Rolling Family

This Argentinian film follows a large family from Buenos Aires as they make the thousand kilometre journey to a remote village in Misiones Province. They are making the journey because eighty four year old Emelia has been invited to be maid of honour at her niece's wedding. Four generations of the family pack into a camper van for the journey. Along the way various things occur that effect the family. Some of these are comic, others lead to tension and there is even romance... between two teenaged cousins.

I found this film to be a real delight; it might not be full of action or hilarious moments but the characters feel real... not in the common sense of film/TV characters being described as 'real' just because their lives are miserable but because they are a fairly ordinary family. The journey in the cramped van provides some tensions but nothing excessive. The way director Pablo Trapero films the characters in the van adds a sense of claustrophobia but this is lightened by the outside shots of the various characters during the occasional forced stop. The cast, many not regular actors, do an impressive job. Overall I'd say this won't be for everybody but if you are looking for a relatively low-key film with humour, pathos and 'real' characters then I'd certainly recommend it.

These comments are based on watching the film in Spanish with English subtitles.

A dozen members of a Buenos Aires suburbs family starts a single weekend trip of 1000 km to take grandma to a wedding, in a motor home. Every character in the movie plays a great part (this is Trapero's best film), relationships are shown with quite a simple eye, but with a lot of sensitivity. Some kind of argentinity is shown, the movie takes the spectator along the way with this family members who will show incredible capability to survive and pass on obstacles, and also amazing human vices, good and bad, but particularly and specially human. The way Trapero engages in dialog with the audience is extremely mature, the director finds the way to balance between not underestimating the audience shooting unnecessary and not pretending to find deep sociological or anthropological plots, just showing how everyone works.

Pablo Trapero, one of the most recognized directors of the new Argentine cinema, has done three movies: "Mundo Grúa", which I haven't seen and seems to be the best; "El Bonaerense", a tale about a man who becomes a cop; and "Familia Rodante", which is not more than what it proposes.

His second film was characterized by focusing thoroughly in Buenos Aires' reality and the reality of the persons that try to survive there. This is repeated in "Familia Rodante", but with a family, that travels. It's a trip to Misiones, well-known Argentine province; and it is a trip because of a wedding. I don't want to think about the fact of making a two-day trip to come back after some hours and travel for two more days...And there are many members.

With Grandma Emilia (Graciana Chironi), her daughters Marta (Liliana Capurro) and Claudia (Ruth Dobel) travel with their husbands Oscar (Bernardo Forteza) and Ernesto (Carlos Resta), plus the kids of the first ones; Matías (Nicolás López), Gustavo (Raúl Viñona) and Sol (Sol Ocampo), and the daughter of the second ones; Yanina (Marianela Pedano) with her friend Nadia (Leila Gomez). Don't be fooled by the actors' names, just like Carlos Sorin, another master of the new cinema, Pablo Trapero uses non professional actors in his movies, therefore just some of them have done things before, and others, like Graciana Chironi (directly related with the director), have only acted in Trapero's films.

Trapero's magic lies in his camera, in how he cares for his story. A story, in this case, full of situations that I wouldn't like to tell because they occupy the whole movie. And they are wonderful like life itself; and messed up and crazy and even incredible sometimes.

Thinking about life as watching the film, it came to me: We fall in love like the characters do because we feel the same, we laugh out loud because we have experienced the same situations they experienced, or we have seen it. We fight like they do: something more realistic is impossible.

I even believe that Trapero directs so close to reality that we could be watching a documentary.

I have to admit that I totally disagree with the unfair comments from the previous viewer as I thoroughly enjoyed watching this film. Obviously if you are a fan of fast pace films, such as American blockbusters, then this film will definitely not be your cup of tea. What this film does is to take an ordinary family out of their natural environment and explores their feelings and emotions. There are conflicts throughout and tension among most of their components. It is a journey of discovery. The fact that Grandmother is invited to a family wedding in Misiones (1,200 kilometres from her home in Buenos Aires) is an excuse for the director to deeply explore and investigate how the characters will react and come to terms with their own feelings. The caravan is a very small environment and it is hard for the family to live in such a close boundary. I did not find this film boring in anyway and I will highly recommend to anyone who is interested in human relationships (including mechanics! Haha). The only disappointing thing is that the subtitles does not always give a true representation of the dialogues from the original language and, if you do not speak Spanish, that may be a daring task to follow.

This is a drama more so than a comedy. The direction was very hands off, and the acting wasn't the best. The pacing was perfect, and the locations great. In this movie, a great grand mother is honored with an invitation to a wedding as the maid of honor. Despite the distance involved (crossing the length of Argentina), and the probable hardships they'll endure, she assembles the clan (an extended family of about a dozen people) and insists that everyone accompany her on this voyage. While I don't understand the Argentinean family ethic, the film assumes that this group acquiesces to their matrons desires. They pile into the only vehicle large enough to accompany the entire group (a dilapidated 1956 Chevy Viking camper), and set out on a journey. This movie is more about family relationships, than it is about the physical places they travel through. Crammed into a confining space, the group is forced to confront family issues in a positively charged atmosphere. Unfortunately the size of the cast hampers a thorough examination of these complex relationships. I liked the fact that the cast didn't consist of polished egos and competing actors. The dialog was sparse, but well drafted, and it worked splendidly with the pacing.