We Are Not Animals

That's why I give it a 10 from Uruguay. As a normal movie it probably would have deserve only a 6 or 7. But this is another kind of "thing". Personally made me feel close to the characters, as never a movie made me feel before. I could call it an ODE to friendship. The "thing" never tried to manipulate me, from the start shows that taste of parody, makes you part of a crazy party, full of contradictions, drinks,different points of view, and space for personal thoughts...

Anyway, Cusack shows his best, or a my say himself after so many forgettable films. I wish it could be a serial, with those friends saying what come to their minds. After watching the last Argentine blockbusters designed to be that, like The Clan etc., or the "artistic movies", that are film school pastiches of old classics, overall french, No Somos Animales got my heart. Makes me believe that cinema could be something different that manipulation and money, something more simple, and participatory.

This movie belongs to the "film within a film" genre that opened up half a century ago with Fellini's 8 1/2. It features John Cusack and other American actors summoned to Buenos Aires to make a film that, we are told, experiments with cinematic language. The story is improvised (there is a script but nobody seems to take it seriously) and some scenes (like in Godard's La Chinoise) actually belong to the film within, as the point of view changes and we see the cameras rolling and the booms in place. Sequences are announced with title cards, also in Godard's style. The view of Buenos Aires and its people is that of an average American tourist; there are some comments about Peronism and the 1976-1982 military dictatorship but there is no depth or meaning in them. Everything we see or hear is capricious and at best whimsical, at worst pretentious and at times boring.

Al Pacino plays the mysterious (and somewhat devilish) long distance mastermind of the project, He gets the best lines and makes the most of them; the short time he is on screen is the best part of the movie.

The movie ends up saying nothing significant. Although some ideas may be interesting, it it difficult to gauge the intentions of the director. All in all, an unsatisfactory film.

I watched this largely because I love Argentina. What a waste of 90 minutes. I stuck it out and watched the entire thing because I wanted it to be a decent movie. It wasn't. To say this movie is dull and dry is really being generous. There's no plot. Nothing of any significance happens. It's not even funny. This seems like a movie where someone was trying way too hard to be sophisticated and ended up producing garbage as a result.

When I first started watching this, I had my mind set to write a completely sarcastic review and summarize this as a tale of a man who once won a sizable amount of money on a popular game show while wearing his magical Wonder Woman wristbands, only to later in life be reduced to begging on GoFundMe for attorney retainer funds after being charged with methamphetamine possession following a Grindr hook-up gone wrong. But then something about this movie made me very sad, in a very deeply painful, aching kind of way. I can't completely explain it. Maybe if you have horrible attention deficit disorder like I do you'll sit through the whole thing while eating a large burrito. This movie might make you question your sanity, sort of like a psychopath or narcissist does when gaslighting a person, making them wonder what actually is reality.

Warm little movie. A collage of digressions and partial thoughts, no apt for who is looking to be caught in a melodrama. To see great actors playing with such a freedom, makes me think on the cynical and shallow part of this art form.

As soon we have the chance to liberate our mind, we dream, and snore. As soon we seat front of the TV, we are forced to dream the dreams others, sometimes just money makers…

This movie have much of a dream, but is enough imperfect, rough, and sometimes nonsensical, that you can hear your own mind without feeling being used.