Like
a fly-on-the-wall documentary, this lively film captures
four generations of a Latina family confined in a campervan.
Funny, telling and more than a little frightening, the film
gets well under the skin and leaves any message for us to
find within ourselves.
At her
84th birthday party, Emilia (Chironi) gets a phone call
from her sister back home in Misiones asking her to be her
niece's matron-of-honour. So Emilia declares that the whole
family is going to the wedding! Son Oscar (Forteza) dusts
off his homemade motor home, and 12 family members pile
in for the two-day journey from Buenos Aires to the coast.
Along the way they're interrupted by various dramas, road
obstacles and illicit romances; and as Emilia heads home
after a whole lifetime in the capital, she begins to put
her life into perspective.
This
is a compilation of briefly glimpsed scenes, snatches of
conversation and clips observing this feisty, chattering,
emotionally chaotic family. It's so authentic that it's
almost unnerving, capturing the joys and tension that emerge
at any large gathering or relatives. These are the people
we love the most in the world, and yet we don't want to
spend too much time with them! Trapero's film captures this
beautifully, although it would help to have nametags to
identify everyone, especially when the in-laws start stirring
things up.
There
are so many characters--and all of them take their own internal
journey--that the film is spread a bit thin. But the ties
between them, old and new, are cleverly highlighted, while
the performances are extremely raw and natural. There are
moments of comedy, romance and real anguish, and Trapero
(El Bonaerense) punctuates it with colourful footage of
the changing landscape and cultural details of communities
along the road. As it progresses toward the big family wedding,
the film examines expectations, regrets, jealousies and
rites of passage among this varied group of fascinating
people. The relaxed approach makes it all rather elusive.
The finale is extremely open-handed, letting us discover
what it means without pushing any contrived sentiment at
us. But that's actually refreshing, for a change.
