April 11th – 23rd, 2012
BAFICI IS HERE! I had read something about it probably a
month ago, but forgot about it until a classmate mentioned something about it.
BAFICI (Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente) is the
international film festival in Buenos Aires that runs for a whopping 11 days
that are jam packed with indie flicks from all over the world from morning to
night. A quick glance on the website (http://www.bafici.org.ar)
shows you the sheer quantity of films there were. Not only that, but there were
so many types of movies, too. Oh and each movie only cost $13 pesos to get it.
So for the price of one regular movie, I saw 3.
I knew I wanted to go to several movies, but I didn’t know
which ones. And really there was no way other than to pick based on title, the
brief summary and where it was from. Also, the movies had to fit with my
schedule, which limited me to evenings. While there were summaries and trailers
for each movie, it was still impossible to really choose and give each movie a
fair chance. But I decided on El espacio
entre los dos “The space between us” (Argentina), Cocaine Cowboys 2: Hustlin with the Godmother (US) and Verano “Summer” (Argentina).
El espacio entre
los dos
A movie from Córdoba, this flick shows the course of events of
just one evening/morning of 3 friends who have their own rock band. The drummer
and the lead singer are of course dating, madly in love and always willing to
make out in front of the poor guitarist that is secretly in love with their
crooning front woman, despite being best friends with said boyfriend. While
some scenes were incredibly drawn out and a bit uncomfortable (3+ minutes of
the bathroom/mirror breakdown and 3+ minutes of just smoking a cigarette on the
roof…) once the threesome left the party, things got less awkward and more heartfelt.
While there was limited dialogue, one could deduce that based on the title, it
wasn’t necessarily about words, but rather spaces. During a scene where the
friends raid the playground and have a nostalgic sharing of old memories, we
learn that the unrequited love was once requited back in the playground days.
But obviously a “space” came between them when he moved away and years later a
new boyfriend had taken his place. But his love remained. At times, the film
seemed like a really long music video because of the way the shots were filmed
and the overall film of the movie. At first, I was a little put off by some of
the scenes that in my opinion, were just cinematically off. But when I started
to think about it more, I really liked it because it was so human. It didn’t
matter that it focused on some seniors in high school in Córdoba, because really
at the heart of it, this is, in one way or another, everybody’s story—just told
a little differently.
Cocaine Cowboys 2:
Hustlin with the Godmother
While the title may seem to lend less
credibility to the documentary, it definitely captures how ridiculous the
subject matter is. The previous film focuses upon the cocaine cowboy years in
the late 20th century, specifically in Miami, whereas this version centers
on Charles Cosby and his involvement with Griselda Blanco, the baddest b**** in
history, possibly. While Cosby was just your average crack dealer in the
Oakland area, his life took a turn for the crazier when he became the
confidant, business partner and lover of Griselda after seeing her incredible
story on the news after her arrest. She was dubbed the queen of cocaine, as she
was responsible for the smuggling of 3000 TONS of coke into the US from Colombia
over the course of 20 years, starting in the 1970s in NYC. She was said to have
been responsible for the murders of over 200 people, in addition to all the
rampant violence she stirred up in any city she had business in. Nobody could
defeat her nor her my-way-or-the-highway tactics. She even made Pablo Escobar look like a wuss. Despite the hundreds who conspired against her, and the trials that should have come to pass, she was never indicted after her original sentence. She is alive and well somewhere in Colombia. YOU'VE GOTTA SEE THIS MOVIE!!!!!!
Verano
Despite the
wistful title that makes everybody long for those restless days of freedom and
beauty, the film was a bit strange, even for my tastes…and that’s saying something. Essentially, it centers on the stories of several random people near the
Mendoza area, as well a few in the Santiago area. All of them have stories the
audience is waiting to hear more about. But just when you think you’re going to
learn more about that woman traveling alone who’s pregnant, or the couple
vacationing trying to get pregnant, more and more characters and stories are
introduced to the point where you can hardly keep them straight. It doesn’t
help that most of the women look exactly alike, either. Why is that man feeding
ham to a dog in the woods? Are those Chileans ever going to get a new vacuum?
Will the bus ever come and pick up the woman trying to kiss the motorcyclist?
Does the mother with the fever get better or worse? The whole movie felt like a
teaser. But once again, maybe it was trying to reflect the way life is. The
fact that every day we encounter so many random people and only know an
infinitesimal portion of their life story, yet are never hungry for more
because we just don’t have time to ask everybody about their lives when we’re
grocery shopping. Maybe this film is meant to inspire those moments, or have
the audience consider what clip of their life do others see and what does it
represent? One thing I did find interesting was that in 3 instances, the movie
featured only screenshots, while punctuated by a moving soundtrack of what the
scene would sound like were it actually happening. It was like a living photo
montage. It kind of made me want to try out this medium. So despite how strange
and incomplete it felt at times, it at least inspired these thoughts.
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