Caught a 35mm screening of this rarity at NYC's Anthology Film Archives' Bridges in Argentinian CinemaRetrospective a few days ago. Disowned by its creator Edgardo Cozarinsky since '71 and not exhibited publicly until 2012 (which explains why the 35mm print was perfect and blemish-free, it hasn't been projected that much), this was the true discovery of last month's retrospective.
Deliberately episodic and disjointed, the through line of "(...)" is a priest (Jorge Alvarez) searching for something, which turns out to be a repressed homosexual desire that may be real or a projection of his repressed sexuality. Before reaching its anticlimactic climax this nameless priest runs into a pretty girl (Marcia Moreto), a bourgeois couple (Ernesto Schoó and Niní Gómez), a crazy general (Roberto Villanueva) and the perpetual presence of the Catholic Church in everyday Argentinian life.
The first 45 min. of "(...)" wallow in Godardian disregard for the conventions of cinema (not a surprise since Cozarinsky spent most of his adult life in Paris) and are so strong you tolerate that it runs in circles and out of gas by the end. If it had been widely released it would have been considered the start of many contemporary cinematic trends that have been adopted since. Between the crew cheering/jeering the pronouncements of an actor switching from nationalist military to capitalist businessman ("Shit, Brazil's so huge!"), the narration of a Calcutta documentary applied to footage of Buenos Aires circa 1970, a Lynchian dinner in which a crying baby doll is the main course and a Eucharism ceremony that dispenses color-coded contraceptive pills instead of bread you get the sense anti- clericalism and love of cinema ("Pausa!") are pillars of "(...)" as much as its homosexual identity politics and appreciation for the cultural movement in Argentina in the early 70's.
Good luck finding this film, but if you do tell it I said hi and thanks for the fun Saturday afternoon I spent in a dark room with it. :-P
