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.

A Venezuelan head trip: Mariana Rondón's disturbing BAD HAIR opens at Film Forum

It's being sold as a "touching, charming, humorous" movie, and while BAD HAIR (Pelo Malo) -- the new Venezuelan film from writer/director Mariana Rondón -- at times exhibits all three of these adjectives, it is much more of an unsettling and disturbing experience than anything in the feel-good realm. It is also very believable and rich in the specifics of a Latin American culture we haven't seen much on film. The movie certainly does not seem like most of the Mexican, Argentine or Brazilian films we're viewed so far, and its story (of a barely-working-class mother of two, the elder child of which appears, even at age nine and much to his mother's consternation, to be a budding homosexual) is anything but the stuff of cutesy, feel-good fantasy.

Ms Rondón, shown near right (with her producer and very fine film editor, Marité Ugas), has given us a movie that is a near-constant and often hurtful, vicious tug-of-war between mother, Marta (Samantha Castilllo, below, right), and son, known simply as Junior (Samuel Lange, on poster above, and below, left), and the very-near incredible performan-ces she's wrenched from these two alone make the movie worth seeing. The family's life in the Caracas projects is captured with alternating sorrow and humor, as is the only other character of real importance to the film: the son's grandmother, who does not mind -- even seems to encourage -- the "gay" direction in which he is headed and keeps making noises about adopting him from mom, in return for which she'll give Marta some much needed money.

The assorted supporting characters -- from the good-looking fellow who runs a sundries stand nearby (and on whom Junior has a crush) to his classmate, whose mom does babysitting (when she's able to be paid, that is) -- help make the movie interesting and fast-paced, but the bulk of the plot and its tension is between mother and son.

The attitudes here, mom's to that of the physician she consults on behalf of her son, may be backward and a bit shocking, yet they do not seem anything but real and part of this particular Latino culture of poverty and lack of education that simply must be dealt with in some fashion. And though mom has all the power and may be abusing it, Junior often manages to give as good he gets. From mom's standpoint, after all, she is saving her sonny boy from a fate worse than death.

Gay viewers and their close friends will watch in horror, as Junior is forced into making choices that go against everything he feels and cares for (except his mom, whom he loves above all). And mom herself cannot be seen as a villain, even though she makes all the wrong choices for her son. The scene in which she coerces him to watch her copulating with the man who may give her back the job she so desperately needs (clearly in hopes that something heterosexual will rub off on the kid) is only one of the god-awful things that Marta does.

The major mother/son struggle involves Junior's hair, beautiful and curly, which he hates and wants to straighten out (his grandmother -- Nelly Ramos, below, right -- has managed to make about half of it that way in the scene above). Most viewers will agree that Junior is gorgeous with his own curly hair, and that his self-image could use some improvement. In the film's finale, that hair comes at last into its own, though perhaps not in quite the way we or Junior might expect.

So, sure, there is some humor and charm here, along the way. But Bad Hair did not win its many festival awards by being just another cute early-coming-of-age movie with a gay theme. Marketing may decree that the film be pitched as something lighter than it is, but I can't believe that Ms Rondón does not see her movie as a serious, as well as entertaining, look at a backward cultural practice. It's a memorable look, too. In  the history of cinema, you're unlikely to find many child performances as deep and desperate as that of young Master Lange's.

The movie, from Cinema Tropical and FIGa Films, opens this Wednes-day in New York City at Film Forum. Elsewhere? Yes: The film opens Dec. 5 in Miami, Chicago, and Boston; Dec. 10 in Santa Barbara; Dec. 12 in Houston. It will hit Vancouver in January. Maybe, once word-of-mouth begins, the film will garner even more openings around the country. 

DVDebut/streaming tip: Ana Guevara and Leticia Jorge's family "coming-of-ager," TANTA AGUA

On the Film Movement site's page that features TANTA AGUA (FM is the company that's distributing the movie here in the USA) are posted two member reviews. One states that, after watching the film, the viewer wanted to see a mindless Hollywood movie; the other compares the experience to the over-used critique of "watching paint dry." TrustMovies admits that Tanta Agua unveils slowly and rather carefully. This is not an action movie. As to watching paint dry, if at the end of that drying period -- and let's, for time constraint's sake, say it is painted in acrylic rather than oil -- you find yourself gazing at a painting by Caravaggio or Botticelli, are you going to complain? I didn't think so.

I should also mention, because I think this is important (and if the following is a sexist remark, so be it), that both comments on the FM site were posted by men. So many men, it seems, have so little interest in the life and mind and experience of women and girls, that it is little wonder that a movie that centers on this would bore them. Too bad, because Tanta Agua (the title, and it's a fine and appropriate one, means "so much water") is full of the specificity of the life and experience of a teen-age girl in that absolutely in-between time when she is too old to be a child but too young to be able to handle things like love and lust for the opposite sex in anything approaching an adult manner. Add to this the need to wear braces on the teeth, and you have a particularly difficult time.

The filmmakers here are both women -- Ana Guevara and Leticia Jorge, shown above, with (I believe) Ms Jorge on the left -- and they are alert to the nuances of teen life, family life, sibling love and anger, and the bonding of young girls (until a boy comes between them) that the movie, for all its slow pace, is never in the least boring for anyone who enjoys watching life unfurl. You simply have to be willing to give the film time to blossom. Which it definitely does. 

A divorced or separated father (the chubby/funny/sad Néstor Guzzini, above, right) takes his older daughter (Malú Chouza, at left) and younger son (Joaquín Castiglioni) on vacation to a spa resort, at which, unfortunately, they are greeted with non-stop rain. They make the best of things for awhile, and slowly the situation begins to change. The family "dance" of enforced togetherness has its ups and down, but the son meets a kid his own age, the daughter notices (and is noticed by) a good-looking young fellow, and Dad even grows involved with a hot, blond woman. Small events occur that make a difference and begin to build, particularly for our teenage heroine in her move toward adulthood.

At the finale, the family is still on vacation but -- whoa! -- how much has really gone on here. There is not a false moment in the whole movie; the performances from everyone are as good as can be (with Ms Chouza's and Señor Guzzini's particularly fine); the dialog and screenplay offer just enough to keep us on track without undue exposition (how the food packed by the absent mother is handled speaks volumes); and the filmmakers place their camera unobtrusively but pointedly.

Tanta Agua is a lovely first full-length film, so I hope we'll hear more from Guevara and Jorge, together or individually. The movie -- running 102 minutes -- hits the streets on DVD from Film Movement this Tuesday, May 13, and, as usual with this company's titles, should appear very soon on Netflix Streaming, Amazon Instant Video and on the company's own streaming site.  

As always with the movies from FM, viewers get an accompanying short, which is often as good as the film itself. (But you have to rent -- or maybe even purchase -- the DVD, rather than stream the movie, to see it.) The short featured with Tanta Agua is titled Home Road Movies by Robert Bradbrook, and it's an absolutely dear concoction, assembled as a kind of collage of animation, photos, and one well-known actor (Bill Paterson) who plays the father of a family who is in thrall to an automobile. The cumulative effect here is one of steadfast British reserve and utter poig-nancy. This brief-but-award-winning gem from 2002 is in a class by itself.

Marcel Rasquin's HERMANO: brotherhood, futbol, life & death in one swell melodrama

If the opening of HERMANO -- the sound of a baby crying and what follows -- doesn't grab you immediately, you probably shouldn't bother with this exceptionally skilled piece of Latin American melodrama, the first full-length narrative from young Venezuelan filmmaker Marcel Rasquin. This beginning is at once a huge cliche, but one that is filmed with such immediacy and acted with such feeling and specificity that -- boom -- you're hooked.

The award-winning Señor Rasquin, shown at left, has been able in this sturdy little movie to give us life -- in all its complicated beauty and terror -- in the barrios of Venezuela. He shows us (with very little "telling") via his complicated, intertwined plot, how family, sport, drugs and crime are inextricably connected, to the point where, it seems, you can't choose one or two of these without the rest tagging along.

Likewise the feelings the movie engenders, both in its characters and us viewers. These are complicated, too, never more so than in a series of ugly incidents, as one bad thing leads to the next and the next and finally to a kind of mini-holocaust that is simply horrific and all too believable. Drugs, murder, betrayal; help, love, sacrifice -- they're all on display here, often even within the same person at various times.

The story is that of two brothers -- related by chance, love and time rather than by blood -- and their mother: a wonderful family of the kind that we should all be lucky enough to experience.

Both brothers love futbol above all else (except family): Julio, the old, bigger and brawnier (gorgeous newcomer Eliú Armas, above, right) is a stronger but less talented player than the younger Daniel (Fernando Moreno, above, left), but both play together so well that Daniel insists that their duo not be broken up -- even when he is recruited by the Caracas Futbol Club.

Events are important to this movie, but they never trump character-- which, in everyone we see, including the drug lord, is complicated. (Even he proves to have some decency, along with his own understanding of familial responsibility.)

The finale, when it arrives is as surprising, moving and -- yes -- as complicated as all that has come before. Rasquin has captured life here, using melodrama as his genre, and in doing so has made a simply splendid little movie.

Hermano, from Music Box Films and running 97 minutes, opens today, all across the country. Click here and then click on THEATERS (just below the film's title) to see all currently scheduled playdates with cities and theaters.

MUNDO ALAS--performing arts & the handicapped--opens in hope of Oscar bid

Prepare to be greatly moved, probably in spite of your-self. Here's a documentary involving a large group of handicapped performing artists joining together to tour their country -- Argentina -- and perhaps open their countrymen's minds to... change, among other things.  MUNDO ALAS, which I believe translates Winged World, is the name of their tour -- and of the documentary about it and them.  Filmed over time by three directors, chief among them León Gieco (shown, center, below), Argentina's most important folk-rock singer/songwriter, whose idea the tour was, the movie was also directed by Fernando Molnar (below, left) and Sebastián Schindel (below, right), both of whom have more film-making experience than Gieco (though the latter, with his performing artists, provides the heart of the movie).

Distributed by the appropriately named Outsider Pictures, the film pulls us into the lives of these "others" by introducing them, their situation and their skills individually, before uniting them for their tour, via that big pink bus (shown on the poster, top), through the Argentine provinces. These are -- to use that Biblical phrase -- the blind, the halt, the withered and more: Alejandro, a young man with motor problems who plays the guitar, and Carina a blind young woman who sings. Another young man, Demián (below), wheel-

chair-bound, shows us how he negotiates stairs, drives his car, and finally partners a gorgeous ballet dancer while still in his chair.

A group of Down Syndrome men and women dance the tango, while Francisco, a paraplegic who is surely, in ways simply physical, the most needy of them all, plays his harmonica extraordinarily well.  "The only thing I need is for you not to treat me as a handicapped person but as a musician," comes the statement that hovers over the entire film. This will seems difficult initially but becomes easier as the documentary progresses.

The filmmakers give us first the idea of the film, allowing us to get used to it slowly via each individual that we meet. We see his or her home and/or workplace (yes, some of these people hold down good jobs), then we see a portion of their music or dance, and finally their tour begins -- during which we come to know them and their situations much better -- all in tiny slices offering up choice moments.  For instance? The joy of discovering their first hotel, having breakfast, planning and rehearsing, or Francisco -- as he seems to be trying to play soccer (yes: that's a jolting moment).

If you're anything like me, you'l find your eyes welling up often and at odd times.  Yet the filmmakers don't push anything and, god knows, these performers/subjects wouldn't be caught dead asking for your sympathy. Emotional overflow is inevitable, I suppose, when you watch fellow human beings -- up against lives that would send most of us into permanent, depressive tailspins -- struggling hard and using everything they possess. 

As the film movies along, doors seem to open in your mind: Demián will have you looking a wheelchairs rather differently, and Francisco's ode to Beto, his manager, is a love song, the likes of which you've never heard. Love comes up now and again, and one of the more interesting portions has Mr. Gieco explaining to Demián how that whole concept might work.

"Once the movie is released, we will get many job offers," suggests one of our performers, and sure enough, later on in the film, the group meets with management at EMI.  What transpires is fascinating but not unexpected. It's not so much that these people can sing or dance or play instruments (which they do, and well) but what this means to them.  And finally to us.  The film closes with a concert in Buenos Aires' enormous Luna Park, and, as the credits roll, we learn what some of the members of the group are currently doing. (One of them is involved in a wedding.)  

It's difficult to imagine that our Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences won't shortlist Mundo Alas, which opens in New York City on Friday, August 6, at AMC's Empire 25 and the following week, August 13, in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Sunset 5.  

Important note: Co-director and musician León Gieco will perform songs from “Mundo Alas” in-person at NYC’s AMC Empire 42nd St Theater August 6, 7 & 8th.  His live concert begins at 7:45 PM, with the screening following at 8:15 PM. Advance tickets can be purchased at the theater.