Monday 9 April 2012

Las acacias

Following in the footsteps of fellow Argentinian directors - Lisandro Alonso, Pablo Trapero - to garner critical acclaim with a debut feature (Las acacias won the Sutherland Award for Best First Film at the London Film Festival in 2011), Pablo Giorgelli's debut receives a home entertainment release today on DVD and Blu-Ray.

Giorgelli co-wrote the script with Salvador Roselli (who also authored Bombon el perro (2004)), tells the slight story of truck driver Ruben (German de Silva) who delivers lumber from Paraguay to Buenos Aires.  He is informed by his boss he must transport a young mother Jacinta (Hebe Duarte) and her five month old son also.

Little is informed or given to us of the two actors pasts, so we are told details about them as they learn about each other.  The film refuses to leave the confines of the truck cab, not allowing location photography to overshadow the human story being told here.

Giorgelli was given the gift of De Silva, a professional actor, who uses his presence and nobility (not to dissimilar to the same acacias' he transports), to tell you more when very little is said.  Duarte is an untrained actor but her striking, alluring face makes you want to know more about her.

In the same vein as his contemporaries, in terms of physical restraint and keeping narrative clues close to his chest Giorgelli portrays the blossoming of a beautiful friendship taking place between two strangers; Ruben never got to know his son that was taken away from him, so the connection between the five month old child, allows us and him to see how good of a father he could become or could have been.

Neither flashy, nor boring the film is another creative exponent of the cinematic explosion occuring right now in Argentina and surrounding South American countries with so much good viable work being released and viewed - a willingness to put individuals first with universal storylines about loneliness, isolation, love and companionship.

Las Acacias is released on DVD by Verve Pictures on Monday 9th April
My thanks to Rabbit Publicity for the disc

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