Natalia Almada's EVERYTHING ELSE: the cost of solitude and loneliness in Mexico City

What a quiet but engulfing little gem of a film is EVERYTHING ELSE, the new movie from Mexico by writer/director Natalia Almada (shown below). It is not, however, for action aficionados. Not only is there practically no action at all -- our poor heroine cannot even gather the courage to jump into a swimming pool along with the rest of her peers -- even the camera here does not move. From scene to scene, whatever new view it must take in, the camera eye remains utterly stationary throughout.

The cinematographer, Lorenzo Hagerman, keeps his shots clean and pristine, even when the subject matter is often dark and dreary. And when a film boasts a leading actress whose face possesses such character -- longing, suspicion, fear, hope and all the rest -- as does that of Adriana Barraza (shown below and further below), what you have to look at will never, it seems,  tire you in the least. Ms Barraza has been utterly terrific in supporting roles in movie after movie -- from Amores Perros and Babel to Henry Poole Is Here, Rage, Drag Me to Hell and especially Cake -- but what a pleasure it is to see her in a leading role, using that marvelous face with such command & subtlety.

Ms Barraza is on screen for most of the movie, with only occasional reaction shots and a bit of dialog given to subsidiary characters. The actress plays a 60-something-year-old government worker, Doña Flor, whose job -- at least it would seem so -- is to prevent citizens (such as the woman shown below) who need some kind of government authorization from actually getting that authorization. (In its own way, the film is quite an indictment of bureaucracy.) Such a stickler Flor is for by-the-letter rules, she uses anything from the color of the ink to the fact that a man's signature is not exactly the same two times in a row (of course: no signature ever is, but she's in charge, so we'll have to let that pass).

The fellow with the incorrect signatures also happens to look and act like an uber-entitled wealthy man, so perhaps something else is going on here, too. Our heroine also keeps a kind of record of violent incidents against women, which we hear reported with regularity via radio and TV over the course of the film.

Doña Flor also lives alone with her cat, and so may also qualify as one of those lonely cat ladies we often hear about. She also swims daily and showers with the other women, though without ever really connecting in any way with anyone. Every scene, every thing in the film is given -- intentionally, I believe -- the same weight, which is certainly one interesting way to define and show us an empty life.

As the movie goes along, after the loss of her only companion, small breaks in Doña Flor's facade begin to appear. And then, slowly, while at work she seems to perhaps listen more closely to the people who appear in front of her for help. She even -- shock! -- begins to bend those rules just a little.

Her journey is a slow and very small one, and yet, thanks to the minute detail that the filmmaker, her star and the supporting cast provide, this journey should prove a vital and important one for viewers looking for character and depth in place of action and special effects. The effects here are of the human and humane variety.

The movie this one most reminded me of is that great but little-seen-over-here Spanish film Le Soledad (Solitary Fragments is its English-language title) by Jaime Rosales, which won Spain's Goya award for Best Film back in 2007. It's been more than a decade since I've seen another Spanish language movie as quiet, austere, elegant and character-driven as that one. So if you want to enter the world of a sad and lonely woman who may still have some possibilities to explore, Everything Else is that opportunity. Snatch it.

From Cinema Tropical, in Spanish with English subtitles and running 98 minutes, the movie opens tomorrow, Friday, May 4, in New York City at the Cinema Village. Elsewhere? I certainly hope so, and if and when I find out where and when, I'll post it here. 

Prepare to feel, and deeply, as Ken Loach and Paul Laverty's I, DANIEL BLAKE hits theaters

So real you can practically taste, smell and breathe in the anger that will rise from your stomach through your chest and into your throat as you experience I, DANIEL BLAKE, the new and (as usual) quiet provocation from director Ken Loach and screenwriter Paul Laverty, this is a movie that will break your heart without leaving your brain in any way undernourished.

In dealing with the story of one man trying his best to navigate the British health and unemployment systems, Loach (pictured at right) and Laverty (below, left) have contributed their own gift to this year's trilogy of citizens-against-the-system movies -- beginning with Mexico's alarming Monster With a Thousand Heads, continuing with the Chinese-Canadian Old Stone, and now this: the best of the lot so far. In his fine screenplay, Laverty places life and truth above melodrama and contrivance, while

Loach directs with his usual flair for the kind of in-the-moment/ dead-on-believable behavior that thrusts us headlong into things.
(There is one exception: Daniel's discovery of his lady friend Katie's new employment, which smacks of the sort of coincidence found regularly on Downton Abbey. Yet, so hooked are you likely to be at this point in the film's unfurling that the moment ought not be a deal-breaker.) Mr. Loach has long given us character-driven movies that are also filled with event. This is the case here, as well, and Daniel Blake is certainly among the great character "everymen" to grace the modern film canon.

Daniel (a so-real-it-hurts performance by Dave Johns, shown below, right and on poster top) is a kind, decent, even talented man just entering his senior years, who has been felled by a heart attack and cannot go back to work until his is deemed "better." But thanks to a stupid glitch in the bureaucracy, he is meanwhile being denied the benefits he needs to live on while he heals.

In a society where the individual counted for anything, this kind of glitch would be quickly taken care of. But not in Britain. Not today. So our hero is put back and forth through the proverbial mill until he and we are ready to crack. To their credit, Loach and Laverty make villains of the bureaucracy and the way it works rather than the bureaucrats themselves - a few of whom even rise to the occasion and actually do something helpful. But the way the system has been set up is designed to crush both the body and the spirit -- and goddamned if it doesn't do that job just splendidly.

At the unemployment office (or whatever the Brits call this sort of thing), Daniel meets Katie (a sad, spunky and commanding performance from Hayley Squires, above, right), the mother of two young kids, both of whom are adorable and one of whom clearly has a touch of maybe Aspergers. As Katie, too, is given the run-around, Daniel rises to her defense, and though they are both asked to leave, a bond has formed.

The movie explores this bond, while we watch Daniel try to do everything the system asks of him, to little avail. We meet his charming neighbors (who are themselves helpful), watch him as he takes a class in Preparing Your CV, pad along as he does the stupid and unnecessary job search (for which, even if hired, he is not allowed to accept),

And on it all goes. It would be ceaseless woe, not only for Daniel but for us viewers, were not the movie so full of life and humor and absolute importance. At any point along the way, all it would take would be one single person who wields even a modicum of power to have said, "Oh, something is wrong here." And then to simply right that wrong. But nobody does. And the one woman who actually tries to do something is then disciplined for her effort.

I, Daniel Blake is simultaneously and consistently heartbreaking and wonderful -- an unusual combination, to say the least. The film is certainly one of this year's best, and this holiday-time opening will be, for progressive-minded film-goers out there, the most wonderful kind of Christmas/Chanukah present imaginable.

From Sundance Selects/IFC Films and running 100 minutes, the movie opens today, Friday, December 23, in New York City at the IFC Center and the Lincoln Plaza Cinema, and in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal. Elsewhere. To be sure, in the weeks to come. I don't have cities and dates just yet, but you can periodically click here and then click on the bright green link WATCH NOW to lean if the film is playing anywhere near you.