What to Watch Online This Week on Cinema Tropical
Films Premiering This Week:
Broadcast Premiere:
THE MOLE AGENT
(El agente topo, Maite Alberdi, Chile/ USA/Germany/ Spain, 2020, 90 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Sergio is a Chilean spy. Sort of. At least, he is offered the role of one after a casting session organized by Detective Romulo, a private investigator who needs a credible mole to infiltrate a retirement home. Romulo’s client, the concerned daughter of a resident, suspects her mother is being abused and hires him to find out what is really happening. However, Sergio is 83, not 007, and not an easy trainee when it comes to technology and spying techniques. But he is a keen student, looking for ways to distract himself after recently losing his wife. What could be a better distraction than some undercover spy action? While gathering intelligence, Sergio grows close to several residents and realizes that the menacing truth beneath the surface is not what anyone had suspected.
Premieres tonight, Monday, January 25 on PBS’s POV series
Films Available to Stream Now:
Virtual 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. A Kino Lorber release.
Q&A with Filmmakers Fernanda Valadez and Astrid Rondero:
Join us for a special conversation with the Identifying Features‘ filmmakers, hosted by Sag Harbor Cinema.
Sunday, January 31 at 4:30pm EST
Daily Recommendation:
MR. KAPLAN
(Álvaro Brechner, Uruguay, Spain, Germany, 2014, 98 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Jacob Kaplan lives an ordinary life in Uruguay. Like many of his other Jewish friends, Jacob fled Europe for South America because of World War II. But now turning 76, he’s become rather grumpy, fed up with his community and his family’s lack of interest in its own heritage. One beach bar may, however, provide him with an unexpected opportunity to achieve greatness and recover his family’s respect in the community : its owner, a quiet, elderly German, raises Mr. Kaplan suspicion of being a runaway Nazi. Ignoring his family’s concerns about his health, Jacob secretly recruits Contreras, a more loyal than honest former police officer, to help him investigate. Together, they will try to repeat the historic capture of Adolf Eichmann : by unmasking and kidnapping the German and secretly taking him to Israel.
Daily Recommendation:
CLOUDY TIMES
(El tiempo nublado, Arami Ullón,
Paraguay/Switzerland, 2014, 91 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
For as long as Arami can remember, her mother suffers from epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease. As the only child of an absent father, Arami had to be responsible for herself and her mother at a very young age, a situation which proved to be a very demanding. Then, ten years ago, she could somehow cut the cord, as she found her own happiness in Switzerland, where she is living with her partner Patrick. Her mother is still living in Paraguay and Julia, an untrained helper, cares for her around the clock for a modest salary. However, her mother’s health is increasingly deteriorating. Julia can no longer cope with the situation and wants to quit her job. Since no one can expect Julia to look after Arami’s mother, Arami has to return to Paraguay. Will she be able to find a solution for her mother in a country, where the caretaking of the elderly is mainly up to their relatives? And if so, should she give up her happiness in Europe and go back to her mother? Cloudy Times is a supremely personal film about an universal issue, we all have to face: What are we going to do with our parents, once they are old and ill?
Sundance Film Festival 2021:
SON OF MONARCHS
(Hijo de monarcas, Alexis Gambis,
Mexico/USA, 2020, 97 min. In Spanish and English with English subtitles)
Enchanted by the monarch butterflies of Michoacán, Mexico, since he was a child, Mendel dedicates his career as a scientist in New York to mapping out the monarch’s genetics. But he is haunted by flashbacks of being orphaned alongside his older brother, Simon, when their parents died in a flood. When Mendel travels home to attend the funeral of his grandmother, it’s clear Simon harbors deep resentment toward him for having left. Migrating back and forth between Mexico and New York, Mendel starts to neglect his new girlfriend and grows spiritually restless as he obsesses over the iconic butterfly. Then he confronts his brother about what really happened the night their parents died. Tenoch Huerta delivers a soul-searing performance in this transformative drama by director Alexis Gambis. The film viscerally captures the scientific marvel and splendor of the butterfly, which in turn creates a mythic parallel to Mendel’s primal fears. Son of Monarchs is at once a spiritual and biological quest of the next generation—fulfilling its destiny by never losing sight of ancestral ties.
Thursday, January 28 – February 3
The Contenders 2020 at MoMA:
THE WOLF HOUSE
(La casa lobo, Joaquín Cociña and Cristóbal León, Chile/Germany, 2018, 75 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
In the spirit of Czech avant-garde master Jan Švankmajer, Cristόbal Leόn and Joaquín Cociña’s painstakingly hand-crafted stop-motion feature is a nightmarish fairy tale inspired by a real-life Nazi commune that existed under Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s rule, from 1973 to 1990. Fashioned as an obscure narrative of capture and control, the film riffs on Alice in Wonderland and the Three Little Pigs, animating the fragile existence of an escaped child attempting to make a home in a sinister cabin in the woods. Following a live-action framing sequence, the filmmakers undermine the integrity of their pointedly artificial human and animal characters and settings with a 65-minute collage of seemingly unedited morphing effects that erase the line between fantasy and horror. An instant classic of surrealistic animation, The Wolf House is visionary in its imaginative breadth and a virtuoso technical accomplishment.
Streaming through tomorrow, Tuesday, January 26
Daily Recommendation:
DRY MARTINA
(Che Sandoval, Chile/Argentina, 2018, 95 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
One-time pop star Martina has hit rock bottom: no career, no relationship, no sex drive, and, most of all, no direction forward. But then, persistent fangirl Francisca pressures her way into Martina’s apartment, revealing that she believes herself to be Martina’s long-lost sister—and, at the same time, Francisca’s boyfriend César catches Martina’s eye, stirring her previously dormant desire. In a flash, the Argentine singer is flying to Chile to pursue this promising young lover and, while she’s at it, a better sense of self. Writer-director Che Sandoval deftly mingles the passions, obsessions, and heartbreaks of his characters in this fresh, comic take on the road movie, one predicated on Martina’s search for inspiration, both in the bedroom and out. Antonella Costa, marvelous in the title role, captures Martina’s overconfidence with humor and sensitivity. As her unease in this new land evaporates, she starts to warm to the idea of a new family, and she comes to terms with a lesson from Francisca’s search for a sibling, audiences are treated to the blooming of a new type of Martina—funny, sexy, and in control of her destiny.
Watch Now
Virtual Theatrical Release:
THE WEASELS’ TALE
(El cuento de las comadrejas, Juan José Campanella, Argentina/Spain, 2018, 129 min. In Spanish with English subtitles
From Juan José Campanella, the director of the Oscar Award-winning The Secret in Their Eyes, comes The Weasels’ Tale / El cuento de las comadrejas. a comedic thriller that stars a bumper crop of well-known older Argentine actors. The film is the story of a group of four long-time friends, including a used-to-be-famous actress, her now disabled husband and an actor as well, who she eclipsed, and the sharp-tongued screenwriter and director of her greatest hits. Their coexistence is menaced by a young couple who, feigning to be lost, slowly insinuate themselves into their lives. It’s Sunset Boulevard meets The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, with a Latin twist. Financial gain, seduction, betrayal, and memories run amok are the elements that create the recipe for this delightful game of cat… and weasel.