Se arrienda

I'm 20 years old, and this movie, was pretty close to the reality that i'm living right now... I have a lot of dreams and pretensions.. but I have to choose what thing is the better, this choice is not always easy and may be I'm sold to the system....

The theme of this movie is that, the thing that happen every day when you have 20-25 and all you want is freedom for the realization of yours dreams... and may be there is a soul close to you that feel the same, and together you can grow up and be the thing you want (alternative or sold to system). The soundtrack is great thinking that the main character is a musician, and the mini-movie "killer's ant" was simple but interesting, ant that kill people without love, do you thing what would happen if this come true???

I don't know what can be thought about this film in the rest of the world, even in the rest of Chile. Because it talks about something in particular, and I do not really know how universal it is. I cannot look at it objectively. I am part of it. I know it. Never had a movie touched me so close, and I mean in the geographical but also in the heart. Because it is like my best friends talking about us - it is mad. And it is also marvelous. I know the movie is at least good. I don't know if amazing for the rest... for me it is. It is marvelous. Brilliant. Honest. So honest in fact, it made me cry. I swear the screen became a mirror. And this was catharsis in a way that I had never really experienced this close. Chilean cinema has been plagued forever with anecdotes. Anecdotes that do not have much to say apart from the action and only in a residual way. This is a cinema that takes it's time and talks about himself. Alberto Fuguet, the director, opens his chest and let's us into this world, this world that is my own so in his chest I am myself. It is a beautiful film, very well acted, intelligently shot and with the best dialogue I've heard in some time. And as his friend ask Gastón in a point - if his music is any good... Gastón can only say: "I blush with it - I think it's good".

Then again, who'd want to see this film with such a subjective intent into it - but I do know this: even if it may talk so particularly about things, in doing so it becomes general and that happens here. This movie will talk through particularity to everyone that enlists in it's search and exposition - the communication is culturally worldwide and as such I expect it to go a long way in the hearts of those who experience it, as it did in me.

Cheers.

It's a pity that this movie has came back to Chile empty handed from the ELCINE FESTIVAL here in Peru. But if Alberto Fuguet happens to read this comment I would like him to know that his movie has a desperate fan in this overcrowded city. My favorite movies before "Se Arrienda" were: The Deer Hunter, Barry Lyndon and Adaptation. Se Arrienda has taken my breath away. In my opinion this movie is beautiful. Fuguet must be proud to have made this. "La Elisa" is a gorgeous character. And "Gastón Fernandez" is just so beautifully simple an complicated at the same time... He is beautiful, perfect. Congratulagions Fuguet. I would love to write this in Spanish, though.

This movie is total rubbish!!! Honestly. This is Fuget's first time as director, and I really hope the last one. His script here is much worse than his novels: frivolous, inexpressive, irrelevant. His direction is superficial, plenty of unconnected scenes with no sense of rhythm at all. Minutes and minutes of pointless, affected (and definitively too long) chats are filmed with a poor sense of cinematography. The product of this childish Tarantino's wannabe gives you time even to go to the toilet without missing anything important. Its framing is as bad as its photography. The soundtrack is predictable, plenty of hyper-known 1980s songs; absolutely no contribution to popular music culture. Light direction is deficient: in some night scenes you simply can't recognise faces or tell who's talking; in others, light is so bright that actresses look like corpses and actors like Dracula. The whole thing is pathetic. I gave two stars just to the few good actors performing here (Cruz-Coke, Lewin, Saavedra). Half additional star could go for Ignacia Allamand's nice-nice bottom.

I wasn't sure before i bought the tickets for seeing "Se arrienda" about making a good choice. I have never trusted in Chilean movies, and i don't like Alberto Fuguet that much. But i took the chance and i sat there for almost two hours and i finally thought it was a good choice. I recognized inside the film a lot of elements taken from movies such as "Lost in translation" -perhaps the environment, music, nostalgic- and some dialogs taken from Tarantino's ideas. For example, the fact of having a long discussion about Julio Iglesias reminded me a lot about the same talking about Madonna and "Like a virgin" in "Reservoir dogs". I guess the 80s were left behind and the main point went straight to fighting against system. "Gastón" is a dreamer and living in New York for so many years and then coming back to Santiago was a big change, coming back even was a mistake. Then he realized that the beautiful world he had as a young man, it was all gone and his friends became pathetic robots, money machines in a fake successful system down the brand new and modern Chile. Santiago seems to be so big and splendid, although is a lonely city, empty by soul and i think Gastón never lost his idea of being forever innocent, musician...dreamer. Congratulation Alberto!! you did a great job trying to portrait the frustration that most of us have. Se arrienda will become one of the representation of the new Chilean cinema, for all of us who even thought we love our shy Santiago and our history, we need to go and see other places following our idea of a better world. Also, this is a warning for those who once outside have the purpose of coming back. We can do it better, we can love better from outside...we don't wanna turn into new Gastón...the past is the past and once you go you wont never get it back... although...why do we have to imagine what's the final resolution between Gastón and the girl!! ... and Luciano Cruz Coke has a place in movie industry, pay attention at him...he throws an incredible interpretation, the rest...MM work harder Good film for thinking about what you really want to be..., Santiago is a long road, it's almost a photography. This movie encourages to keep on going on following dreams of writing a book or having a tree. Life is within music and movies, what we are able to take from them, travelling worldwide to find yourself in your own place.