Historias extraordinarias

The movie is available for streaming as a whole (4h 5m) or as a miniseries in three parts. Since the running times nearly add up and the parts lack the usual introductory material, it seems it has been split just for the the sake of distribution and the three segments are meant to be seen in one sitting. The film is divided in titled chapters with two very short intermissions and one scene numbered out of sequence.

I am not fond of long movies, among them director Mariano Llinás' later work La Flor (2018). However this film captivated me from the beginning. There are three main stories that don't intersect but take place in the same milieu, that of small-to-medium towns on the great plains of Buenos Aires province (the filming included Tandil, Chascomús and Azul among many other towns). All through the movie a narrator explains (or doesn't) what we see on screen. The feeling is that of listening to a master storyteller that uses a bag of tricks to keep your attention through a long tale. One such trick is teasing you with inessential details about some secondary character. Another, casually throwing a misleading hint (or a whole secondary story) that guides you to a side path leading nowhere. And at times, like a narrator would do, the director/scriptwriter is pulling the viewer's leg. The narration is to the point, witty, frequently funny, full of rich colloquial terms from the Spanish spoken in Argentina. There are inside jokes such as marking the location of a sinister stud farm on a map with a symbol meaning "unsafe, get out fast."

Some features instantly recognizable to every Argentinian are in view. The small town squares with geometrically planted and trimmed trees. The City Hall offices where property and tax records gather dust, its employees managing to navigate the apparent chaos. The Sociedad de Fomento, whose official definition is a "nonprofit civil association aimed at improving housing, infrastructure, alimentation and medical care in its jurisdiction" but also doubling as a social club. The poste restante shelves collecting abandoned letters at local post offices. The epic flooding of the low lying pampas by heavy rain and swollen riivers. The Art Deco/Futurist architecture of Francesco Salamone, who built massive, oversize, towered City Halls for small dusty towns and disquieting entrances to cemeteries and slaughterhouses.

The filming manages a sort of alienation effect where you are often reminded of being just a spectator. Some sequences (like the initial scenes) are seen several times, each time with different information (and narration) so the meaning is different. Other sequences (such as the happening in the grain mill) are filmed including stationary and/or soundless shots approaching the way you would learn about it a newspaper. Cinematography alternates unsteady close ups a la Dogme 95 with long shots where the characters are just specks on the unlimited plains. The soundtrack includes inventive use of noises (sometimes exaggerated, occasionally omitted) with scoring of action scenes bringing to mind Morricone's music for Sergio Leone. All in all the movie is a success where, as in real life stories don't have a neat ending (or we don't get to know it) and we are often distracted and/or misled by digressions.

Llinas brings us into a literary/film experience setting new rules in Argentinian or even universal cinema. A bagful of stories organized inside three main ones, structured in 18 chapters, takes us into a voyage of 4 hours, transforming us in an extra character. The duration of the film is as important as the music, photography, edition, acting...it is not a mere consequence of the length of events narrated, is a tool he masters in order to make us feel that we participate in this ¨experience¨ as main characters. I felt all the way that this could have been a beautiful book to read, but he took it even farther,not only reading this book to us but reinforcing it with beautiful filming. Llinas loves literature,he loves filming and he wont stop at nothing. Low budget is not an obstacle but an opportunity to make this voyage a bigger one. Please make the time, and don't miss the chance of making this experience your own.

240 minutes of voice-over narration with visual aids of multiple stories that do not intertwine, don't compel and are not extraordinary either. It might be an experiment in storytelling, it doesn't make it good cinema though.

An incredible experience, if you are studying cinema you will surely avoid every topic this movie talks about, or even its aesthetic; but nevertheless every ingredient that you shouldn't mix blend perfectly here. A 4 hours which worth the experience.

You possibly feel that you aren't looking a motion picture but as time goes bye this initial sense was left aside completely; you are really seeing a motion picture (sure you do) and the off narration, the music , the sound, the colors and the stories match in a way you'll never imagine. A bonus is a glimpse of the Bs.As. country life something that even Argentinian urban people ignore.

Extraordinary Stories offers the spectator a multiplicity of glances around the same event, the problems suffered by the protagonists, which triggers interesting consequences. It is divided into 18 chapters, with novel titles. Each has main figures which elsewhere have secondary functions. It is a secular film, neither choral nor Manichean. Ordinary characters, almost all of them, in extraordinary situations that sometimes lead them to behave in ways, even violent, in contradiction with their principles. Frequently felt in the narrative lane of SABU, Aki Kaurasmaki, Takahisa Zeze with the constant narration and mild dry humor with Kafkaesque letter names, who solve one mystery only to see another open before their eyes. Each character is different, and every secret conceals links with the precedents which often border on the most total improbable. Between the dreamlike narrative and the naturalist tale, the film plays on a constant ambivalence. Its staging, sometimes extremely virtuoso sequence shot (especially during the final scenes) is obviously enhanced by a perfect cast. What else can I say, except that Mariano Llinás's Extraordinary Stories is an amazing cinematic experience produced with a modest budget.