Martín (Hache)

Once or twice in a lifetime you watch a movie that strikes you exactly in the moment when you need it, and you feel completely identified with it. That happened to me today when I saw Martín (Hache), commenting on movies is a very subjective thing to do, you can like a movie even if it's a flick just because you needed someone to tell you what the movie is saying in that exact moment. Anyway, that's what this movie is about; reflection and not only for young people also for adults.

This movie has lots of social and political opinions in between lines, it's a perfect mirror of the society we live in but it doesn't give a point of view that's what's great about it!, it keeps itself objective. Like Dante would say about drugs, they make everything relative the only truth is your truth, Post-modernism!, XX Century!, there aren't any more rules to obey, society is rotten and it's a dream to try and change it, so you might as well adapt and enjoy the "good" things about life.

After you see this movie I really hope you question yourself, what is the meaning of "good". Everything is relative, remember?

When you see four times a film and you discover new contents each time, evidence: this piece is worth-. I see my own evolution with this movie, my opinion growing, I notice concepts I hadn't before.

Martin (Hache) talks about life through incredibly deep characters, specially Martin (father), whose very balanced but also extremely dark side drives spectator into a superior intellectual world, in which you are overwhelmed by messages, looks, behaviors, feelings.

All actors are superb, there is a maximum connection with their characters, you forget you are in front of a TV, flowing in the story like a fish in the water, even understanding both sides of all the great and rich arguments they have. Everything is valuable, don't miss a minute!

After the kind and tender portrait of human condition made in so wonderful film as "A place in the world", the Argentine film-maker Adolfo Aristarain submerges again into the storming sea of human relationship, but at this time he does with a harder and scrawnier outlook in this "Martín (Hache)", played by a dazzling Federico Luppi, which character, marked by the contradiction between his longing of independence and solitude and his need of surrounding himself with his loved persons, swings in a continuing "pendulum" of affection and disaffection that marks deeply the life of two persons more important for him: his son, Hache (Juan Diego Botto), and his lover, Alicia (Cecilia Roth) -both in masterful performances, too-. And marks, of course, his own life, that he tries to do utmost in his working face but without getting it.

"Martin (Hache)" is the typical proof of the "cinema of the word", this cinema in which the script, strong and solid, is construed over a torrential, permanent dialog that the characters express what they feel, what they think, what they are in what they say...

Wonderful film that sadly was not released in the U.S. Beautifully written and acted character-driven piece about many things, among them the role of a parent in our modern civilization - and the role of the child as well; the relationships between men and women, and the friendships between straight men and gay men; the role of artistic expression in the lives of artists and in the lives of those who will never be artists. The film is also noteworthy for its portrayal of the hypocrisy of adults who impose upon their children "values" that they themselves reject in their day-to-day lives. The gay character is refreshingly unapologetic. And the female lead is heartbreakingly real, a brilliant and deeply moving performance by Cecilia Roth. If you ever get a chance to see this film, I highly recommend it.

Aristarain strikes back again.

After the beautiful "Un lugar en el mundo", he gives us this film which is nearly a theater work.

He repeats with two beasts of Argentinian's cinema. Cecilia Roth (whom half the Spanish talking world has been in love with), and one of the five best actors of all times, FEDERICO LUPPI.

It's impossible not to think about my own father seeing his personage, with this overwhelming love for his son and yet unable to communicate with. Maybe I've seen it over five times, and still I cry each time when Federico Luppi stands on the balcony talking about the desperation of life after the idea of loosing his son misunderstood. It's the nearest you will get to understand fatherly love if you don't yet have a baby.

The plot is banal, and the filming nothing complicated, just a camera fixed to let all the attention to actors........but then, the hit. What an acting!!!!!. You hardly are going to see something similar, Luppi is a monster, a giant, he fills the screen with a strength rarely seen away.

A must see in Spanish, where you can really judge their beautiful work. The pity is that it would surprise me a lot if the titles are able to reproduce all that complicated and quick talking.