Las Acacias

I saw this by mistake on the UK TV channel Film 4. I am generally a fan of the Steven Segal school of movies, so you may be surprised that I found this film so powerful and enjoyable at a deep level. As other reviewers have written, very little happens. A lorry driver takes a mother and her baby daughter across Argentina and that's about it! This film is like a flower unfolding, you can't see anything happen but at the end there is something wonderful and beautiful that was not there before. The director was very brave and allows the film to drive itself rather than be driven by any need to pander to external pressures. It rings so true. I am a bit like Ruben the driver, unable to express what is in his heart, which made it a film that I identify with in a way I rarely do. The baby is brilliant! Give this film a chance, it will richly reward you!

A visual narrative on ordinary folk with a simple but instantly recognisable theme - loneliness. Argentina of late has produced some magical road films featuring the lives of everyday characters - and they are all a joy to watch. It matters not that the dialogue, what little there is of it, is in Spanish. It could be a silent film or dubbed in Arabic. The film speaks for itself. It is so well crafted. A roughneck lorry driver who has travelled the highways of Argentina for 30 years and used to his own space, is ordered by his boss to take one of his journeys south to Buenos Aries with a passenger - a young mother and child. Gradually, as the journey progresses and he becomes more and more frustrated with the noise and demands of the child, but a bond slowly comes through. This is a very touching film and very well made. The open road is shown not as dramatic backdrop in panorama - but as a close-up with each of the characters in the shot. There are a number of comments made by reviewers here that liken the film to watching paint dry etc. I think these people went to the cinema expecting another Die Hard, Steven Seagal, Van Damme, Terminator shoot em up Hollywood rubbish. Suggest that in future they read the poster before venturing further.

Cinema isn't just there to entertain (or make money) it is also to educate and generate thought. Well recommended piece of social realism.

In Paolo Giorgelli's quiet film 'Las Acacias', not a lot happens. A truck driver with a load of wood (hence the title) gives a lift, somewhat reluctantly, to a woman with a child. They don't talk a lot, but they're both lonely; by the end of the movie, they decide they'd like to see each other again. And that's it. The film covers a journey of 800 miles through South America, but there are no stunning landscapes on view: just a lot of scenes of two people sitting quietly in a cab. And yet, almost strangely, it doesn't drag: there's a feeling of truthfulness that compensates for the absence of action. In spite of being almost unremarkable by design, it's understated quality tells in the end.

A middle-aged truck driver's long years of hauling lumber from Asuncion, Paraguay to Buenos Aires is etched on his grizzled face. Looking as if he hasn't shaved in weeks, maybe months, his body language displays a passive solitude, as if he has become reconciled to a world of emptiness. Winner of the Camera d'Or for the best first feature in Cannes, Pablo Giorgelli's Las Acacias is a work of deceptive simplicity, a film that captures the essence of human longing mostly through facial expressions, glances, and gestures. Though it is mainly shot inside the cab of a truck and has very little dialogue, it never feels claustrophobic or dull, its natural performances allowing us to feel as if we are observing events in real time.

The driver, Rubén (German de Silva), is transporting a load of acacia wood to Buenos Aires and has agreed to bring Jacinta (Hebe Duarte), a young Paraguayan woman with him at the request of his boss. When he finds out that the woman, heavily loaded down with suitcases, is also bringing her five-month old daughter, Anahi (Nayra Calle Mamani), he says nothing, but the annoyed look on his face tells the story. Nothing is said for the first thirty minutes as they begin their 1500 kilometer journey, but the silence is not oppressive. Rather, there is simply quiet as the languid motion of the truck sways to the rhythm of the road. Giorgelli said that "I wanted you to feel the fatigue of this long journey," and we do. It is long but never tiring, however.

As the camera reflects on the passing scenery and the images the driver sees through his rear-view mirror, we observe the eyes of the driver, his passenger, and the baby whose look is the most expressive of all. We know nothing of his background or that of the woman's. Ruben's frozen inability to express emotion begins to melt, however, as Jacinta's warmth and the baby's sweet smile awakens in him a sense of his lost humanity. During the course of the trip they begin to open up, slowly revealing their troubled past. He tells Jacinta that he has a son that he hasn't seen in eight years, and she tells him that Anahi has no father.

Jacinta talks to her daughter in the ancient Guarani language and Ruben asks her to translate. When Anahi begins to cry, Rubén quiets her by giving her a cup to play with, and a barely articulated affection emerges. Written by Salvador Roselli, Las Acacias is a film of emotional richness that has no extraneous conversation, enigmatic symbolism, or background music. It is a film where nothing happens and everything happens, that understands that silence alone, in the words of British author Karen Armstrong, "is appropriate for what lies beyond words." A work of deep and abiding humanity, Las Acacias is one of the best films of the year.

The tag line A man, a woman, A baby, 1500km writen on the film poster is more than enough to understand the plot. I have not watched any simpler movie than this one that carried the emotions in such raw form. Heartwarming film. I felt like I was sitting on a rear seat of the truck trying to get to Buenos Aires. Beautiful film.