What to Watch Online this Week on Cinema Tropical
Premiering Online This Week:
Virtual Theatrical Release: THE FEVER
(A Febre, Maya Da-Rin, Brazil/ France/Germany, 2019, 98 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
Manaus is an industrial city surrounded by the Amazon rainforest. Justino, a 45 years old Desana native, works as a security guard at the cargo port. Since the death of his wife, his main company is his youngest daughter with whom he lives in a modest house on the outskirts of town. Nurse at a health clinic, Vanessa is accepted to study medicine in Brasilia and will need to be leaving soon. As the days go by, Justino is overcome by a strong fever. During the night, a mysterious creature follows his footsteps. During the day, he fights to stay awake at work. But soon the tedious routine of the harbor is broken by the arrival of a new guard. Meanwhile, his brother’s visit makes Justino remember the life in the forest, from where he left twenty years ago. Between the oppression of the city and the distance of his native village, Justino can no longer endure an existence without place.
Opens Friday, March 19
Ibero-American Film Showcase – Female Perspectives:
A FAMILY SUBMERGED
(Familia sumergida, María Alché, Argentina, 2019, 91 min. In Spanish with English Subtitles)
SOFÍA
(Famor Botero, Colombia, 2019, 90 min. In Spanish with English Subtitles)
THE MOLE AGENT
(El agente topo, Maite Alberdi, Chile, 2020, 90 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
CAPSULES
(Cápsulas, Verónica Riedel, Guatemala, 2012, 103 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
RETREAT
(Retiro, Daniela Alatorre, Mexico, 2019, 70 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
DAUGHTERS OF NANTU
(Willy Guevara, Peru, 2018, 75 min. In Spanish and Awajún with English subtitles)
SNU
(Patrícia Sequeira, Portugal, 2019, 94 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
MARIA (AND EVERYBODY ELSE)
(Nely Reguera, Spain, 2016, 90 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
LAS TONINAS VAN AL ESTE
(Gonzalo Delgado and Verónica Parrota, Uruguai, 2016, 83 min. In Spanish with English Subtitles)
Streaming through Sunday, March 21
Virtual Theatrical Release:
IDENTIFYING FEATURES
(Sin señas particulares, Fernanda Valadez, Mexico/Spain, 2020, 95 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Middle-aged Magdalena (Mercedes Hernandez) has lost contact with her son after he took off with a friend from their town of Guanajuato to cross the border into the U.S., hopeful to find work. Desperate to find out what happened to him—and to know whether or not he’s even alive—she embarks on an ever-expanding and increasingly dangerous journey to discover the truth. At the same time, a young man named Miguel (David Illescas) has returned to Mexico after being deported from the U.S., and eventually his path converges with Magdalena’s. From this simple but urgent premise, director Fernanda Valadez has crafted a lyrical, suspenseful slow burn, equally constructed of moments of beauty and horror, and which leads to a startling, shattering conclusion. Winner of the World Cinema Dramatic Audience and Screenplay Awards at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Theatrical Release and on Streaming:
LA LLORONA
(Jayro Bustamante, Guatemala/ France, 2019, 97 min. In Spanish, Mayan-Caqchickel, and Mayan-Ixil, with English subtitles)
Indignant retired general Enrique finally faces frail for the genocidal massacre of thousands of Mayans decades ago. As a horde of angry protestors threatens to invade their opulent home, the women of the house – his haughty wife, conflicted daughter, and precocious granddaughter – weigh their responsibility to shield the erratic, senile Enrique against the devastating truths being publicly revealed and the increasing sense that a wrathful supernatural force is targeting them for his crimes. Meanwhile, much of the family’s domestic staff flees, leaving only loyal housekeeper Valeriana until a mysterious young Indigenous maid arrives. A tale of horror and magical realism, the film reimagines the iconic Latin American fable as an urgent metaphor of Guatemala’s recent history and tears open the country’s unhealed political wounds to grieve a seldom discussed crime against humanity. Golden Globe-nominated La Llorona marks Bustamante’s third feature and demonstrates his continued efforts to highlight social inequality in his native Guatemala following his previous titles Temblores (2019) and Ixcanul (2016).
Now playing at the IFC Center in New York City, and streaming on Shudder.
Daily Recommendation: ARAYA
(Margot Benaceraf, Venezuela, 1959, 82 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
The peninsula of Araya in northeastern Venezuela, is one of the most arid places on earth. For five hundred years, since its discovery by the Spanish, the region’s salt has been exploited manually. A 17th-century fortress built to protect against pirate raids stands as a reminder of the days when salt was worth almost as much as gold and great fortunes were made. Benacerraf captures the life of the salineros and their back-breaking work in breathtaking images. The Peredas family works at night in the salt marshes, the Ortiz are fishermen and the Salaz collect salt. The three stories underline the harsh life of this region — all of which vanished with the arrival of industrial exploitation. Araya was originally compared to Flaherty’s Man of Aran, Visconti’s La Terra Trema (1947) and Rossellini’s India (1957). Margot Benacerraf has described the film as “a cinematic narration based on script writing rather than a spontaneous action, a feature documentary, the opposite of Italian neorealism.” A film of such lasting beauty that Jean Renoir told Benacerraf after seeing the film: “Above all … don’t cut a single image!”
Daily Recommendation:
LIGHTNING FALLS BEHIND
(Atrás hay relámpagos, Julio Hernández Cordón, Costa Rica/Mexico, 2017, 82 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
The sixth film by Mexican-Guatemalan filmmaker Julio Hernández Cordón (I Promise You Anarchy), and his first shot in Costa Rica, is a rakish slacker movie that follows rebellious girls Sole (Adriana Alvarez) and Ana (Natalia Arias). While biking around San José, and planning to create a vintage cab company, they find something inside the trunk of a car that they’d rather immediately forget. Lightning Falls Behind, featuring playful and fluid camerawork, is a prime example of the kind of recent Central American cinema that has delighted viewers on the international film circuit.
Films Available to Stream Now:
Virtual Theatrical Release:
MY DARLING SUPERMARKET
(Meu Querido Supermercado, Tali Yankelevich, Brazil/Denmark, 2019, 80 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
Grocery store employees, today’s essential workers, get star treatment in My Darling Supermarket (made prior to the pandemic). Set within a bright, colorful supermercado in São Paulo, Brazil, this charming, funny documentary glides through a seemingly endless array of vibrantly designed shelves and displays, but it’s the store’s employees who take center stage. Rodrigo (in bread) discusses quantum physics and parallel universes; Santo (a forklift operator) builds video game cities; a security officer tracks possible shoplifters on closed circuit TVs (“Two suspects near the condensed milk!”); Ivan (a baker) likes to dress as Goku, a Manga character; and then there’s the artist who lovingly paints the prices. A panoply of individuals with fears, hopes, and questions about their place in the universe are celebrated in a quirky portrait that juxtaposes their idiosyncrasies with the assumed mundanity of bringing food to our table.
U.S. Latinx and Latin American Films at the 11th Annual Athena Film Festival:
THROUGH THE NIGHT
(Loria Limbal, USA, 2020, 72 min. In English and Spanish with English and Spanish subtitles)
Streaming through March 21
LA MADRINA: THE (SAVAGE) LIFE OF LORINE PADILLA
(Raquel Cepeda, USA, 2020, 81 min. In English and Spanish with English subtitles)
Streaming through March 28
‘Shorts’
INMACULADA
(Stephanie Sandoval, Chile, 2018, 16 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
PLAYBACK
(Agustina Comedi, Argentina, 2019, 14 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
BASTA
(Cecilia Albertini and Lesley Elizondo, USA, 2020, 12 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
LUPITA
(Monica Wise Robles, USA/Mexico, 2020, 21 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
LA INDEFINIBLE
(Agustina Biasutto, USA, 2019, 10min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
MARGARITA OF THE RIVER
(Pilar Garcia-Fernandezsesma, USA, 2018, 4min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
EXILED
(Exiliada, Leonor Zúniga, Costa Rica, 2019, 24 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
All shorts streaming through Wednesday, March 31
Virtual Theatrical Release:
LEONA
(Isaac Cherem, Mexico, 2018, 95 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Leona is an intimate, insightful, and moving film that tells the story of a young Jewish woman from Mexico City who finds herself torn between her family and her forbidden love. Ripe with all the drama and interpersonal conflicts of a Jane Austen novel, watching her negotiate the labyrinth of familial pressure, religious precedent, and her own burgeoning sentiment is both painful and beautiful – there are no easy choices to be made and the viewer travels back and forth with her as she struggles with her heart to take the best path.
Daily Recommendation:
LA SIRGA
(William Vega, Colombia/ France/ Mexico, 2012, 89 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Alicia is a vulnerable 19-year-old who has lost her family in a conflict that has destroyed her village. She tracks down the only relative she knows to be alive, her reclusive, middle-aged uncle Oscar, whose home is a remote, dilapidated lakeside inn in the High Andes. Oscar reluctantly takes in his niece on condition that she helps with renovating the hostel and making it attractive to the tourists who never visit. Her sleepwalking episodes and the unwanted attention she gets from local men make Alicia’s life all the more fraught, and the unexpected arrival of Oscar’s furtive, long-absent son Fredy only adds to the tension. William Vega’s debut feature is an intense, elliptical drama that develops in a wildly evocative setting, a daring and rewarding film that is as nuanced as it is enthralling.
Daily Recommendation:
ELVIRA I WILL GIVE YOU MY LIFE BUT I’M USING IT
(Elvira, te daría mi vida, pero la estoy usando, Manolo Caro, Mexico, 2015, 92 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
In Manolo Caro’s third feature film, Elvira’s husband goes out to buy a pack of cigarettes, and never comes back. The 40-year-old mother of two young children frantically hunts for clues. Erratically taking things into her own hands, Elvira turns into an amateur sleuth on a relentless and hysterical quest to discover what happened. As Elvira begins to unravel secrets about the husband she thought she knew, her own repressed identity begins to unravel before her. Emmy nominated actress Cecilia Suárez shines in the title role of this delightfully rare, physical and emotional comedy. She’s joined by a cast of leading popular and established actors including Luis Gerardo Méndez, Carlos Bardem, and Angie Cepeda.
Daily Recommendation: CINEMA, ASPIRINS AND VULTURES
(Cinema, Aspirinas e Urubus, Marcelo Gomes, Brazil, 2005, 99 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
A dry, arid, barren landscape. A small village deep inside north-eastern Brazil. Vultures circle above. It is the year 1942 and aspirin is as new to the local inhabitants as the film screenings the young German Johann uses to sell the product. As Johann drives from one village to another, the war in Europe seems far away. On the road he gives a lift to the local villager Ranulpho. You could hardly find two people more different. But Ranulpho soon becomes Johann’s assistant and the story of an unusual friendship starts to unfold. However, this exotic road movie with its convincing atmosphere soon becomes a powerful drama: Brazil enters the war with Germany and Johann suddenly finds himself the enemy.