Lugares comunes

"Lugares Comunes" is an excellent film. No doubt the IMDb rates it with a 8,2 (this is clearly above the average grades I have seen, and I have been exploring this database extensively).

You probably have to come from Spain or Argentina to really pick up all the subtleties conveyed in the movie. However, the feelings and emotions the film explores are universal.

I really like Fernando Luppi (he has been involved in many many good films, like "Martín H", or "Nadie hablará de nosotras hasta que hayamos muerto"), but please note Mercedes Sampietro (still the President of the "Academia del Cine" in Spain), who plays the role of her life (so far) in this movie. What she does is something similar as to what Halle Berry shows in Monsters' Ball. Just watch the last minutes of the film, she doesn't speak, she doesn't need to...

Aristarain is one the greatest film-maker in Argentina; if he were born in an other country (more economically powerful) he would probably be a sort of classic film-maker in the history of cinema. Aristarain belongs to an old generation of argentinian artists who has been wise enough in order to keep on with his believes and aesthetics but without being stuck in the past. His movies are fresh and sharp. He doesn't lose his grip which makes his narratives very well deployed as well as subordinated to a couple of constant topics: the lost of national identity, or the dialectical swing between subjectivity and social life which is doubled in another kind of paradoxical choice between remain faithful towards oneself or to give up and obey the conservative imperative of petty-bourgeois which demand to fit in the status quo. Lugares comunes looks like a minimalist film, but it is a essential one because whatever is unnecessary in this story is not included. Luppi, by the way the best actor from Las pampas, is a literature teacher, a prototype of middle class member who is retired in advance. He is a leftist man who have found that the dream of another society started in 1879, and after that date that longing for another kind of society has been systematically betrayed. Sampietro, his wife, is an spanish woman who work with the poor. After being left with a miserable pension they have to reconsider where they want to (and can) live. They finally end running a farm. The film has many virtues: for instance, one is able to see how social history determine and comprise the psyche life of individuals. Moreover, Lugares comunes is a document of Argentinian decadence, a very satisfactory tale of how people manage to keep its decency. But it is also a love story and a philosophical meditation about getting older, the limits of reason, and how to live when there is not any transcendental meaning except the fact of being alive. The name of the film is an ironic antithesis because Lugares comunes is at odds with common sense: it is a honest critic of each ideological gadgets which has made of Argentina a ghost and creepy territory where people want to fade or voluntary exile if they still strive for being alive with any gesture of human integrity.

Adolfo Aristrain is one of the best Argentine directors working today. As proved by his previous films, this director goes deep into the souls of the characters he paints for us on the screen canvas. Working on Lorenzo F. Aristrain's novel, in which he is credited with co-writing the screen adaptation together with Kathy Saavedra, the director achieves a tremendously appealing film that will resonate with audiences of all ages.

The story presents us with a university professor who suddenly loses his job at the beginning of the film. He is seen telling his students to be honest in whatever they decide to do in life. In a way, he is asking, perhaps, to emulate him, since he has given all the students his best and more productive years. Finding himself unemployed, and with no assets to speak of, makes him think about what to do with the new reality.

In another society, maybe, Professor Robles would have gone looking for another job, but in Argentina, without any other skills to account for himself, he is a casualty. Robles finds it difficult to confess to his wife his new status. Lili, a social worker, loves him and offers to sell her family's apartment, where the couple lives, as a way to get things under control. A visit to their son in Spain doesn't change anything for Fernando.

When the kind lawyer Carlos hears about a small farm for sale, he offers advice to Fernando that it might be the proper thing to do, as a way to reduce expenses and get out of expensive Buenos Aires into a more modest environment. In this country place, Fernando and Lili find happiness, but unfortunately, it's short lived because fate intervenes.

In Federico Luppi, director Aristrain has found the perfect actor to play Fernando Robles. Mr. Luppi captures the essence of this troubled soul in ways that amaze us. This actor is any director's dream! Having seen Mr. Luppi on stage, as well as in his many screen appearances, one can say he is an extraordinary actor.

Mercedes Sampietro, as Lili, compliments Mr. Luppi. Ms. Sampietro is excellent in her role and adds a layer to the texture of the film because obviously, she can relate to this woman. Arturo Puig as Carlos, the lawyer, and Valentina Bassi, as the younger Natacha, are perfect in their roles.

Ultimately, this is Mr. Aristrain's triumph for getting all these elements to work in such fine fashion. "Common Places" will touch the heart of the viewer.

How to start again when all the hopes are over? How to keep loving the same woman during all your life? How to change without loosing your ideals? How to get old and feel as the first day of your youth?

Basic questions, with basic answers that not everybody is willing to hear. Common places where most of us try not to go.

This film is poetry into a movie. One of the best scripts contents of the Latin American cinema. Aristarain shows one more time to be one of the best ever Argentinean directors.

Take your time to enjoy it.

I've always thought that Adolfo Aristaráin is not only a cinema director, he's a philosopher,a thinker, a so lucid mind, and overall an idealist. Cinema is not just something to entertain people but a powerful tool to express himself.

"Lugares Comunes" (Common places) tells the story of an Argentinian middle-aged couple (played wonderfully by the great Federico Luppi and Mercedes Sampietro which decide to move to the country from Buenos Aires. He's just been fired from the school in which he's been teaching' for most than 30 years (because of his left-winged ideas). So, he a his wife cannot afford to live in B. Aires anymore. That's the base for a long, overwhelming reflection about life, honesty, unconditional love, commitment, and all those things that seem to be a little "old-fashioned" nowadays (but they are not).

This is a movie to think about, you must focus on it, you have to assimilate what you're hearing... Otherwise, you'll be wasting your time. This ain't nonsense and hollow entertainment, this is something else. Let Aristaráin open your eyes... you won't regret.

*My rate: 8.5/10