epetrov

Jorge Aguileros' Seres Humanos is a highly stylized examination of the disintegration of a family after the accidental death of their little girl. Derek, the father, retreats into mute psychosis. The surviving sibling, Damian, becomes increasingly, dangerously removed from all emotional connections. The mother, ` Dulce,' a celebrity darling of voyeuristic television pop culture ascends to the frenetic zenith of her career at the same time that her family reaches the nadir of its desperate descent into agonizing guilt and delusion. Aguileros attempts to use the artificiality, exploitation and cruelty behind the glitz of mass culture to question the nature of the `reality' that constitutes the family and the society of which it is a part. Which is more destructive and delusional, the smoke and mirrors of technology, or the ineluctable madness of memory? Unfortunately, despite its interesting premise, Seres Humanos is overblown in cinematic technique and comes up short in the writing. The characters are static and lacking in depth. No amount of montage, hand-held camera, and carefully composed shots can disguise the fact that these people are devices; they never come to life. We watch them with the same voyeuristic detachment with which Dulce's audience peers into the lives of the guests on her show. Finally, Aguileros imposes, rather than develops an ending. The resolution of Seres Humanos is contrived and artificial, leaving us with a feeling of relief, perhaps, but not of catharsis.

A sentimentalized Jung, this documentary uses all the recent war in Afghanistan cliches. We have the wounded children, the burka-clad women, the sad-eyed amputees, all topped with an oversized dollop of Patch Adams' 60's style anti-war rhetoric. It's an interesting humanitarian concept- sending clowns to a war ravaged country to cheer the suffering inhabitants, but this film coverage teeters into sentiment and leaves the viewer with a vaguely uneasy feeling that the subject is being exploited.

Sylvia is still a young woman. She works in a clothing factory and each evening returns home to care for her bedridden mother. Her life is as confined and oppressive as the small apartment in which they have lived for years, since before her father died, since Sylvia was a child. Their neighbor and longtime family friend, Modesto, is always there to help in small ways - and in very big ones, as well. He, too, sits alone in his rooms. Their lives are closely intertwined, yet each is separate, isolated, waiting. Aldo Garay's exquisitely crafted short feature film is a noteworthy piece of artistry. Shot in beautifully textured, saturated color, each frame speaks more eloquently than pages of dialogue. The characters develop, and the narrative grows from the rich accretion of visual images. La Espera is the cinematic equivalent of a fine short story: Nothing is wasted. Nothing is overstated. The language is rich in implication, yet concise and perfectly accessible. At the end, we understand quite well who these people are, and what has driven them to shape their lives as we have witnessed; yet all has been conveyed with remarkable economy and unforgettable visual resonance