Richard Wulicher Movies

In this film that focuses on the history of Buenos Aires, three separate stories by Manuel Mujica Lainez are presented in sequence, directed by three different men and dealing with three different periods in the history of the city. The first story, "Hunger" (dir. Alberto Fischerman), is set in the mid-16th century when Argentina was being colonized by the Spaniards. In this vignette, the Spanish settlers are surrounded by the Querandi tribe of Indians in the tiny village that was the beginning of Buenos Aires, and they have no means of obtaining food. Hunger becomes the dominant motif that rules all waking moments, and the settlers resort to cannibalism in order to survive. In the next story, "The Bell Bracelet " (dir. Ricardo Wulicher), the time has progressed to the 18th century, but the behavior of the Europeans in the city has not improved. An encampment of English slave-dealers is run by a blind man who has no problem in picking out pleasing slave women to pass the night away. His blindness, in the end, may be the cause of his undoing. The last story, "The Golden Room" (dir. Oscar Barney Finn), takes place at the beginning of the 20th century and involves an acerbic old dowager confined to her bed but not at all ineffectual in dealing with her household. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide