Sábado

Don't waste a second watching this crap. Extremely boring. A self referential movie. The character plays the real actor that is himself, as if he were a kind of devalued, Latin, John Malcovich's "Being John Malcovich". The best you can do is picking another Spanish movie, there are a lot with good content or at least entertaining. Don't waste a second watching this crap. Bad performances. Bad script. Everything's bad. So painful, that one just can't found much words to complete the 10 lines required to post a review. I'm almost reaching the 9th line, but I can tell you anymore, just take my advice and you will gain time and won't get a headache after watching this crap

I have just watched this movie on a Latin channel here in Miami. I found it incredibly boring and full of overstretched nonsense dialogues that are as dumb as they can get. Even for an Argentine like me this Argentine movie was pointless so I can assume it is even more boring for non-Argentine viewers.

I cannot think of a good reason why this movie was even made. I cannot stress enough how tedious the dialogues are (e.g.: "-It's strange two meet you twice in the same date. -It can happen. -But it's strange. -But it can happen. -But it's strange. -Yeah, but, you know, it can happen"). Enough said.

No message, no plot. Invest your 72 minutes in something else.

Six youngish people with no particular history - we follow their "stories" severally - wander around the city aimlessly for twenty-four hours or so, every now and then running into one another. (In two cases they literally run into one another, which may have been a joke, although I'm not sure the pun would make sense in Spanish.) This film isn't quite as mind-numbingly tedious as its closest Australian equivalent, "City Loop", because the characters are not completely gormless and unpleasant, and the dialogue, considered in itself, is actually rather good, even in subtitled form. There's even something that makes it worth watching: a funny joke one of the characters tells about ten minutes in, in a delightfully abstract way, as if she doesn't realise it's a joke at all. Since it's the best thing in the film I won't give away the punchline. Besides, you'll want to tell it to your friends; they won't have seen the film, so you'll be safe.

Someone should do a study, to see if people who make this kind of pointless movie in order to learn the mechanics of film-making actually go on to make worthwhile films. I suspect not. The lack of creativity is a bit too desperate. Of all the films of this type I've seen this one has the most unmotivated and abrupt ending, as if the director, like the audience, had thought the 72-minute mark would never arrive and was only too eager to call it a day when it did.

Maybe I'm getting too grumpy and too particular, but Sabado (Saturday) is basically a juiced-up six-character play with outdoor scenes.

The object of this film, which extends (mercifully) for only 72 minutes, is to show human alienation. It doesn't really succeed. What it does show is human tedium and boredom; it shows, rather unconvincingly, people who are looking for a little spice in their dismal lives.

After watching the master of human detachment or alienation, England's Mike Leigh, Sabado emerges as a pretty unsatisfactory statement on the same subject, this time in the destructive restrictions of IMF, which ripped Argentina's (among other countries) economy apart. It does show, quite well it seems, the frustration of youngish (but not that young) people who are never quite sure what they want.

There is some quirky humour in this film, but it could have used a lot more. When you compare this to 'Naked,' Leigh's 1993 masterwork on alienation (and wicked dark humour), Sabado just limps along, too static and not very powerful.

There is another great film I recall -- 'Humanite,' by France's Mario Dumont, that depicts alienation with such vividness that it is all but tactile.

I had the chance to see this movie at the Latin BEAT festival in New York City in 2003. I will not comment on the plot, there is almost no plot, but that it is a really well achieved portrayal of a Generation of young argentinians that wander. They don't have money, Argentina is bankrupted, and they have nothing to do on a Saturday. Indiferent whether the plan is to go out or stay at home, go for a drive or walk, there is nihilism all aver the movie and this can be annoying. It is not if you think that the movie was actually made by kids the generation of those depicted in the movie. If you saw Richard Linklater's "slacker", well, this is the new millennium argie version.