Carancho (2010)

Recommended

Argentina/Chile/South Korea/Spain

Feature Film

Director: Pablo Trapero

Writers: Alejandro Fadel, Martín Mauregui, Santiago Mitre, Pablo Trapero

Cinematographer: Julián Apezteguia

Cast: Ricardo Darín, Martina Gusman, Carlos Weber, José Luis Arias, Fabio Ronzano, Loren Acuña, Gabriel Almirón, José Espech

A shady middle-aged solicitor, who arranges traffic accidents for a local gangster, to whom he is in debt, begins to court an attractive young doctor, who moonlights as a paramedic, in order to supplement her income, and has a drug problem; but all does not run smoothly, as his lifestyle soon begins to catch up with him and consequently her, in Trapero’s visceral, hugely compelling drama, which unflinchingly and expertly captures car smashes, medical procedures, and savage beatings with great authenticity, but fails to completely convince with its central relationship – Gusman, though giving a good performance, is far too drop-dead gorgeous to convince opposite the time-worn Darín. Iain.Stott

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The Maid (2009)

Recommended

Chile/Mexico

Feature Film

Original Title: La nana

Director: Sebastián Silva

Writers: Pedro Peirano, Sebastián Silva

Cinematographer: Sergio Armstrong

Cast: Catalina Saavedra, Claudia Celedón, Alejandro Goic, Andrea García-Huidobro, Mariana Loyola, Agustín Silva, Mercedes Villanueva

After twenty-odd years of working as a maid – living in someone else’s home, having no social life, inhaling all those fumes – Raquel has gone more than a little strange and become filled with petty, irrational jealousies; but when the bubbly Lucy is hired to assist her, she gradually manages to find her innate humanity, in Silva’s thoughtful, well acted, and thoroughly unpredictable parable. Iain.Stott

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