LATINBEAT 2011: Critic's Notebook
by Steve Dollar 
Can you hear that lonesome whistle blow? Alejandro does. Rolling into Nashville on a Greyhound bus, he wanders the streets like a dog that's been kicked in the ribs, and shacks up in a cheap motel, nursing an apparent if nameless sorrow with a bottle of Jack Daniels and studying American television, whose endlessly chattering talking heads are only half-comprehensible to him. A lean, lanky Chilean with mutton chops that could serve an Elvis impersonator and a shy, sly way with the ladies, this stranger in a strange land doesn't say much at first. The camera takes the measure of the moment, declining to fill in the obvious blanks in favor of a heightened awareness: the awkwardness of communicating with a desk clerk on the phone in a few snatches of broken English, the swoosh of cars past fast-food joints, the pleasure of stretching out on a bed useful for gathering thoughts.
The movie is called
Country Music, but one of the really appealing things about it is there's hardly any country music in the film. Incidentally, of course: One of the first pieces of advice the itinerant Alejandro Tazo (Pablo Cerda) receives is to visit Tootsie's World Famous Orchid Lounge, the fabled honky-tonk on Lower Broadway that's both Music City's most obvious tourist attraction (besides the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Grand Ole Opry) and gloriously tacky drunk tank. Such discordance could be read as an ironic choice by director Alberto Fuguet, but really it just fits the narrative's slightly dizzy tone. Tazo knows about Johnny Cash, but he's not in Nashville to pay homage. Ambling through the city, taking odd jobs, and often enough parsing the sexual advances of random dudes at the motel and housewives who need help with the plumbing, he's whatever people might want to project on him. Soulful Latin lover or luckless chump? You mean you're not Mexican? "Whatever I say, you're just going to nod," he tells a sympathetic waitress as he explains his recent drama in espa�ol. Dumped by an American girlfriend, it seems that he's come cross-country to see what there is to see.
One of the highlights of this year's
15th annual LatinBeat Film Festival, which runs through August 24 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center,
Country Music changes chords when Tazo moves in with some Nashville slackers. He's the new, curious housemate in a beardo pad that might be the Southern equivalent of those stoner enclaves in Judd Apatow productions, but feels mostly situated in the congenial ennui of a Kentucker Audley ramble. His newfound friends seem to mock Tazo at first. Soon enough, they're pouring him beer and sharing finer details of their sexual habits, bro-ing out with the new hombre even as he sweet-talks their female guests out to the front porch?a stealth mack to the max. That style also describes Fuguet, whose affection for long takes and shots framed at a distance makes for a roomy aesthetic. No rush on a narrative arc. Instead, the film accumulates as a succession of moments that take their poetry from offhanded realism and Cedra's impeccably grounded performance. When Tazo finally picks up a guitar, everything resonates.
Back in 1928, two brothers from Buenos Aires?Adan and Andres Stoessel?also came to America. They hit the road in a Chevrolet with the intention of driving all the way to New York City. The dramatic legacy of that reckless adventure is
The Stoessel Expedition, a filmed document of the trip shot by the brothers as they made their way with cumbersome camera equipment in a vehicle not exactly suited for the rugged path that lay before them. The footage of their successful arrival in the Big Apple, two years and 15 days later, was stolen. A new restoration, screening Sunday with live piano accompaniment, brings much of the rest of the trek back to light. It's a marvelously antique piece of filmmaking, like watching history unfold through a looking glass, as the epic is condensed into a short hour (with intertitles, no less). Watching it, I kept squinting in hopes of spotting Leonard Zelig riding shotgun.
Car trouble abounds in
No Return. Without giving too much away, it's safe to say that the Argentine thriller revolves around the case of a double hit-and-run accident in which the guilty party?the teenaged son of a successful businessman?attempts to elude discovery while another suspect becomes the target of a police investigation and media lynching. The drama, from Argentine director Marcelo Cohan, takes its time escalating tension, evoking some of Michael Haneke's taut psychological vibe as audience sympathies shift between the characters. The great Federico Luppi (
Fase 7,
Cronos) plays the bereaved father of the victim, a cyclist who gets whomped while gathering scattered newspapers in front of their apartment building late one night, as two inconsiderate drivers come barreling down the street. Yet, it's his campaign that spells doom for Federico (Leonardo Sbaraglia), a comedian and ventriloquist whose own family life is destroyed, though he is just guilty enough for the courts to make a case. Meanwhile, an otherwise content middle-class family must harbor a dark secret that will definitely come back to haunt it. The twists and turns could almost be premeditated, but Cohan doesn't always offer up what's anticipated. The "eye for an eye" dynamics that energize the third act swerve rewardingly, as do some clever flourishes in the screenplay.
No Return may leave you feeling awful inside, but you'll be glad it did.
Posted by ahillis at August 12, 2011 1:50 PM
