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Reviews3
ernesto-pepe's rating
Not really often I see movies where you don't really know who is the movie about but until the very end. This is that kind of movies. Art and camera direction are brilliant, colours are fluoride-shiny as visual experiences with LSD must be. This movie both honours and despises the current "reality show" culture, because as it goes, characters turn to be dismissed one by one, whilst the MTV-style party goes ruthlessly on. Girls and nude-sex scenes are both sexy and sometimes abhorrent. Pure dialectics. The scene of the first assault (the camera going around the house in one shot) is one of the most original travellings I've seen since Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs. Probably a classic must-see in a couple of decades.
Vladimir, a really fresh guy, goes eternally evicted from every flat for not paying the rent. His situation seems to improve when he accidentally meets an old schoolmate, Jorge, a geek who invites him to share a house. But, contrarily, Vladimir's situation gets much worse since one day he wakes up and realises that everybody in the neighbourhood literally wants to kill him with no apparent reason, and he has had sex with Jorge's girlfriend but he cannot remember it. However, when he wakes up the morning after, everything looks calm and quiet, and the girl even does not seem to know him. Soon he understands he had been experiencing strange time leaps, forward and backward, chaotically. Apparently, he has been drinking too much "malta con huevo", a "nutritive" shake brewage made of Guinness and egg, kindly prepared for him by his pal Jorge. However, Jorge's motivations are far to be kind.
The movie depicts a strange, dark and hysterical Santiago city, plenty of neurotic people and bad moods. The scenario we see from the beginning, quite rightly chosen, is a typical grey inner-city quarter. But then, you see the image of Vladimir driving a merry yellow "citroneta", and it becomes clear this movie is going to be quite sarcastic. A deliberate "seventy" style (the car, the drink, the clothing, the neighbourhood) contributes to create this vicious and surrealistic environment. This is not a minor cinematographic achievement by the director, because the 1970s decade was especially scaring for most Chileans due to the military dictatorship (even though, correctly, this movie does not give any reference to political issues three hurrahs for that!!!).
Obviously, this movie does NOT resolve the many contradictions inherent to the past-present-future leaps. On the contrary, the script leaves too many loose ends. But, honestly, could anyone expect "scientifically convincing" explanations about time-travelling from a simple comedy? This is a-bit-more-than-average-intelligent-movie, just for those who like funny comedies, good performances, and want to spend an hour and half enjoying a film. The plot is surprisingly unconventional, and the general result has much more pros than cons. It kept me thinking about it for a couple of weeks. The soundtrack, especially the movie-theme is also hard to forget: a melange between Rock and Chilean vulgar cumbia.
Characters are quite stereotypical, but this is how this kind of movie works; just like Alex De La Iglesia's or Santiago Segura's movies. Nevertheless, these actors perform quite convincingly: Saavedra (the nerd), Díaz De Valdés (his really sexy and b..tchy girlfriend), Muñoz (the fresh guy) who performs probably the best role in his entire career, Martelli (the freaked-out teenage dark-witch). The rest of the cast does also good (the psychopathic owner of the liquor store is remarkable). All actors speak just few enough Chilean slang, so the movie can be understood by international audiences without problems.
And then you have a novice director (Valderrama) that delivers surprisingly well. Light direction might be probably not the best (unfortunately, this is the typical problem in Chilean movies), but photography and film edition are very professional. Moreover, an extra "mystical" surprise emerges at the very end of the movie. In sum, a totally recommendable Chilean comedy.
The movie depicts a strange, dark and hysterical Santiago city, plenty of neurotic people and bad moods. The scenario we see from the beginning, quite rightly chosen, is a typical grey inner-city quarter. But then, you see the image of Vladimir driving a merry yellow "citroneta", and it becomes clear this movie is going to be quite sarcastic. A deliberate "seventy" style (the car, the drink, the clothing, the neighbourhood) contributes to create this vicious and surrealistic environment. This is not a minor cinematographic achievement by the director, because the 1970s decade was especially scaring for most Chileans due to the military dictatorship (even though, correctly, this movie does not give any reference to political issues three hurrahs for that!!!).
Obviously, this movie does NOT resolve the many contradictions inherent to the past-present-future leaps. On the contrary, the script leaves too many loose ends. But, honestly, could anyone expect "scientifically convincing" explanations about time-travelling from a simple comedy? This is a-bit-more-than-average-intelligent-movie, just for those who like funny comedies, good performances, and want to spend an hour and half enjoying a film. The plot is surprisingly unconventional, and the general result has much more pros than cons. It kept me thinking about it for a couple of weeks. The soundtrack, especially the movie-theme is also hard to forget: a melange between Rock and Chilean vulgar cumbia.
Characters are quite stereotypical, but this is how this kind of movie works; just like Alex De La Iglesia's or Santiago Segura's movies. Nevertheless, these actors perform quite convincingly: Saavedra (the nerd), Díaz De Valdés (his really sexy and b..tchy girlfriend), Muñoz (the fresh guy) who performs probably the best role in his entire career, Martelli (the freaked-out teenage dark-witch). The rest of the cast does also good (the psychopathic owner of the liquor store is remarkable). All actors speak just few enough Chilean slang, so the movie can be understood by international audiences without problems.
And then you have a novice director (Valderrama) that delivers surprisingly well. Light direction might be probably not the best (unfortunately, this is the typical problem in Chilean movies), but photography and film edition are very professional. Moreover, an extra "mystical" surprise emerges at the very end of the movie. In sum, a totally recommendable Chilean comedy.
This movie is total rubbish!!! Honestly. This is Fuget's first time as director, and I really hope the last one. His script here is much worse than his novels: frivolous, inexpressive, irrelevant. His direction is superficial, plenty of unconnected scenes with no sense of rhythm at all. Minutes and minutes of pointless, affected (and definitively too long) chats are filmed with a poor sense of cinematography. The product of this childish Tarantino's wannabe gives you time even to go to the toilet without missing anything important. Its framing is as bad as its photography. The soundtrack is predictable, plenty of hyper-known 1980s songs; absolutely no contribution to popular music culture. Light direction is deficient: in some night scenes you simply can't recognise faces or tell who's talking; in others, light is so bright that actresses look like corpses and actors like Dracula. The whole thing is pathetic. I gave two stars just to the few good actors performing here (Cruz-Coke, Lewin, Saavedra). Half additional star could go for Ignacia Allamand's nice-nice bottom.