By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Alejandro Agresti
Starring: Carmen Maura | Julieta Cardinali | Rodrigo Noya
Country: argentina, france, netherlands, spain
Year: 2004
Running time: 86
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0296915/combined
Michael says: “This lovely Argentinian film certainly feels like the filmmaker looking back on his childhood (I actually have no absolutely nothing about this filmmaker, so I don’t know if that’s true or not.) Alejandro Agresti has written and directed a gently sweet, but unsentimental story of childhood innocence and the things we learn that contribute to our journey to adulthood. Eight-year-old Valentin (played with that adult through a child’s eyes sensibility by Rodrigo Noya) is slightly cross-eyed, dead
set on being the first man to walk on the moon, and being raised by his grandmother (the ever-delightful Carmen Maura) in late 60’s Argentina. His mother abandoned him and his father when he was a toddler. Dad still shows up from time to time, usually to impress his latest girlfriend with his well-mannered son.
“At first I thought this would be another of those European tales of a precocious child coming-of-age, but Agresti has fashioned something simple and knowing. Valentin meets the various challenges in his life with a full-on innocence that is sometimes heartbreaking, yet is worldly-wise enough not to let these challenges bring him down too far. Although he has a good friend his own age, he seems to make friends with adults more easily. Valentin develops a special relationship with the beautiful, blonde,
22-year-old Leticia even after she breaks up with his father. The lonely neighbor Rufo waxes rhapsodically about his ex-girlfriend during Valentin’s piano lessons and the two become friends. And the bond between Valentin and his grandmother, who only recently buried her husband, is touching and realistic as each seems to be the only person the other has.
“I watched this film for Carmen Maura (WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN), once the stupendous muse in Almodovar’s films, and she is wonderful as always (although it’s a little sad to see her playing a grandmother) but Julieta Cardinali as Leticia was a surprise. Her scenes with Noya are so wonderfully natural and their conversations sublime. 4 cats”