Rapado (1992)

The kid with the bike. Vid sidan av alla filmer om bilistens frihet, misär och desperat jakt på förändring finns en annan tradition. Cyklarna. De stulna. De tuffa. De möjliggörande. Den motoriserade cykeln kanske man mest förknippar med Marlon Brando snarare än Dardenne-bröder eller De Sicas velocipeder. 

Annorlunda är det i Martin Rejtmans Rapado. Den börjar med två killar på en motorcykel i Buenos aires. Jag tänker först att det kanske är en romantisk film om ett par i storstaden. Men sen framgår det att Lucio (Ezequiel Cavia) blir rånad av den främling han gett lift, och denne har också fräckheten att stjäla hans hoj. För Lucio tycks detta bli en vändpunkt. Han rakar av sig håret, tycks bli en annan, hårdare, människa som mest håller utkik efter möjligheter att s.a.s. jämna ut den illgärning som han utsatts för. Med andra ord, han försöker i sin tur hitta motorcyklar att knycka. 

Lurendrejerier och skumrask tycks lura lite varstans. Inte minst yttrar det sig genom de förfalskade sedlar som dyker upp överallt, de verkar cirkulera som sedeln gör i Bressons berömda film. 

På tal om Bresson är det ju nog en medveten inspiration. Rejtman gör filmer i just den andan. Avskalade, stiliserade, inga stora känslor, pokerface-skådespeleri. Jag hade sett Silvia Preto innan och filmvärlden liknar mycket. Det är frågan om upprepning och olika element som regissören leker med. I Rapado ser vi människor hasa fram i tillvaron utan att något egentligen verkar göra så stor skillnad åt något håll. Utom då motorcykeln som blir bestulen. Men vardagen lunkar på. Ansatser till handlande görs, men ofta blir saker på hälft, gesterna stannar av i luften, som hela livet verkar ha stannat av i ett smått förvirrat uppsåt. Som när Lucio har lyckats komma över en ny motorcykel och har för avsikt att sjappa iväg med den gudvetvart. Men det skiter sig på olika vis och han får lifta hem in till stan.

En del kritiker har tydligen dragit större växlar på det här draget i filmen och tolkat den som en illustration av ett politiskt och existentiellt läge i Argentina. Själv är jag inte kvalificerad att fälla sådana omdömen. I Rapado ser jag istället ett exempel på film som i någon mån också låter sig placeras bland nittiotalets närmast oändliga räcka av slacker-odysséer. Dessa slackerfilmer, oftast amerikanska, men i några fall brittiska också, minns jag som fyllda av smartass-dialog och ett dröjande vid något slags ganska bekväm alienation. Rejtman låter föremålen vara nästan lika viktiga som människorna, hur de cirkulerar eller hur cirkulationen stannar av. Sedlar, cigaretter, märkliga köksföremål, spelpolletter. Och sedan har vi miljöerna. Lucio bor i en bostad med sin mor och far (mor dammsugar ständigt). Ute ser vi folk hänga på gatorna eller inne i spelhallar. Det här är en film om ungdomar och hur de umgås, fördriver tid. Kontentan verkar vara att navigera i det oförutsägbara, att försöka skapa ordning kanske är futilt, men kanske det går att förhålla sig på något annat sätt. Någon ordning kommer knappast att återupprättas, så det gäller att försöka hitta någon strategi för att, ja, vad är egentligen viktigt? 

The secret in their eyes (2009)

Lots of films revolve around unsolved crimes that some eccentric is haunted by, perhaps taking one last shot at getting at the truth. The secret is in their eyes is a film that quickly draws the viewer into its own very tense and also very solemn universe. The main character is a legal cancellor who once almost had an affair with his superior. The attempt to solve an old case sparks old memories of their almost-affair, and they meet again. - - But beyond its tense atmosphere, I agree with the reviewer who compares it to a Law & Order episode with a few frames of nudity thrown in for good measure. The problem with the film is that the case is not that interesting, nor is really the tension that is still present between the retired law types. The cinematography is excellent, though. Some political dimensions of Argentina past & present are hinted at, but, sadly, they remain - for me at least - mere hints that aren't really developed into something to get hold of.

A remake has apparently been made of this movie, but I haven't seen it.

Jauja (2014)

I was completely mesmerized by Lisandro Alonso's quiet tale about a man who goes back to visit the village where his mother lives - Liverpool. That film: mysterious and captivating. Jauja is equally mysterious - perhaps even more so. It's a bold film, perhaps one that is easy to mock. I mean, in a certain sense, this is a completely outrageous and ridiculous film. What we have: a grim-looking Viggo Mortensen, dressed in 19th century gentleman's clothing, ambling along looking for his daughter. The cinematography (by Timo Salminen, famous for his work with Aki Kaurismäki): 4:3 ratio - enhancing a cramped, claustrophobic feel -, wandering shots that endow the sea and the wind with fierce power, surreal lush colors. Mortensen plays a captain posted in Patagonia; his mission is to kill aboriginal people. His teenage daughter has run away with a handsome soldier and now he sets out to bring her back. The film's locations - barren plains and rocks - end up becoming some sort of spiritual (liminal) landscape. This is a tale of longing and desperation and perhaps also futility. However, this is not a psychologically rich portrait of a father's quest for an authentic relation to his daughter - not at all. It's not only the opacity of the main character. Something else is going on, something beyond psychology. Something rooted in the plains, under the stars, in the turquoise sky. Think of the quiet moments of a Herzog film and you get the idea of this kind of journey. Most importantly, reality itself is displaced throughout the movie: the characters wander from one eerie dimension to another. A tale about colonialism, the heart of the unknown within what we thought we knew (dignity, purity, 'civilization'). - This is a film in which everything looks unreal or, rather, hyper-real - one reviewer talks about warped naturalism which makes perfect sense.

Mortensen's captain walks and walks - the camera silently follows. Watching his trek is both hilarious and sad - that Alonso pulls of this weird mix of response is rather skillful. The same thing can be said about the astonishing and baffling ending of the film, that takes you to an altogether different place - I won't spoil it, but for me, this way of bringing the taciturn and desolate story to an end was simply marvelous. Such bold solutions should be tried out more often (for some reason, I sometimes thought about the film Innocence). The great thing about it all is perhaps also its leading actor. Mortensen's role is bold in a peculiar way. It's a wonderfully serious AND silly act to work with, and he succeeds, I think, in not seeming to fear the silliness. He goes from moments of grief to moments of sheer craziness in a remarkably dignified-undignified manner - without vanity, somebody pointed out. At the moment, when I try to recall similar roles, it's more of the Herzog-stuff that comes to mind: Klaus Kinski embodies this kind of boldness, but Viggo Mortensen is a very different actor.

This is a film where you, dear viewer, has to endure a very high level of openness. The takes are often long, but sometimes the cut is drastic and takes you by surprise. I get the feeling that I don't have any idea about what will happen next, even though the whole thing is very focused on Mortensen's eerie journey. Liverpool had that openness as well, even though Jauja feels like a more elaborated cinematic expression. Alsonso is one of the directors that demonstrates what film can be, that it can be far more than you think.

Liverpool (2008)

It's rather uncommon for me to be truly stunned by the way a movie is made. I mean: sadly, most films follow the beaten path of storytelling and cinematography. Liverpool, directed by Lisandro Alonso, definitively bears similarities with some contemporary movies (while watching it, I thought about Pedro Costa as well as Chantal Akerman), but there are a couple of things that makes it stand out. The first few images of the film takes us on board of a cargo ship. There's the automatized rhythm of the work and some moments of leisure. The ship is about to reach its port and a man in the crew is preparing to leave. In extremely long takes, we see him dress, collect his stuff. The scene is not filmed 'beautifully'. There's a plain room and a man is rummaging about his belongings. As he reaches the harbor we follow his slow-paced journey to what turns out to be his home village where is is to meet his mother. He plods around the small village and people recognize him. He's been out at sea for a long time. The encounter with his mother is not a glorious moment of home-coming. She is sick, and it's unclear whether she recognizes him. There's also what seems to be his daughter. In extremely minimalist scenes, their communication, mostly quiet, is captured. The quietness never leaves the film. Instead of words, there is the snowy, matter-of-fact landscape. There is beauty, yes, but the camera also registers the matter-of-fact landscapes and living environment of people who live in a poverty-stricken village. We see the protagonist, Farell, in very undramatic situations. He eats at a restaurant where he knows nobody, he goes to the small cantine in the village where some music is playing - in both these places, he is simply waiting. The lack of dialogue is paired with the observational, paired-down camera-work. As one reviewer put it: the places he visits looks like the edge of the world. The question that the film evokes is what kind of life this sense of isolation stems from.

Some reviewers have complained that the techniques applied in Liverpool are familiar elements of the art house film tradition, techniques that are to repel the masses, singling out the eager elite. Yes, there are risks in the kind of material dealt with here: the drinking male loner who heads out on a winding journey. It's just that Liverpool never seems to elicit the familiar reactions to this kind of material. There is no romanticism, no deep-going sadness, no elevation of loneliness. The major difference is, I think, the ending. I will not spoil it for you, but for me, it was what made this film stand out.

The Headless Woman (2009)

The Headless Woman (dir. Lucretia Martel) may not be a traditional horror movie - there are very few horror movie tricks here - but this film scared the shit out of me. The normal horror movie might make you jump at a sudden gruesome face or startle you with some gory situation; The Headless Woman had another type of effect. It worms into my mind, and stays there, impinging its sense of dread on my consciousness for days on end. What is more, even though the movie conjures up a vivid feeling of horror, it is a horror that stems from guilt, conscience. I don't know if I have ever seen such a quietly scary portrait of guilt before: I mean guilt here in the sense of it changing one's entire world, the way one perceives, the way things announce themselves.

Some movies tries to take you "inside the head" of some of its characters. Few succeed. The Headless Woman does, and the result is quite stunning (in this film, it seems, a "subjective" approach is all-important; without it, not much of what makes it special would be left.) The story starts and ends with Veronica and what happens to her one day when she is driving home from a family re-union. She hits something with her car, we see her head hit the wheel and we see her gaze at something. Afterwards, the camera follows her almost sleep-walking through life, reacting, holding back her reactions, trying to act normal. This sounds like it could been a Hallmark production about a car accident. Martel structures the movie like an existential mystery, or a nightmare (where one thing suddenly turns into another) but she leaves it at the most ordinary level; and maybe that's the reason why the film crept under my skin.

The Headless Woman shows many sides of guilt and conscience. It shows it as haunting, as a person being placed besides herself, alienated from herself, split from herself, but it also shows the reaction of denial: the hope that somebody else will fix things, or that it will fix itself, that guilt can be dissolved by convincing oneself that "it was nothing". But this is far from a detached philosophical account of a perspective. Martel lets the images present us with a very tactile, embodied state; concussion, trauma, lack of response, numbness, disorientation. Very few bodies are as corporeal as this one, and corporeality here means everything from what it means to act in a body, to how one's perception and attention is guided by and interacts with a specific surrounding. Martel often works with skewed impressions, looking at something one does not quite see, or perceiving something as something. She works in a similar way with sound and voices - how a voice appear as if from nowhere, but still somehow close.

There is something else going all as well which I haven't mentioned. Veronica lives in a wealthy family. Early on, we get the feeling that appearances are to be kept up, no matter what. Everything that rings a bit odd, or appears a bit outside the "normal" is brushed off as tiredness, as something that will go away if one just rests a bit and takes it easy. The ghosts and myriads of secrets and strange relations evoked in the movie tells another story: and here Veronica's numb and disoriented state is situated in a much bigger pattern of family relations and the way one learns to keep quiet, to etch a polite smile on one's face and say the things one is expected to say. (If you start to think about Antonioni at this point, you're on the right track.)

BIG RECOMMENDATION FOR THIS MOVIE!!