Of the three films I have seen by the talented Colombian director Jose Maria Arzuaga, this one most strikingly shows the possible influence of several Italian directors, all of them grounded in the neo realist tradition which Arzuaga is said to have studied.The banality of an office job which the main character has trouble getting away from, reminds me of Olmi and his Il Posto.The satirical depiction of the chaos of both an indoor photographic shoot for a nutritional supplement and a later outdoor promotion, where the shooting is suddenly interrupted by the arrival of wind, is nothing if not Felliniesque.There is even a spoof of the decadence of the advertising staff as they segue, with projection reels later mixed up, from watching a work related short to indulging in pornography.As part of the man's memories of previous relationships with women, as he awaits finally approval to travel to pay his respects to his recently deceased mother, there is an Antonioni like sequence with the man and a woman alone,starting up an erotic encounter in a bleak landscape out of town where a high rise is under construction.The scene culminates as well in a gang rape scene reminiscent of Rocco and His Brothers by Visconti.Arzuaga however continues his own special camera style of panning and swirling around characters, here unlike Roots of Stone eschewing the full widescreen so he can move in more comfortably for intense close-ups of faces.
