Invasión | Invasion (1969)
Hugo Santiago | Argentina | Spanish/Argentinian with French and English subtitles | Running time: 123m
5 October 2011, Walter Reade Theater
Masterworks

Writing credits: Jorge Luis Borges (story, screenplay); Adolfo Bioy Casares (story); Hugo Santiago (screenplay)

Original music and soundscape: Edgardo Cantón

Cast includes: Olga Zubarry (Irene); Lautaro Murúa (Herrera); Juan Carlos Paz (Don Porfirio); Martín Adjemián (Irala); Daniel Fernández (Lebendiger); Roberto Villanueva (Silva); Lito Cruz (Jefe de los jóvenes [as Oscar Cruz]); Jorge Cano (Julio Vildrac); Ricardo Ormellos (Cachorro); Leal Rey (Moon); Horacio Nicolai; Juan Carlos Galván (Jefe de otro grupo invasor); Aldo Mayo (Jefe del grupo invasor); Hedy Krilla (Vieja sirvienta); Claudia Sánchez (Mujer del restaurant)

“Dying is a habit most people have.”

The first work conceived for the cinema by Jorge Luis Borges, in collaboration with Adolfo Bioy Casares and novice director Hugo Santiago (a former assistant to Robert Bresson). Shown on the opening of the first Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes Films Festival.

“A work that is lyrical, unsettling and infinitely suggestive.” (NYFF)

Invasión is set in fictional Aquiléa, a city that looks a lot like Buenos Aires. A gang of middle-aged men, led by an elderly gentleman, resolve to mount resistance to tan-suited invaders while a separate army of youths train for insurrection. The Iliad meets genre police thriller, western, and surrealistic fantasy.

Invasión holds the distinctive honor of a “disappeared film.” Because eight reels of the original negative were stolen upon the official ban, no new print could be made until 2000, when two good prints were found and restored to the density and contrasts of the original release, thanks to Pierre André Boutang, the cinematographer Ricardo Aronovich, and the people of Arte Channel.

From Olivier Gonord’s 2009 interview with Hugo Santiago:

What is the genesis of Invasión?
I was living in France and going back to Buenos Aires to make two short films. I had a simple idea, a town invaded and defended by a handful of people. I saw Bioy Casares and told him about it. He told me “you have to speak to Borges about it”….

How was the shooting and where does the black and white contrast come from?
The shooting went very well. We had an old Arriflex camera from pre-war time but it had a great short lens and we had an excellent operator. We worked a lot, we had time. There were no spectacular things that would have required a lot of money and I had what I needed. We had already made two short films with Ricardo Aronovich, the cinematographer -the second one was more contrasted than the first one. To make Invasión we experimented things. We looked for those intense greys, our reference was Rembrandt’s sketches. We had the chance to work with a laboratory where we could experiment what we wanted. The baths, the times, we worked a lot with an ultra-sensitive film we brought from Rochester, from Kodak. When the film was done and the people of Kodak saw the film, they sent us a congratulation letter asking “how did you do that ?”. This had been the work of a photographer in a lab, testing baths, trying again…

From Kenji’s review on mubi:

The meanings of Invasión “extend well beyond Argentina … to a universal sort of allegory, in which we must all be on our guard and ready to resist, the young ready to pick up where the older generation left off. It’s quite gripping, and almost impossibly cool, something like Melville, with violent men in dark suits, meets Godard, with intellectuals talking in musical cafés, meets Antonioni- the director who lived in France was apparently influenced by the latter. It makes excellent use of the urban and country locations, it’s mysterious and elusive.”

These men, who walk in custom-tailored suits, unencumbered by briefcases, bags, or backpacks, remind us of ancient heroes. “Why die for people who won’t defend themselves?” The answer is forgone. We meet at midnight.

Fantastic camera movements. Rapid-shot visual details. A girl with a cougar. Wild horses. A rare thing, a deeply strange movie.

The shape of Invasión owes as much to the sound design as to the images. Three themes appear in the title sequence and evolve throughout the film, in parallel with the characters, transforming each image.

• A steel door opening
• A bird of the pampa (Chajá, Southern Screamer [Chauna torquata])
• Footsteps going down stairs

“Sound is a character as much as the characters themselves.” Hugo Santiago

Thanks to Hugo Santiago (the most generous of filmmakers, who responded to a question from the audience about the film’s soundscape with a brilliant exposition of method); Richard Peña (for his essay in the brilliantly conceived NYFF online feature “Why You Should See/NYFF Spotlight”); Olivier Gonord; and Kenji.

[NYFF] [IMDb]

Miss Bala
Gerardo Naranjo | Mexico | Spanish with English subtitles | Running time: 113m
Sunday 2 October, 4 PM, Alice Tully Hall

Cast: Stephanie Sigman (Laura Guerrero), Irene Azuela (Jessica Berlanga), Miguel Couturier (General Salomón Duarte), Gabriel Heads (Agent Bell), Noe Hernandez (Lino Valdez), James Russo (Jimmy), Jose Yenque (Kike Camara)

Bala is a bullet.

It began with a news photo of beauty queen captured with drug gang.

“The stupidest job in the world gets together with the cruellist job in the world. What has to happen to bring them together?”

Shot in Tijuana. Gun scenes in the provinces.

An essay on impotence, fear, passivity.

A brilliant third outing by Gerardo Naranjo (Voy A Explotar | I’m Gonna Explode, NYFF ’08), with a striking performance by the lead actress, Stephanie Sigman.

[NYFF] [IMDb]

Update: US Distributor – Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (2011)

Jodaeiye Nader az Simin | A Separation
Asghar Farhadi | Iran | Persian with English subtitles | Running time: 123m
2 October, 1 PM, Alice Tully Hall

Cast: Leila Hatami, Peyman Moadi, Shahab Hosseini, Sareh Bayat, Sarina Farhadi, Babak Karimi, Merila Zarei

People lie.

Beneath the opening credits, a photocopier copies IDs, one after another.

We open to a courtroom. A beautiful married couple, Simin (Leila Hatami) and Nader (Peyman Moadi) have obtained coveted visas to leave Iran for an unnamed country, where Simin hopes to offer a better future to their 11-year-old daughter, Termeh (the director’s daugher, Sarina Farhadi). Simin has red hair and determined eyes; Nader has an honest face. They address the camera as if we are the judge.

“You don’t have good reasons for a divorce.”

Their hard-won visa expires in a month or two; Nader will not leave, Simin must, with Termeh. The problem, Nader is devoted to his father (Ali-Asghar Shahbazi), who has Alzheimer disease and is totally dependent on his son and his family. And so the couple embark on a trial separation.

An upper middle-class household, a stable home, parents who value education and security for their daughter perhaps above all.

Simi has found a caretaker, Razieh (Sareh Bayat), a pregnant, deeply religious woman with a young daugher who takes the job unbeknownst to her husband (Shahab Hosseini), an out-of-work cobbler. A devout woman with a young daughter (Kimia Hosseini), to mind his father while he is at work.

Negotiations – she lives far away, the pay is not good, her husband does not know. The first day, grandpa pees his pants. Modesty. Razieh asks him to clean himself up; he can only ask for Simin. She makes a call to her imam for religious advice. She can clean the old man. Her daughter watches through frosted glass, ever curious.

In the meantime, Nader teaches his daughter to be assertive, first with the gas station attendant.

The caretaker quits. It’s heavy work for a pregnant woman and a little girl. We know she’s pregnant, but does Nader?

It’s a big problem. Who else? Razieh comes back. My husband. He cannot know you hired me. But maybe he can come.

Here begins the disaster. Class war. Breakdown of families and society.

The two daughters are at the heart of the story.

Truth, guilt, the bitter disappointment of a child in her parents.

Tense and narratively complex, formally dense and morally challenging, flawlessly crafted, brilliantly performed and intimately photographed, A Separation premiered at Berlinale, where it won the Golden Bear for Best Film as well as the top prizes for Best Actor and Actress for its male and female ensembles.

“The idea for the film came to when I was sitting in the kitchen of my friend’s flat in Berlin nearly one year ago. I was here preparing another film, but I decided to do this one instead. I was smoking a cigarette in the kitchen, listening to some Iranian music and then I decided to make it. The film is influenced by my personal experiences and the situation in Iran and also some abstract pictures I had in my mind. It was like a puzzle. The story was in my mind for some time but when I decided to make it it happened quickly.” – Asghar Farhadi

It began with picture of a man with Alzheimer’s. “I found the button and made a suit.”

Do not miss this movie.
[NYFF] [IMDb]

Update: US Distributor – Sony Pictures Classics (2011); Academy Award/Oscar – Best Foreign Language Film of the Year (2012)