Alejandro Agresti Movies

Venerable Argentinian filmmaker Alejandro Agresti turns his lens to his own childhood in this nostalgic coming-of-age tale. Set in the director's hometown of Buenos Aires circa 1964, Valentin centers around its title character (and ostensible stand-in for the director), a nine-year-old boy (Rodrigo Noya) whose feuding parents have left him to be raised by his sage, eccentric grandmother (Carmen Maura). With his father (Agresti) visiting only occasionally, Valentin is left to look to the other men in the neighborhood for father figures, and to replace his absent mother, he warms to Leticia (Julieta Cardinali), one of his father's many short-term girlfriends. When he tells her personal secrets about his father, however, Valentin jeopardizes their relationship. ~ Michael Hastings, Rovi

Argentine director Alejando Agresti directed this surreal, allegorical Argentine-French-Dutch- Spanish comedy-drama. Winner of the "Golden Shell Grand Prize" at the 1998 San Sebastian Film Festival, the absurdist tale is set during the '70s. Young Buenos Aires cabdriver Soledad (Vera Fogwill), tired of fending off molesting passengers and dealing with her exploitative boss, keeps driving her cab straight out of the city and into the mountains, arriving at a remote and dusty Patagonian village, Rio Pico. The town's only contact with the outside world is a cinema which shows film reels out of sequence or upside-down -- as referenced in the title's reversal of Gone With the Wind. This has impacted on local inhabitants, causing them to speak in non sequiturs. Soledad checks into an inn run by Doña Maria (Angela Molina), and when locals find out she was a journalism student, they ask her to host their newsreels about life in Rio Pico. Her new job as news anchor leads to a romance with film critic Pedro (Fabian Vena). Doña Marie finds love blossoming when faded French film star Edgar Wexley (Jean Rochefort) arrives in town as a result of massive amounts of fan mail. Village scientist Antonio (Ulises Dumont) makes regular jaunts to Buenos Aires with his discoveries (such as the theory of relativity), only to be told these were previously discovered in earlier decades. Change comes to Rio Pico when electricity and television arrive, and the town's magical, idiosyncratic appeal begins to fade. Also shown at the 1998 Chicago Film Festival. Spanish and French dialogue. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

The state of Argentina past and present becomes the basis for this drama's underlying message. Much of the tale is allegorical and so the message is implicit making it most meaningful for audiences with an understanding of Argentine history. As the film begins an intertitle appears reminding the audience that 30,000 people died during the genocide of the military dictatorship's reign during the 1970s. The story is then dedicated to the surviving children of the slain. Two such children, now adults are the main characters. One, a woman, has become a filmmaker. She wanders the streets of Buenos Aires filming old buildings and locales to please an elderly couple unable to leave their homes. The other is her sleazy friend who works in a low-rent motel. The story is largely episodic with each section dealing with the main characters or a number of off-beat people on the periphery. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

One day, Tim (Roy Ward) stops to speak with one of those men with no apparent income and no apparent place of residence who can be seen on the streets of Amsterdam and who are ready to speak of profundities and mock-profundities at the drop of a hat. This particular man tells him that "people don't die, they get killed." For some reason, this strikes the lonely television repairman as profound. He has been building a ham radio at home out of spare parts so that he will have someone to talk to. Shortly after talking to the street person, his circle of friends is diminished by one when his friend Alex is reported to have killed himself. This in itself is a bit of a mystery, and Tim attempts to make sense of it by talking to a lawyer, Alex's girlfriend, and others. Despite being a largely Dutch production, this film was shot with an English-language soundtrack. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

To his credit, the highly prolific Dutch filmmaker Pim de la Parra doesn't just make his own style of films but helps other filmmakers create something. In this black-and-white film, he is listed as a co-producer, and a co-writer. The story concerns a bereft young man living in a bleak section of Amsterdam who was inexplicably left by his girlfriend and cannot reconcile himself to that fact. However, he has a number of raffish friends who involve him in adrenaline-junkie games like "chicken" racing to take his mind off his sorry state for a little while. Every now and then, new sections of the story are prefaced by humorous or baffling "Thou shalt" or "Thou Shalt Not"-type slogans. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

The somewhat kinky writer Roberto (Elio Marchi) is hiding out from the Gestapo, and decides that the ideal place to spend the war would be in a room at a fancy brothel which has its own cabaret. It is run by a down-to-earth madam played by Viveca Lindefors. He rents an expensive room there and pays for the exclusive services of Luba (Bozena Lasota), one of the prostitutes. However, he doesn't want her for sex, just conversation. He wants someone to discuss the place of idealism in the face of tyranny with. She thinks it's better to focus on coping with the ordinary terrors of everyday life, and doesn't hesitate to give him the benefit of her scathing opinions of him and his idealism. While they argue and discuss philosophy, Roberto has flashbacks of his earlier life. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

In this complex political drama, set in Argentina after the demise of its military dictatorship, a young journalist's preference for writing leftist articles endangers his job. His editor assigns him to follow the filming of an American movie. He does so, but not without making many inflammatory comments about gringo intentions. As a result, he is fired. This frees him to begin looking for his estranged lover who mysteriously vanished during the last regime. All those around him suspect that she was among the "disappeared" but he refuses to believe it. He continues his fruitless search, convinced that she is alive and with another man. As he travels, he becomes increasing upset by the complacency of his countrymen who seem more willing to accept life as it comes. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi