Historias mínimas (Minimal Stories, 2002)

Carlos Sorín

Argentina

92 min, color, Spanish (English subtitles)

Here's another pleasant surprise from Sundance. The title says it all. The film is a charming telling of three very simple and only barely connected stories set amidst the stark and windy plains of an almost empty Patagonia far from the bustle of the cities. The director has managed to convey the artless (and because of that, attractively convincing) life of rural folk in a remote region that has begun a rapid transformation toward the new age of global culture.

One is about Don Justo (Antonio Benedictti) who has a little shameful secret that involves his dog that has apparently run away three years ago. When a passerby tells Don Justo that he has seen the dog at the outskirts of a city over 200 miles away, the old timer dons his brand new hiking boots (a gift from a pass through European hiker) and embarks on a quest of recovery. Will he find his dog? Will the dog return to his owner? Why is this dog so important after all?

The second story is about Maria (Javiera Bravo), a young mother with a toddler who spends a lot of her time mailing participation requests to dumb TV shows. At long last, one of these shows selects her, and so she must go to the big city to be on TV. Why is she so bent on going even when doing so may jeopardize her humble house? Is it the darned grand prize, a kitchen appliance that she cannot use because they have no electricity? If not that, then what? Will her dream of being on TV turn out to be everything she thought it would be? If it does not, will she care?

Finally, there's the story of Roberto (Javier Lombardo), a traveling salesman with a love interest at every gas station (it seems). Yet his heart is set on one particular lady whom he hopes to woo by going the roundabout way and being nice to her son... or was it a daughter? Roberto has a custom-made cake in the shape of a football made for the child's birthday, but soon realizes that he is not sure of the kid's gender. His last foot of the trip is all about finding a way to redo the cake so it would fit either a boy or a girl (a turtle, it seems, is entirely gender-neutral and kid-friendly), only to wind up alone in a hotel room and get sick from eating the longsuffering cake.

The three stories are only peripherally connected even though some of the characters meet at various points and their ultimate destination is the same big city. But this part of the plot is quite superfluous and not necessary to enjoy the film, which is just what it claims it is. (It is always refreshing for directors to deliver on their promises). As such, it as an enjoyable and quite lovable hour and a half. Made me want to go to Patagonia even though it does appear to be one vast expanse of land with nary a shrub on it.

The one startling theme of the film is the ubiquitous presence of TV sets. They are everywhere, from the grocery story, to the ramshackle barracks where Don Justo has to spend a night during his journey. People fiddle with the TV sets and the satellite antennae all the time, gulping down the images from another, alien, world that make them want things they don't have. Wanting these things is bound to make them unhappy and eventually force them to leave Patagonia for good.

The director mentioned that in Patagonia everyone considers himself a temporary resident. They are always ready to leave, their cars are always better maintained than their houses, and nobody ever imagines that they would live there forever. Yet until recently people spent their entire lives there. Perhaps no longer, and the pathos of their empty future trek to nowhere is felt keenly throughout the film.

There are only two professional actors in this film, only one of which is a main character (Roberto). All the others are locals that portray their lives they way they live them. As Sorín said in the Q&A, it must have been quite funny to yell "Cut!" and the actors proceed to behave just as they did in front of the camera. It does credit the director that he rewrote the script to accommodate the characters as he found them instead of forcing them to behave according to his preset notions. For a movie that seeks an honest depiction with minimal interference, this approach is bound to produce excellent results, as it does here.

January 27, 2003