South American Film

South America holds a wealth of artistic innovation. To me, I feel that the Latin-American literature boom of the 20th Century is carrying over into the best South American films.

First up is the fantastic ‘drug-crime’ pairing of City of God and Elite Squad which put Brazil on the 21st century film map.

Argentina won Academy Award acclaim with The Secret in Their Eyes featuring Ricardo Darin, the star of Argentinian film. I’d also recommend the brilliantly hilarious Wild Tales (also starring Darin) to add to your Argentine collection.

With films like Embrace of the Serpent, Colombia is also making headlines. And don’t forget Chile, a country bolstered by Pablo Larrain, one of South America’s most promising directors (see Neruda for evidence).

With a world of film at your fingertips, South America is a fantastic place to start your film quest! Find the best South American films below, or click on a country below to go somewhere particular:

Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela

The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be Quiet – Sundance Film Festival 2021

Dogs are everywhere. Before the pandemic, ownership seemed to be rising. Everyone either had a dog or knew someone who did, whether it was a neighbor or a colleague who brought their dog into work. Now, with everyone stuck at home, they’ve become even more popular as companions for those living alone and friends for kids. They’re also still the small talk champions (perhaps even more so than babies). Nothing else can get a stranger talking to you better. It’s within this context that The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be Quiet kicks off.

Sebastian’s troubles start when he bumps into a neighbor in the courtyard outside his house, who starts complaining about the noises his dog makes. In what’s quite a funny scene, in an awkward way, Sebastian stands there, under his umbrella in the rain, nodding along to his neighbors monologue. Other neighbors turn up and add to his neighbors complaints and crowding the small courtyard. Right after that scene, Sebastian has a similarly awkward chat with his boss at work. They also don’t want his dog around, and like his neighbors, awkwardly avoid telling him directly.

Solving his troubles at home and work in one, Sebastian moves to the country for a happy life with his dog. But, things don’t end there, as the chain of events started by his less than silent dog keeps progressing. Amongst other things, we’re taken through Sebastian’s different jobs, a clandestine cooperative, and a sudden pandemic. It’s an oddball journey. However, despite how strange the events are to us, Sebastian goes along with them as if they’re completely normal. It’s like he’s resigned himself to the path his dog has placed him on.

His stoic face throughout all these surprises is what makes this film so quietly funny. In a way his role isn’t too dissimilar from the great silent movie comics like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. Whilst he doesn’t perform any stunts like them, the comedy of the film is created around his non-reaction to the things happening around him. Like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, Sebastian is the comedic fall guy for the movie. His misfortune and his acceptance of it exists for everyone to laugh at.

So, if you’re looking for another quietly funny Argentinian satire along the lines of Martin Rejtman (see The Magic Gloves) check out The Day the Dog Wouldn’t be Quiet.

The Pink Cloud – Sundance Film Festival 2021

Honestly, before I saw The Pink Cloud, I thought that The Dog Who Wouldn’t be Quiet was the best film related to the pandemic that I’d seen at Sundance. But then I saw The Pink Cloud. Like Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion, it’s amazing to watch something reflect reality so well before that reality comes into place. And before you ask, this film was written in 2017, way before COVID times.

In the case of The Pink Cloud, Giovanna and Yago’s one night stand turns into a long quarantine together as an unknown pink cloud of poisonous gases shrouds the city. Anyone who steps outside for more than 10 seconds dies from the pink gases. Other people less lucky that Giovanna and Yago are stuck in supermarkets and other public buildings. It’s also not just their city in Brazil that is affected either, as like the big Hollywood disaster movies, the news shows a montage of cities around the world with the same ominous pink clouds hovering over them. Like the current pandemic, everyone is forced to adjust quickly to a new life.

After it sets up the premise, The Pink Cloud focuses on Giovanna and Yago’s relationship stuck together throughout the indefinitely long quarantine. As time progresses, the bucket lists from their single lives become a checklist of things to do in a relationship. They start doing chores, cook and eat with each other, and talk about their future together. The allure and excitement that initially drew them together fades as the permanence of their new life inside sets in. As this happens, the allure of the outside, and nature, represented in the pink cloud grows. Slow montages of the cloud frame it as pretty and tempting. Then the cloud starts to be shot with a slow zoom as if the characters are being drawn to it when they look outside. Now that they’re stuck inside, the everyday world they’d taken for granted becomes alluring. It’s a reversal of their relationship which goes from desire to boredom.

Maybe if there wasn’t a worldwide pandemic right now that mirrors The Pink Cloud’s narrative, it would resonate differently. Perhaps it would have been viewed as a warning to climate change deniers, or to those taking life for granted. In it’s current context, the quarantine comparisons are hard to avoid. It’s one of the most accurate portrayals of a relationship on lockdown.

La Botera – Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival 2021

Set within a neglected Buenos Aires neighborhood, La Botera follows Tati, a girl living alone with her father whilst navigating the challenges of adolescence.

Tati is already an independent woman. The opening scene shows her getting up, making breakfast, and getting ready for school on her own. We’d think she was living alone until the phone rings and Tati tries to wake up her previously unseen dad to answer it. She also sticks up for herself against the bullies at and outside of school in contrast to her childhood friend and confidently initiates conversation with people older than herself, such as a local boat rower she plays boyfriend and girlfriend with. However, she still retains the naivety of a young adult as shown in her awkwardly brash interactions with older kids and her friendship with another young neighborhood boy. The army games and relationship with the latter show she’s still connected to the young girl she’s slowly moving away from whilst the conversation with older kids represent the pull of her growing up.

Her coming of age feels a bit more hostile than others. It’s partly due to the bleak environment La Botera is set within – the constantly overcast skies and heavily clothed characters emphasize the cold unwelcoming environment. But the hostility is mostly due to the strained relationship she has with the dad she lives with alone. Unlike the gentler fathers in other father-daughter coming of age movies like Eighth Grade and Alba, Tati’s father offers little love and sympathy. He punishes and chastises her in almost every scene they share. Even when he has an opportunity to share a moment with her, such as when they’re watching football on TV, he gets annoyed as she apparently shouldn’t enjoy a ‘man’s game’. Maybe he’s been affected by the neighborhood they live in or his own experiences, or maybe his machismo just hides his fatherly insecurities. Either way, he contributes to the hostility of his daughter’s coming of age.

If you’re into coming of age stories set within a pretty bleak environment, La Botera is worth a watch. The close-up shots that follow Tati give it an edge that make it feel more real and personal than others.

Head to our LALIFF 2021 Hub for more reviews from the 20th edition of LALIFF.

The New Girl (Argentina) – Cinélatino Film Festival 2021

Jimena lives day to day in Buenos Aires, scavenging whatever and sleeping wherever she can find. In search of a better life, she smuggles herself on a bus bound for Rio Grande, a small town on the island of Tierra del Fuego in southernmost Argentina. It’s an area known for its manufacturing jobs and it’s also where her estranged half brother, Mariano, lives.

Jimena gives off a quiet meekness. She doesn’t share much with her brother or the locals – least of all her life as a transient in the city. Despite this, she’s welcomed warmly by both her brother, who sets her up with a job at the manufacturing plant he works at, and by her new colleagues, that invite her to work socials. She’s given space to settle in and adapt to her new life.

As the movie flashes through brief moments in Jimena’s first few months in Rio Grande, it’s apparent she’s becoming part of her new community. She connects with her brother’s love interest, bonds with the workers at the union meetings, and starts to help her brother out too. However, her brother, guessing the nature of her previous life starts to implicate her in his own illicit trading business. He knows he holds some power over her whilst she’s living in his apartment and not quite settled in the region. He also knows she relies on him as her only relation. As the economic backdrop kicks in, Jimena has to choose between helping her brother or supporting the union strikes – family or the community.

The New Girl packs a lot into it’s relatively short run time. It quickly provides context for Jimena’s arrival in the remote South of Argentina and her growth and coming of age in Rio Grande, to set up the climax. It highlights the privilege of crime – contrasting her experience stealing out of need vs. her brother’s smuggling to get rich. This, plus the arrival of the union mark the anti-capitalist thread of the movie. The union symbolizes the community and its strength in organization, whereas Mariano’s one-man illegal business represents the flaws and selfishness of unrestricted capitalism.

The New Girl is an engaging coming of age story as well as a protest movie, along the lines of Made in Bangladesh and Salt of the Earth. Not bad for a 79 minute movie.

El Gran Movimiento (Bolivia) – Capturing the Hostility of the City

El Gran Movimiento Film Difficulty Ranking: 4

Take another immersive trip with Elder in Bolivia in El Gran Movimiento. This time, instead of being consumed by the darkness of the mines like in Dark Skull, you’ll feel the oppressive urban environment of La Paz. The concrete and mechanical sounds are inescapable, and whilst there are plenty of people, everyone seems lonely. Even with the dance scenes and zany visions, El Gran Movimiento depicts a very bleak picture of the city.

From: Bolivia, South America
Watch: Trailer, IMDb
Next: Dark Skull, Los Conductos, Mysterious Object at Noon

El Gran Movimiento Breakdown

If you’ve seen Dark Skull, you’ll notice that El Gran Movimiento is its sequel. It features the return of Elder, Dark Skull‘s main character, who has walked 7 days to the city in search of work now that the Huanuni mine has closed. With nothing on offer in the city, he’s resumed his pre-miner life as a drifter; roaming the streets with hard liquor and some ‘friends.’ But now he’s older and he’s developed a hideous cough. His prospects in the city look incredibly bleak.

The style of the two films are also very similar. Both focus on unnatural environments (the mines and the city respectively) and frame them as incredibly hostile. In Dark Skull, Kiro Russo uses multiple shots of noisy mining machinery to create the film’s harsh environment. In El Gran Movimiento, Russo starts the film with a long montage of shots that slow-zoom in on city buildings and linger on city machinery (such as the motors of a cable car). These shots are accompanied by loud and unnatural mechanic sounds, traffic jams, and construction. Like the industrious shots of the mines, this opening emphasizes the hostile unnaturalness of the city.

It’s not until around the 10 minute mark that we first see life. However, the first scene with people doesn’t make the city appear any more friendly. It features protestors from the Huanuni mines clashing with tear gas-throwing police, in what is a living manifestation of the city’s hostility.

Elder’s plight in the city isn’t any better. As soon as he arrives he develops a cough that gets worse every day he stays there. Doctor’s can’t identify the illness, which make its origins unclear. Whilst it would make sense that it’s a symptom from his life as a miner, his symptoms only start to show after he arrives in the city. It makes it seem like it could be a metaphorical reaction to the hostile urban environment; or maybe even to the remnants of Spain’s Colonial rule. Either way, the other feature character, Max, a hermit that thrives in the picturesque natural environments on the fringes of the city, backs up the theory that the city is not a place for life.

The only respite for Elder comes in a few offbeat dance scenes and Max’s indigenous medicine. Each method hints at a different way of dealing with life in the city: 1) to simply get on with it and embrace the bleakness, or 2) to seek an anti-colonialist/capitalist return to the land’s roots and culture.

Overall, El Gran Movimiento is another bleakly brilliant construction of Bolivian life. Russo shows that even above ground, Bolivia’s man-made environments are not just destroying indigenous Bolivian culture, but also literally sucking the life out of the population. It’s a subtle anti-capitalist call for a return to nature and spirituality.

What to Watch Next

Dark Skull is a must watch if you enjoyed El Gran Movimiento and you haven’t already seen it. Many of the themes from this film were kick-started there from the bleak man-made environments to the Elder’s deteriorating health.

Or for another sub 90-minute South American art-house film with anti-capitalist vibes and a wandering lead character, try Colombia’s Los Conductos.

Lastly, you could also try the mystical films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul, starting with the eclectic storytelling of Mysterious Object at Noon.