Maybe, if you are old enough and you were able to be in Paris in the fifties and sixties and lived the life after midnight in the Left Bank quartiers of St. Germain and St. Michel, you will appreciate this film of a night in Buenos Aires in Our Times. Circa this year, maybe last year, certainly next year.
If you can remember the all night bar called La Pergola, where two films mentioned below were shot with hand-held cameras, you will love this new Argentine film.
Probably the major difference you will notice: The streets are less crowded than they were in the fifties and sixties of the last century in Paris and London, too. And many twentysomething rent boys started their fairly short hauls toward all kinds of stardom in Paris and London back then, making the right connections in the film business, in the nightclub business, in the fashion business all with midnight trysts. Mostly in the street. That is where the talent was.
No such luck seems in store for the kids in this Argentine night.
If you were young enough to have seen "Breathless" when it came out, and "Les Tricheurs," a few short years before, or to have lived this era yourself, you will love this pitiless new film that spares no one. You will remember the all night La Pergola party at Metro Mabillon where most of both of the films were shot..... at night, during working hours, this was the new wave of street cinema.
Print out the cast lists of those two films. It is a who's who of current French, even international cinema. I hope the fine cast of this Argentine film has such luck, but i doubt it. It is too old a subject.
Just about the only difference between the mood of the Old Paris street and the recent nights in Buenos Aires in this film and in the Paris Left Bank before the invention of the Marais Gay Quarter in the eighties, which killed the Left Bank to a slow death, is the lack of hordes of young people out after midnight.
Having lived that for several years, getting off my job at two a.m. and heading to the Left Bank, I can assure you that the mood, the lives, the people are the same except for the numbers. I guess Time Really Can Stand Still.
There are not really any crowds in this film. There is more loneliness and alienation in it than there was in Paris back then, maybe a lot more heart ache, too. And of course, i am a lot older, like everyone.
But if you love the night, wherever you are, do not miss this Brilliant film.
If you can remember the all night bar called La Pergola, where two films mentioned below were shot with hand-held cameras, you will love this new Argentine film.
Probably the major difference you will notice: The streets are less crowded than they were in the fifties and sixties of the last century in Paris and London, too. And many twentysomething rent boys started their fairly short hauls toward all kinds of stardom in Paris and London back then, making the right connections in the film business, in the nightclub business, in the fashion business all with midnight trysts. Mostly in the street. That is where the talent was.
No such luck seems in store for the kids in this Argentine night.
If you were young enough to have seen "Breathless" when it came out, and "Les Tricheurs," a few short years before, or to have lived this era yourself, you will love this pitiless new film that spares no one. You will remember the all night La Pergola party at Metro Mabillon where most of both of the films were shot..... at night, during working hours, this was the new wave of street cinema.
Print out the cast lists of those two films. It is a who's who of current French, even international cinema. I hope the fine cast of this Argentine film has such luck, but i doubt it. It is too old a subject.
Just about the only difference between the mood of the Old Paris street and the recent nights in Buenos Aires in this film and in the Paris Left Bank before the invention of the Marais Gay Quarter in the eighties, which killed the Left Bank to a slow death, is the lack of hordes of young people out after midnight.
Having lived that for several years, getting off my job at two a.m. and heading to the Left Bank, I can assure you that the mood, the lives, the people are the same except for the numbers. I guess Time Really Can Stand Still.
There are not really any crowds in this film. There is more loneliness and alienation in it than there was in Paris back then, maybe a lot more heart ache, too. And of course, i am a lot older, like everyone.
But if you love the night, wherever you are, do not miss this Brilliant film.