The first half of the movie (part 1) is a fresh and interesting piece. It shows great premise, despite a not particularly sustained pace. There's plenty of space to grow attached to the main characters, interested in their story, and attracted to the mystery surrounding Trenque Lauquen. There are long, atmospheric pauses that implicitly say much more than any dialogue could. There's poetry. There's a truly inspired sub-plot (Carmen Zuna). There's also much, much more, and the length of the movie - over 4 hours, 2 hours at the first half point - doesn't feel overambitious by its halfway point. All the ingredients of a great work are in place, in the right number to engage and keep engaged. The actors are great, the music is creatively understated and descriptive, the writing and photography masterful.
Then, the second half arrives. Here, instead of starting to unravel something, additional stuff is thrown in the mix. And it piles up. Previous sub-plots are explicitly and intentionally forgotten, in order to make space for new ones. Interesting ideas get lost. The pace slows further, until the last segment brings it almost to a halt. No satisfying conclusion is sought or found.
The main issue is that it wouldn't still be as bad if the movie was cut short earlier. After the long final drag, the ending is so uninspiringly cryptic that it made me regret spending 4 hours of my life on this movie. It simply felt very lazy.
I honestly do not understand. It's really hard to figure out the choices done in the second half, in light of the great results of the first half. It almost feels like they found themselves with too many things on their hand, and thought, so how do we make this work? Simple, we leave it as it is. It's a common issue I find in most smaller art movie productions - sadly, the perfect recipe to be confined to the smallest public possible.
