Bombon El Perro
If you are after a great piece of foreign cinema, one where the characters are rich, the story effortless and a humour that gently delivers the harshness of life, then this Argentinian film is just for you. Directed by Carlos Sorin, this is his excellent follow up to the great HISTORIAS MINIMAS. Told in a similar style both films focus on the region of Patagonia to deliver us characters....
If you are after a great piece of foreign cinema, one where the characters are rich, the story effortless and a humour that gently delivers the harshness of life, then this Argentinian film is just for you. Directed by Carlos Sorin, this is his excellent follow up to the great HISTORIAS MINIMAS. Told in a similar style both films focus on the region of Patagonia to deliver us characters and landscapes that have appeared all too rarely in the last 100 years of cinema. He is building up a cinematic history of this region in much the same way as Spike Lee, Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese do for New York, and someone like Shane Meadows does for the Midlands. However, considering how vast and undeveloped these parts of Patagonia are, we are presented with real, ordinary, down to earth people with the kind of naivety that modernity cancels out once it has taken root. These are the simple folk of Satajit Ray films and the villagers from Zhang Yimou’s early classics.
This one follows Juan Villegas, a down on his luck 50 year old guy who is making a living selling knives that he has hand carved from all kinds of specialist materials. We find out that he has lost his job in one of the petrol stations that are mushrooming up in this empty landscape. Along his journey he is given Bombon, the dog of the title, and seeks to make his fortune. The dog offers him the chance to get out of his current helpless situation, a life where he has little else to offer and in a country that has left him behind. With Bombon, a rare fine example of an Argentine Dogo, people approach him and after one thing leads to another he finds himself in a position where he just might find a role and meaning to his life. The dog, which he never gets very closed to, is the key to his future and when it turns out that he is a little inexperienced in the mating department things seem to be returning to normal for Juan, as his luck slowly evaporates again. However, this is not a negative or bleak film, this is about hope and rekindling your love affair with life, told with such honesty that before its end you will find yourself wanting to continue in this world for a little bit longer.
The film never presents itself as being something that it is not, so we are never cheated. We follow Juan’s good luck and life in pretty much the same way that he is experiencing it. Although certain characters offer us a little more depth to his character, we are always shown how he is experiencing any given moment. He is not a clever, educated man, nor is he an idiot. However, when he meets characters such as the guy enrolling people down the local Job Agency or the Bank Manager, it is easy to see that it is these people who are out of touch with life, and maybe our own acceptance of them, the fact that we have become them, highlights how much we have all become conditioned and manipulated to accept the world around us. Contrasting this form of modernity, all set against the backdrop of the boom in petrol in Argentina, with Juan’s simple honest trade and being shown that it is in fact Juan who has lost his way, maybe it also shows us that we have also lost our way.
However, my melodramatic yawns over with, this film is full of gentle and beautifully timed humour. Juan’s naivety is contrasted against a film full of Argentine wide boys and players, all keen to try and take advantage of things that they think will make them rich, much in the same way that those films about attaining the American Dream did in Hollywood in a bygone age, the age of Capra and Preston Sturges. The characters are all wide eyed about life and all willing to take chances, a situation rife for comedy. The film is also full of tender moments, especially when Juan meets the nightclub singer. Although taking up very little time on screen, the soul of this films ‘truth’ lies in these scenes. She is an ordinary person, as alone as Juan is, with a simple honesty that never makes you doubt either the filmmakers or the characters warmth.
Visually, like with HISTORIAS MINIMAS, the characters are all set against the wide empty vistas of Patagonia. The characters are only allowed to exist within the landscape and are never apart from it. This is localised story telling of the highest order but with an epic feel. The petrol stations look as out of place as a church in the Amazon rainforest, whilst the characters appear swallowed up by it. Whilst only a background element, the expertise of the framing makes it an integral part to the overall story, in fact it is much apart of the narrative as the characters are.
The sound and picture presentation were both faultless, the picture was clear with just enough grain to give it a naturalistic feel and the sound clean, coming in a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix.
EXTRAS
1. NOTES ON EL PERRO (20 MINS)
For anyone who like the atmosphere of this film you will not at all be surprised how cheeky Carlos Sorin looks. He always appears on the verge of a smile. This extra contains himself and his key crew members reflecting on the filming of this film. Sorin illuminates on working with non actors, a fact compounded by the two lead actors using their own names. Although their shooting ratio was low, at 40-50 minutes for 1 minute of usable film, the truth captured to Sorin is worth the expense he says. He further discusses the characters, his own style, certain techniques he uses (like shooting with 2 or 3 cameras), and anecdotes during filming. The Production Designer and Hugo Colice the Director of Photography, and the Editor all illuminate in the same way. Each time one says something of worth, it will be accompanied by a demonstration taken from the film, so it is both illustrative and interesting. It is a shame it didn’t last an hour but I think the people who finance these kinds of extras are all worried that a taste is better than being too long. I disagree totally however, as people who watch these things have the ability to reach for the remote control. As a movie takes years in some cases to make, more lengthy and imaginative master classes surely have room on DVD’s. I know Lord of the Rings was huge in scale and I am also aware that some films don’t need any extras at all because the films are so appalling but it would be nice to get something more lengthy, it must be a shame to waste so much footage. Anyway, moaning over with, this is a great little extra.
2. MAKING OF (15 MINS)
This is a selection of moments taken from the filming and compared by a split screen presentation to show you what was going on around the shooting of some of the scenes that made it into the film. This way we can quickly glimpse how scenes are lit and how they achieved each shot. Although in the previous section Sorin was saying how much he liked to use natural light in the locations, we are left in no doubt that he is romanticising how naturalistic his films are. They do appear very naturalistic but his technique is definitely one that uses all the tricks of the trade. This was another tidy little extra.
Back in the 1970s Argentina gave rise to what would become known as Third Cinema, lead by the pioneers Solanis and Getino, most famous together for the clinical documentaries titled THE HOUR OF THE FURNACES, which showed the neo imperialist invasion of South America by the USA. Years later, HSBC decided against giving the Argentine people their money back and the country fell apart, no small thanks to the dominance of American foreign policy and The World Trade Organisation. However, cinema in Argentina has changed more than the economics of the region and we are left with a less challenging version of the 1970s cinema. Whether it is for the better or worse, who knows, but what we are left with in the case of EL PERRO is a beautiful character study, set in a region we know little about, that embraces both the humour and harshness of life. The extras are a great compliment, although to brief for this viewer, and the DVD is nicely presented. Taking away all the digressions from this review, I hope that you check this one out. Few films have the humanity that this film does and whilst you are watching it look out on the extras for how the director got the idea for this films central theme. If you get in on your rental lists, don’t forget to add HISTORIAS MINIMAS, either one is a winner and well worth one and half hours of your life.
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