I've seen a lot of films in five days in Berlin, but I must say that I haven't been convinced or touched by many of them. Here is the first article about one of the films I really enjoyed. My "likes" are very diverse - a docu/fiction drama, a crazy comedy, a disturbed and weird first feature - and this one, a love story in modern Buenos Aires, in modern times.
The film is called MEDIANERAS and was actually at first a short film of 27 minutes, released in 2005. The director, Argentinian Gustavo Taretto, decided to do a feature out of it. And here it is, six years later, at the 61st Berlinale - I wish I could do the same.
It's about a city, Buenos Aires, a time, the one of high-tech means of communication, and two people, Martin (Javier Drolas) and Mariana (Pilar Lopez de Ayala), who are both looking for love but don't really know how to get out of their tiny apartments and how to leave their computers. What they don't know either is that they're actually neighbors, and cross each other's way every day without knowing it when they are... made for each other.
The film starts with a voice-over explaining how messy and crowded the city of Buenos Aires. A succession of static shots of buildings, skyscrapers, illustrates the comments. Aesthetically, it is brilliant, and I almost believed I was in front of paintings. The architecture of the city is all over, beautiful and unsuitable, but so likable. However for Martin (it's his voice-over), the fact that the city isn't ventilated and properly put together is the explanation of the depression and of the agoraphobia of people - him included. Mariana, who wanted to become an architect and studied for it, ends up doing the designing shops windows. After a complicated relationship, she wants to find true love but doesn't know where to look for it.
In the end, they find each other - and the last minutes is a YouTube videoclip of the couple singing "Ain't no mountain high enough", which is simply adorable. This love story is a breath of fresh air in this modern world, and even though it is about the fact that people today have difficulties to meet, talk, connect to one another, you stay online, I stayed online, absorbed and touched by some details - the whole "Where is Waldo" part is funny and smart in this crowded set -. It was one of the best discoveries of the festival.
MJ.
