2024-07-06 03:15:15
Berta and Pablo 6 points
Argentina, 2024
Direction, photography and editing: Matias Szulansky
Script: Jenni Merla and Matias Szulansky
Duration: 61 minutes
Interpreters: Ana Skornik, Inés Urdinez, Camila Buch, Paulo Pécora, Valentina D’Emilio.
Premiere: Every Saturday at 9pm at Cacodelphia Art Cinema, Av. Roque Sáenz Peña 1150.
When Berta and Pablo had its premiere in the last Bafici As a world premiere, this space highlighted the prodigal nature of the work of Matias Szulanskyits director. Few local filmmakers can boast of having produced eleven feature films in just eight years. An achievement that, four months later, seems almost impossible to replicate in the near future, if we take into account the complete paralysis in which the Javier Milei’s government has submerged the Film Institute. It is also true that Szulansky has produced many of his works outside of this structure.
The absolute protagonist of Berta and Pablo It’s Caro, an introverted young woman living in Montevideo, who returns to Buenos Aires during a hot summer with the excuse of recording some songs with a friend, with whom she shares a musical project, and also to stop by her grandmother’s house, who recently passed away. But although both reasons are legitimate incentives to make the trip, the real reason that drives it is the need to distance herself from her boyfriend. As a vernacular exponent of the so-called mumblecoreDuring its first half, the film records Caro’s drift, which includes both her walks around the city and the always superfluous conversations with her friend.
The film insists on following her during her walks in the middle of a heat wave, as if it knew that behind this aimless walking there is a search that is still unconscious. Like Sumo’s song, it can be said that Caro doesn’t know what she wants, but she wants it now. Sometimes the camera records her through distant shots that give an account of her restless wandering. Other times, however, it stays very close to her to capture her in extreme close-ups that manage to go beyond the exterior shell of her apparent disinterest, revealing a genuine tribulation. When it seems that her destiny will be to remain submerged in this lethargic state, a discovery among her grandma’s books gives a new meaning to her journey.
Even in its brevity (only 61 minutes), Berta and Pablo At times it feels artificially extended by somewhat repetitive sequences. As if it were a medium-length film whose limits had been pushed to make it long. Despite this, Szulansky’s cinema shows a great evolution on the path that goes from Stupid, clown and fat (2017), one of his first works, up to here. Emotional and sensitive, his new work manages to impose itself on its own languor, making Tenderness, an opportune narrative vehicle. And has in the actress Ana Skornik a wonderful medium who manages to capture the warm spirit that lives in the film.