A touching, yet unsentimental, and quietly profound road movie which follows the lives of three disparate travellers heading for the Argentine provincial town of Puerto San Julián. Roberto is a travelling salesman hoping to impress a young widow with a gift for her child. Don Justo is an old man with poor vision who sits in front of his grocery store entertaining passing children by wiggling his ears. María is a shy young mother who has won an appearance on a TV game show. Gently probing the hopes and aspirations of the characters, the film uses the interconnected tripartite structure to offer astute observations on a culture relatively unscathed by modernity in contemporary Argentina.
Don Justo is told that his lost dog, Badface, has been seen at the highway patrol station on the outskirts of San Julián and after much deliberation the old man decides to hitchhike the 300 kilometres from Fitz Roy to seek forgiveness and bring him back. A fellow traveller on the road is Roberto, a lonely and obsessive salesman who is in love with a young widow. He has had a cake baked in the shape of a football as a surprise for her child's birthday, but then suffers agonising doubt as to whether his perfect gift is actually appropriate. María, an impoverished young mother, receives news that she has been selected as a contestant on a television show where the grand prize is a top of the range food processor. As each character journeys to their destination in pursuit of a dream, they are helped by complete strangers whose kindness makes the task possible, but who ask for nothing in return. In the end, the three will get more or less what they set out for, but it will come to them in ways that they never expected.
This subtle and insightful study of the warmth and goodness of the human spirit is set amid the beautiful, barren landscapes of Argentine Patagonia.
No comments:
Post a Comment