Obaba

Obaba is the film that was sent from Spain to the Academy for the foreign language film category. Considering its extraordinary theme with equally unique presentation, it's hard to imagine why it didn't get the Oscar nomination nod. The story tells us about Lurdes, a young filmmaker who travels to the village Obaba to shoot a documentary about its people. Some of the aged inhabitants recall their childhood experiences and these experiences are shown as separate short films. Lurdes tries to co-relate all their stories, in order to do which she slowly becomes a part of Obaba. The village is perhaps meant to be treated as a consciousness, as suggested by the director by his brilliant use of the myth of green lizards as a metaphor.

The film excludes all the typical and clichéd camera angles and shot sequences. For using visual themes, it does many brave experiments. Some of the acting performances are worth mentioning too, for example the actress who played the schoolteacher or the boy who played Esteban. To summarise, "Obaba" was indeed a very refreshing experience for us who often get tired by the same styles of Hollywood hits.

Wow, I'm kind of shocked to read so many negative reviews of this movie. Maybe you had to see it in Spain as I did or maybe you have to enjoy movies that make you think. This is not your generic Hollywood-I-understand-everything-within-ten-minutes type of movie. This is a movie that one has to think about and contemplate after it is done and it might take several days to come across what you think the movie was actually trying to say. That, in my opinion, is a sign of a good movie. Obaba is not an actual place, it is a state of mind. Once people understand that, they can see the movie for what it is: an intelligent, beautiful, and mysterious view of northern Spain.

This set of several stories is well conveyed by use of flashbacks. Lourdes' pursuit of the villagers' stories for her film project sets up several different story lines with no small amount of intersection in this remote mountain village.

But there are no real surprises in these stories in that the use of "magical realism" is used inconsistently. Some stories are resolved logically and others remain unresolved by rational explanations. The film suffers a little in not making up its mind about whether to be magical or not.

It's still a good movie but not a great one. I think it would be worth picking up Axtaga's Obabakoak collection to get a fuller view of this (potentially) mysterious place.

Although this starts out promisingly, a woman in a car is weaving around dark roads in the middle of the night in the middle of the forest until she almost hits a man holding a lizard! This gave me the impression that we were going to see something special, something almost David Lynchian (if there is such a term), but unfortunately, the film starts to go everyplace, not having a core center, just sort of meandering story about a woman trying to solve a mystery of a small town. The character study goes all over the place, and I couldn't really care for any of the characters it seems, especially when some of the story all of a sudden goes into flashback mode. I had some hopes for this movie, but all in all, it was a bit of a letdown.

I found Obaba as the Montxo's best film. Atxaga's work is also visible. The way the director shows the misery of the rural life and the beauty and attraction of the rural environment is magnificent. I've seen almost all the Armendariz's films and I think Obaba is the (final?) good result of a "not so good" filmography. The camera man's work is very good, in the "filming scenes" specially. The best artist is Pilar Lopez Ayala - the teacher- which makes me believe in "the teacher" much more than the other artists. The worst Juan Diego Botto which, I found, doesn't have many registrations in his work as an actor. I've seen it not only in that film.... a pity...) A very international film... let's see in the Oscar.... A universal Basque film.