pale green), composition and camerawork (by Patricio Alfaro) come together in stunning manner; and his ability to slowly reveal the who, what, why and how of his characters and their connection is a plus, as well.

The big problem is that, beyond all this, he is unable to actually join his themes and ideas into anything more than vaguely coherent. Nothing comes home to roost. We understand what he wants his movie to be about, but that's not the same thing as actually achieving it. Beyond this, the decent acting, and the hot and fun sex scenes, Plants amounts to mostly a big shrug. The movie certainly shows promise, however, so we'll look forward to Doveris' next endeavor.

Meanwhile, this one plays just one time in New York City at AFA tomorrow, December 14, at 7:15pm. Click here for tickets and/or further information.

Sad, funny, bizarre and off-kilter: Jiménez, Scherson and Zambra's take on FAMILY LIFE

Directed by Cristián Jiménez and Alicia Scherson (Ms Scherson is pictured below) and written by Alejandro Zambra, the new Chilean movie, FAMILY LIFE, proves equal parts oddball and fascinating. Never boring for an instant, often provocative and by its finale, leaving you (along with at least one of its characters) in a state of desolation, the movie offers up a highly unusual main character who is utterly irresponsible and sociopathic. And yet the movie itself is surprisingly light and airy, seeming to bubble along on the strength of its odd plot, the genuineness of its characters (all of whom are bizarrely believable), and the relatively strong writing and direction.

The script, from Señor Zambra, is full of sharp dialog that moves the plot along nicely while opening up the subjects -- responsibility, relationships, and that "family life" of the title -- that are of such interest to the filmmakers. Ms Scherson, a few years back, gave us another interesting "family" film, Il futuro, and she's back at it again with this new one -- which on one level is much more mainstream and yet also quietly refuses to pigeon-hole itself too easily. Señor Jiménez is responsible for the also oddball Chilean/Argentine film Bonsai (based on a novel by Zambra), and the resulting collaboration between these three artists turns out to be a productive one indeed.

The plot, on one level, could hardly be simpler: A family -- mom, pop and young daughter (above) -- must suddenly leave Chile for France for a few months, and when a caretaker for their apartment falls through, dad asks a rather distant relative, Martin, to live there and look after the place. The family barely knows this guy but they are willing to give him a chance.

What happens when the family departs and Martin moves in is quite, quite interesting -- utterly expected yet often not so, full of oddity that works because it is based on character rather than contrivance and exposes itself slowly and strangely. The actor who plays the lead -- Jorge Becker -- is just about perfectly cast. He's kind of cute but nothing spectacular, sports a nice full-frontal package, and is able to simultaneously express, while keeping a good part of this hidden, the bizarre personality -- full of fear, anger, hope and general unease -- of someone who has never properly grown up and yet inhabits the body of a man.

Martin cannot accept responsibility, and when a relationship blooms between him and a local young woman, he must resort to huge pretense to carry it off. How all this occurs, along with what results from it, is alternately amusing and disturbing because the object of Martin's affection (Gabriela Arancibia, above, in a lovely, intelligent, guileless performance) proves such a genuine and loving partner.

The movie refuses to allow us to take it too seriously -- we're not talking tragedy here -- and yet it works very well. We root for both leading characters, hoping against hope that Martin can somehow "come around." Sorry, this is nothing like your typical rom-com. The characterizations, however, are strong enough to surmount all else. You may not like what you are left with as Family Life closes, but you will certainly not be able to discount it out of hand.

From Monument Releasing and Cinema Tropical and running just 80 minutes, Family Life opens this Friday, June 9, for a one-week run in Chicago at the Gene Siskel Film Center, with openings in San Diego at the Digital Gym on Friday, June 23; at the Tower Theater here in Miami on Friday July 21; and at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco on Friday, July 28, followed by other U.S. cities. The film will be available on TVOD come August 1, and via Amazon Prime on September 1. So, really, you've no excuse to miss this one! 

Pablo Larraín's JACKIE--interesting but not up to the level of his Neruda--opens nationwide

Natalie Portman certainly gives herself over to the fraught and fragile emotional state of the semi-heroine character she plays in JACKIE, the second of the fantasia-type biopics that director Pablo Larraín has given us within the space of a couple of weeks (his other is Neruda, a tale of Chilean poet/politician Pablo Neruda). Ms Portman, Señor Larraín and screenwriter Noah Oppenheim (shown below) have conspired to give us an imagined time in the life of the legendary Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis that takes place during an interview with a journalist some time after the assassination of her husband, President John F. Kennedy, who was at her side when he was killed in Dallas in November of 1963.

Fantasia this may be -- much of what we see indeed happened, but much also has been "imagined" in terms of the feelings and even the verbiage we hear from the various players in the game of politics, personalities and history that is served up here -- but it is most definitely a warts-and-all fantasia, for in Jackie the movie, Jackie the woman comes off as quite the controlling and entitled player in the charade served up here. Even so, the movie manages to includes a few highly emotional and compelling scenes -- a blood-splattered death tends to serve this purpose well -- along with a few choice and cynical moments of high humor. ("I don't smoke," our Jackie tells that journalist, after we -- and he -- have seen her puffing away on countless cigarettes.)

Jackie controls what is "off" and "on" the record, all right, just as she appears to do in her handling of plans for the funeral cortege for the dead President. We get reams of specifics here in Mr. Oppenheim's screenplay, but most of them turn out to be rather generic, showing or telling things we already know -- if we're old enough to have been around at the time of this national "loss." (That's Peter Sarsgaard, above, an interesting choice to play Bobby Kennedy.)

We're present at the swearing in of Lyndon Johnson (another good choice in John Carroll Lynch, center, right, above, with the great Beth Grant, center left, doing honors as Lady Bird). Among the many flashbacks are those with the local priest (a fine John Hurt) who counsels our heroine with, if not the usual cliches, still a bunch of religious/philosophical musings that will not exactly blow your mind.

We see that famous "White House tour" Jackie took us on via television back in the day (above), and we meet some of her entourage (in particular the very good, as ever, Greta Gerwig). And of course the assassination itself, which we come back to a time or two, to add some pizzazz to the proceedings.

There are lots of outfit changes, too -- the movie is a kind of fashion show of its day -- showing off Ms Portman to fine visual effect (the actress is a good deal more beautiful even than the original Jackie.)

It would appear to be the "interior" life of our heroine that Oppenheim, Larraín and Portman are going after, and they achieve this only to some extent. We're certainly there with Jackie as she flails then focuses, reaches out then pushes away. But all the specifics finally seem to be underscoring the obvious instead of revealing much that is new.

This is never more obvious than in the movie's resolutely pushing of the famous "Camelot" comparison -- which surfaces over and over and then ends the film. The movie is clear about the history/mythmaking goal of this Camelot nonsense. But so what? Unfortunately, it has simply added to that nonsense.

Ms Portman is as good as she is allowed to be. Thank god Larraín is a more subtle director than Darren Aronofsky, who pulled out all the stops and then invented a couple of new ones for Black Swan. Of course that won Portman her Oscar. I suspect that Jackie will prove a little too measured and even a tad too negative to garner Portman a second award. In terms of Larraín's work, this movie does not come up to the level of his Neruda, perhaps because of how deeply and well this Chilean director knows and understands that subject and personage. With Jackie, he seems to be relying more on conventional history, "imagined" though it may be.

In any case, the movie -- from Fox Searchlight and running 100 minutes -- after premiering in New York and Los Angeles a week or so back, opens across the country today, Wednesday, December 21. Here in South Florida you can find it in nearly one dozen theaters. Elsewhere? Sure. Simply click here and, if your local theaters don't pop right up, enter your zip code to find the nearest location.

Poet, politico, man and myth: Pablo Larraín's multi-faceted biopic/fantasy, NERUDA

Older Americans of a progressive slant will be familiar with the Nobel-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, I suspect. But unless they are very familiar with the man's history, much of NERUDA, a new film from Chilean director Pablo Larraín, whose new film Jackie is also currently playing (and will be reviewed here next week), may strike them as surprising and bizarre. That's just fine, however, because -- from what TrustMovies can gather about Larraín's film -- this is indeed a kind of fantasia of what-if? and what-then?

The movie builds off facts, all right -- what we may already know about Neruda's life and art -- and what the screenwriter, Guillermo Calderón (of The Club), does in his very nearly completely invented story, is to wrap it all around a real time in Neruda's life (the 1940s) when he had to go on the run from the anti-Communist Chilean authorities who were (as usual and as a few decades later: remember Pinochet?) in the pocket of their North America "teachers." In filming Calderón's screenplay, Señor Larraín, pictured at right, has given us his most poetic movie so far.

Neruda may move slowly but the tale it spins is strange and gorgeous, witty and ironic, buoyant and sad. In the leading role is an actor who looks remarkably like Neruda himself (at least in some of the extant photos we can access, as the one below), Luis Gnecco (shown at left). Gnecco captures the artist, the politician, and the man equally well, succeeding in making us understand how Neruda was able to concoct the myth that surrounded him via the help of both his friends/fans and even more so with the help of his enemies.

After all, when the right wing calls you a traitor to your country, isn't it rather a badge of honor? Pablo was evidently a man of very healthy appetites, many of which are shown us throughout the movie. And yet it is hard not to love him for his excesses, as much as for his talent and political savvy. But Señor Gnecco shares screen time with a co-star much better known in America and internationally, Gael García Bernal (below), who plays a fictional character named Óscar Peluchonneau, a full-of-himself policeman who is given the job of finding and arresting (or maybe even killing) Neruda.

Óscar also narrates the film, and a more unreliable narrator would be hard to come by. But this is part of what makes the movie so often such fun. The policeman's idea of life and art and his place in it all is far afield from any reality we can see, and as the film marches forward, Óscar's ideas grow funnier but also sadder, even a bit poignant.

Mercedes Morán, a beautiful actress with wonderful access to emotional depths (shown above), plays Neruda's woman, and she's a pleasure to watch in all her scenes. Also in the cast is Larraín regular, Alfredo Castro, in a role small enough that you might miss that notable face.

The movie plays with politics and art, reality and fantasy, storytelling and the "heroic protagonist" (this is the role our Óscar dearly wants to assume) -- all to very good effect. It is beautiful to look at, as well, never more so than in the film's final scenes in the snowy Andes mountains where predator and prey will finally meet. Sort of.

Along the way we get snippets of Neruda's poetry, too, and if I have not made if clear that more than a passing interest in this poet is probably a requirement of the film, then let me do that now. I suspect that Chileans probably flocked to the film in a similar way that Americans will do with Jackie, a north-of-the-border mythmaker in her own way.

Meanwhile, Neruda -- from The Orchard and Participant Media, running 107 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles -- opens tomorrow, Friday, December 16, in New York City at the IFC Center and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal, and in Toronto at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. In the weeks to come it will hit a number of other cities, too. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates.