El hombre de al lado

From the very beginning, the film starts with a split screen, the left side light and luminous, the sun hits directly a white, solid wall. The right side of the screen is the same wall, but viewed from the interior, very dark, no light whatsoever.

Someone is hitting the wall from the inside with a sledgehammer, trying to open a hole, blow by blow. The hole gets larger and larger. On the left, sunny side the wall starts to crack, soon it crumbles and the hole is opened.

Light starts lighting up the dark interior. And here starts the film, with the opening of an illegal window on a party wall. But not only that window is illegal, it opens facing its neighbor, the only house that Le Corbusier built in all Southamerica, in La Plata, capital of the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. (This house can be seen in Wikipedia and we see tourists coming from different parts of the world to see it, to photograph it and even to ask permission from its owner to visit the interior!!).

The premise couldn't be simpler and its the only premise of the whole movie, but... what a movie! I don't remember seeing another movie with that particular stylishness in its look.

Every frame seems to have been designed by a designer of cool contemporary objects. The Le Corbusier house is perfection itself, and when we consider that it was built 80 years ago, its hard to believe it and even harder not to show deep respect for that genius of an architect.

The house seems built this morning and with the latest tendency in architecture. Two are the main characters, the refined architect and the coarse neighbor --perfect casting-- a neighbor guilty of breaking the law with his need to open a window because he "needs a bit of sunlight" in his dark interior.

I was mesmerized throughout the whole film. Excellent in the way it portraits social relationships among different classes and the inherent criticism of it. The ending is pure black humor on the surface, but a hard blow on our moral standards when considering on which side is our judgment in front of such behavior.

This film will certainly make you think. Do not miss the final credits because there is a touch of black humor during its run.