User Reviews

As the movie is called STRANGE, one could expect to take some queer or at least funny looks at whatever. Strange enough, the movie feeds no expectation at all. We see an unemployed surgeon in Argentina who deliberately hangs around killing time in a bar, taking a walk or just staring in the air. The director forces us to pass through this bore in almost realtime, and it is not very funny. His relations to his sister, her little sons and a pregnant young woman he meets show us that the main character is medically speaking well, he is not depressed, but completely self-sufficient in his emptiness. Various scenes of the sort "Did you say something?" - "No." caused a mild laughter in the audience (the Guadalajara film festival). The audience could not understand this lack of interest in communication, and I wonder if anyone can. Don't get me wrong - nothing indicates a critical attitude to Argentina's actual economical and social crisis, perhaps one could detect a kind of shallow existencialism, especially in the "beautiful" photographic shots which underline the bore - grass moving in the wind and so on. Maybe I don't get it, maybe this is exactly how someone in Argentina might feel, useless, empty - to me, this movie doesn't say or explain anything.

"Extraño" ("Strange") is another one of those failed first features; it's as easy as that. And even though I try no to repeat what I write, first features are a special case and I have to go back to say that they are usually too pretentious, too artistic and too thought provoking. Again, there are a small number of first time directors who pass the test.

Santiago Loza is not only the director, but the writer of his first film-making achievement. But it was not his name what got me interested in the movie; it was the name of one of the greatest Argentine actors, and they are a few: Julio Chávez. And by actor I'm not talking about a man who makes cinema, I'm referring to the complete sense of the word; a great actor in cinema, theater and television.

Chávez is known (or at least I know him for that) for choosing interesting roles in interesting films. It was so hard for me to figure out what he saw in this film! The script, for starters…There's none of it! And films exist that say too little but hide or express too much; not this one. The story follows Axel (Chávez), a man who speaks little and when it is required. We get to know him better than the rest (and it is very little) and another stranger (at first), Erika (a good Valeria Bertuccelli).

Axel is definitely a strange man, as the film's title suggests. He lives with his sister and why don't know exactly why, he is a great doctor but is not working and we don't know why either; he meets Erika and we can't tell if he has fallen in love until the movie makes it clear to us. As many others, the movie tries to be smart, by not showing things so we can figure them out. But why give us the answers on the table when Loza supposedly wants us to find them?

It's contradictory and not worthy of analyzing. The movie seems to be on a rush; it wants to end because there's a point it has got nothing left to say (if it had anything to say in the first place), but it has to be long, and it appears as intentionally extended. A beautiful and melancholic piano that keeps repeating the same tune decorates the sceneries. When character's talk, there is a complete silence; when we see the sceneries, the music plays.

The sceneries are also always the same, when director Loza doesn't understand that repetition is tedious, and even more if it is pointless. Trees, the street, a train moving and more trees…The film begins with a little dialogue spoken by Chávez. The dialogue is very interesting and it generates enthusiasm; although in the end we figure that piece of dialogue was Loza's only concrete (and therefore best) idea, and that it has no connection with the rest of the picture.

Julio Chávez portrayal is, as always, worthy of admiration and applause. I was in front of him when I saw him in a theater play, and I can tell you that it is amazing what the man can do. The movie is not up to his level, just as "13 going on 30" is not up to Mark Ruffalo's level, or "Along came Polly" is not up to Phillip Seymour Hoffman's level and they don't disappoint. That's what a great actor's got to do. Even if it is in a mediocre film like "Extraño", with a director like Santiago Loza, who needs to get his head cleared up a little bit.

Extraño: as an adjective, strange Extraño: as a noun, stranger Extraño: (from "extrañar") as a verb, to miss (I miss you) Extraño: (from "extrañar") as a transitive verb, to surprise (it's hardly surprising)

The director plays a lot with the different meanings of the word. Axel (Julio Chavez in a superb role) gives life throughout the movie to all this different meanings while he gets into our life as spectators and as part of the calm tension of the whole film, and into Erika's as a friend, and into his relation with his family as a sort of uncle and brother and medic and creature, into his silence, his talking-only-when-it-is-absolutely-necessary. Into his life. I had the pleasure to meet Santiago Loza in the International Film Festival in Rotterdam and I think his ability and sensibility as a director (let's not forget that this is his first feature) to show things as the four meanings (and so many more) is what makes this film one of the best films I've ever seen.

EXTRANO is a beautiful and intelligent piece of cinema.

JBschapira's comments are completely sophomoric and ridiculous. Before people criticise, can they criticise the film by the type of film that it aims to be. Not every piece of cinema HAS to be drama heavy -- and truthfully -- most of the great auteurs eschew drama in favour of tapping away at something far more existential and provocative. Voila...the magic of cinema begins.

Sure we can all be sucked in by the feel good drama of something like YOU CAN COUNT ON ME... but this kind of film is a good drama. Not great cinema. EXTRANO is made by a director who clearly has different intentions. It's like comparing a poem and a persuasive essay or story. It's impossible.

In response to Schapiro's comments : you should give up your critical analysis of cinema. Your review of EXTRANO is SO off the mark. You obviously have nothing but two sticks to rub together for a brain.... Hence...why Extrano won the tiger award at Rotterdam..and you my friend, are writing dumb ass responses (green with envy?).

If you don't get this (and I wonder if you understand other interesting films by Argentina's new wave...Lucrecia Martel, Santiago Palavecino --- OR if you care for any interesting world cinema at all...Tsia Ming Lang, Shohei Imamura, Achichatpong Weersakathul, Arnaud Depleschin...yadda yadda yadda....)

Criticise a film on the level it seeks to be received at: Not on the level YOU (as somebody clearly cinema ILLITERATE) seek to find. You sound like a child.

Extranho is a strange movie, of course. But it is strange just because it does not follow the usual paths of Hollywood movies, and actually makes fun of them. The main character did not fall in love with the pregnant and abandoned girl he met, he did not become a loving father for her child, he did not tell us what happened in his past and he did not come back to work as a physician. I brief, he did not find illumination and tears and redention at the end of the movie. It is very interesting, because we are so used to these happy and moral endings that it is weird that a story has this level of truthness. I mean, usually men don't fall in love with pregnant girls, we become old without solve all the issues with our families and we don't tell to everybody things that really hurt us. Good one, really.