As a fan of Hijo de la Novia, I found Luna de Avellaneda to be a complete disappointment. When I voiced my mixed feelings about this film to Argentines, they invariably accused me of not understanding the film because I'm not Argentine. I can argue with them on that since I understood the references they were accusing me of missing (the importance of social clubs in Argentine society, the ill-effects of neoliberal privatizations, etc,etc.) but, at the end of the day, a film needs to speak beyond its intended audience. But this is a problem with the ghettoization of national cinemas - faced with steamrolling Hollywood productions that they can't compete with, local industries attempt to counter-program with self-consciously nationalistic productions that attempt to reach the largest possible domestic audience. It's a lose-lose situation since instead of getting challenging foreign films (at the end of the day, the best antidote to Hollywood) we get films like Luna de Avellaneda (or, even worse, Patoruzito). On the bright side, recent years have witnessed a renaissance in Argentina cinema.
The film itself is structured around a fairly obvious metaphor - the social club clearly is meant to represent Argentina. A once glorious past is faced with a brutal and uncertain future. In this sense, the film taps into the heavy nostalgia that is pervasive in Argentine culture (ie. the tango). That the social club will be privatized is a clear analogy with the brutal effects of neo-liberal policies in the country over the past two decades. The problems with such heavy-handed symbolism is, well, heavy-handed symbolism.
At the end of the day, I don't let Hollywood movies get away with cheap sentimentality, so I certainly won't let foreign films get away with it either.
The film itself is structured around a fairly obvious metaphor - the social club clearly is meant to represent Argentina. A once glorious past is faced with a brutal and uncertain future. In this sense, the film taps into the heavy nostalgia that is pervasive in Argentine culture (ie. the tango). That the social club will be privatized is a clear analogy with the brutal effects of neo-liberal policies in the country over the past two decades. The problems with such heavy-handed symbolism is, well, heavy-handed symbolism.
At the end of the day, I don't let Hollywood movies get away with cheap sentimentality, so I certainly won't let foreign films get away with it either.