PAULA (Melbourne IFF 2023) – Review by Nadine Whitney

Paula does a generally good job of explaining the insidious nature of eating disorders and how every aggression, micro and macro, fuels them. It isn’t just aggression that fuels eating disorders but also the community that awards thinness. Wehbe turns that community into a group of bloggers (and if you look into the internet there are many pro-anorexia sites), but it’s really the whole of society that does it. The film is didactic but necessary. Wehbe’s opening with the teenage girls on the first day of school is actually a pean to their burgeoning loveliness, it proves that they are beautiful despite acne or extra pounds.

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TRENQUE LAUQUEN – Review by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

Two men, Rafael and Ezequiel, are searching for a woman. Her disappearance is low-key; not requiring police involvement, she appears to have left by her own choice, yet the men are left bewildered and drive around the Trenque Lauquen region just outside of Buenos Aires chasing up lead after thin lead. An unmissable cinema event, Trenque Lauquen is an extraordinarily confident film that speaks to our desire for solvable mysteries in a world full of people that are far more complex than simple deciphering permits.

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ARGENTINA, 1985 – Review by Jennifer Green

Argentina’s nominee to this year’s International Feature Film Oscar, currently streaming on Amazon Prime, is an emotional tour-de-force, a film based on historical events whose dramatic tale is punctuated by both moments of humor and details of horrific human rights abuses that took place under that country’s military dictatorship and so-called “Dirty War,” between 1976 and 1983. The film is about the landmark trial that prosecuted the former president and military leaders for those abuses, ensuring democracy in Argentina

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LOST TIME (EL TIEMPO PERDIDO) – Review by Jennifer Green

There’s something about aging that pushes people toward introspection. Maybe it’s knowing there’s more time behind you than ahead, or maybe it’s the sum of joys and losses added up over the course of a lifetime or the missed opportunities and regrets that nag at you. Whatever the inspiration, Marcel Proust captured the nostalgia and the vivid life of human memory in his 7-volume masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time, first published between 1913 and 1927. In the 2020 documentary Lost Time (El Tiempo Perdido), a group of elderly Argentinians meet regularly in a café to read and discuss Proust’s novel.

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OFFICIAL COMPETITION – Review by Diane Carson

Official Competition goes behind-the-scenes with actors and a director. As Official Competition begins, on the occasion of his eightieth birthday, multimillionaire Don Humberto Suarez asserts that he lacks prestige. Therefore, he must contribute to something lasting, a bridge with his name by a famous architect or a movie. For that latter option, he purchases the rights to the Nobel prize novel Rivalry, which he doesn’t read.

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MOVIE OF THE WEEK June 10, 2022: OFFICIAL COMPETITION

As long as there have been movies, there have been movies about making movies. Some are serious, some are silly; some are dark, some are light. One thing most have in common is that they always seem to bring those involved that particularly satisfying form of glee that comes from casting a critical light on something you have a complex relationship with. All of that is in play in Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat’s sharp showbiz satire Official Competition.

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OFFICIAL COMPETITION – Review by Liz Whittemore

Turning a Nobel Prize-winning novel into a movie on the whim of a millionaire, “it” director Lola Cuevas pairs two different kinds of actors to breathe life into her version of the story. What could go wrong casting a serious leading actor with a box office action star? Only everything, of course. If you’ve ever been through the rehearsal process with a director that is secure in their vision, Official Competition is for you. The film is a masterclass in writing and acting. It encompasses all the temperamental moments in the history of cinematic genius.

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