UNA MUJER FANTASTICA (2017)

A film by Sebastián Lelio

Cast: Daniela Vega, Francisco Reyes, Luis Gnecco

English: A fantastic woman 

Marina (Daniela Vega) and Orlando, (Francisco Reyes) twenty years older than her, love each other far from the eyes and look forward to the future. When he dies suddenly, Marina suffers the hostility of the relatives of Orlando: a “holy family” which rejects all that it represents. Marina is going to fight, with the same energy that has always been spent to become the woman she is: a strong, courageous, dignified woman … a fantastic woman!

The opening of the film is spectacular Iguazu Falls, which is situated between Argentina and Brazil. One of the greatest natural wonders Orlando use to say. Marina is twenty years younger than Orlando but they are in love and that is what matters. But suddenly Orlando dies during the night at the clinic where he died. When the doctor says to Marina “what is your name? “ and marina tells him the doctor then says no your birth name. Marina goes “what?” At that time even really on I knew then what this  is going to be about.

Jere the director has a passion has he said about everything that is feminine. Here is the story of a woman who is going to have obstacles in the front of her. The performance of Daniela Vega has an astonishing truth  that transforms Marina into a modern heroine that forces admiration. Here the director did an astonished directing to avoid avoid the frontal confrontation to retain only the dignity neither that he lost the sight of the tenderness of the character. Sebastian Lelio delivers a true cinematographic jewel, full of intelligence and humanity.

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NERUDA (2016)

A film by Pablo Larraín

Cast: Gael García Bernal, Luis Gnecco, Alfredo Castro

Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda is a fugitive in his own country for joining  the communist party which an inspector hunts  him down.

The film here gets it. It is the cat and mouse game. This Inspector  Oscar Peluchonneau (Gael García Bernal) is in pursuit of Neruda because he joined the communist party the year is 1948. Peluchonneau is himself a blank page, a poem waiting to be written and, as the cat and mouse of his chase begins, a magic realism soaks into the film as Oscar and to some extent Pablo comes to believe that their roles are essentially fictional. Neruda, whose real name is actually Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto and who recites his poems where ever his goes. He does not try to hide too much but he is five step ahead of the inspector.  To captured Neruda would be an international embarrassment so the inspector begins to understand, because the people loves Neruda. Peluchonneau who narrates the story here. The beautiful texture photography who has a brownish feel to it is from Sergio Armstrong. Neruda is a complex and fascinating character study and by the way he ended up in leaving in Paris. Nice little film here where I had a good time watching it to my surprise.