5/22/15: Doin’ It For the Kids

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7th Floor, Abel Dolz Doval, Adrian Garcia Bogliano, Alfred Hitchcock, alternate title, Argentinian film, Belén Rueda, Buenos Aires, Charo Dolz Doval, cheating husbands, cinema, custody issues, divorced parents, film reviews, films, foreign films, Guillermo Arengo, husband-wife relationship, infidelity, Jorge D'Elía, kids in peril, Lucas Nolla, Lucio Bonelli, Luis Ziembrowski, missing children, Movies, mysteries, Osvaldo Santoro, parent-child relationships, Patxi Amezcua, Ricardo Darín, Septimo, set in Argentina, Spurloos, suspense, The Lady Vanishes, The Vanishing, thrillers, twist ending, writer-director

For parents of young children, there can’t be many more terrifying nightmares than having them vanish, seemingly without a trace. Despite how careful and attentive parents might be, they’re not omniscient deities: even the best parents can let their attention stray for a moment, become complacent with friendly surroundings, take their eyes off their precious charges for the barest of moments. As we find out all too frequently these days, it doesn’t take more than a moment (sometimes only a few seconds) for tragedy to strike.

Argentinian writer-director Patxi Amezcua’s Septimo (2013) deals with just this parental nightmare and, for over half its 88 minute running-time, it’s quite the razor-sharp, white knuckle thriller. Coming off as a grim combination of Hitchcock’s classic The Lady Vanishes (1938) and George Sluzier’s Spurloos (The Vanishing) (1988), Amezcua puts his characters (and his audience) through the wringer, giving us a front-row seat to the mounting terror that an estranged husband and wife feel as they desperately search for their missing children. Once the mystery comes into sharper focus, however, the film loses much of its inherent tension, playing out towards a rather predictable ending, right up to the fourth act “twist.” At the end of the day, however, half a Hitchcock ain’t too shabby.

When we first meet newly divorced criminal lawyer, Sebastian (Ricardo Darín), it’s pretty obvious that the guy is a dick: we watch him shrug off his anxious sister’s concerns about her potentially abusive ex and see him rage against the “old lady” who keeps parking in his designated spot at his apartment building. After the kindly super, Miguel (Luis Ziembrowski), explains that the old lady is almost blind, Sebastian snorts and replies that he’ll happily have her towed, anyway: if she can’t see, sell the damn car. George Bailey, he’s most certainly not.

Once Sebastian gets up to his seventh floor apartment (hence the film’s Spanish title, as well as its alternate title, 7th Floor), we meet his adorable kids, Luna (Charo Dolz Doval) and Luca (Abel Dolz Doval), as well as his put-upon ex-wife, Delia (Belén Rueda). There’s still lots of simmering tension in the relationship, mostly due to the fact that Sebastian is a pompous ass who’s constantly running late, although more for the fact that he steadfastly refuses to sign the paperwork that will allow Delia to move herself and the kids to Spain (they all currently reside in Buenos Aires), so that she can take care of her ailing father. Sebastian is, above all else, a deeply selfish man, however, and he has no intention of making anything easy for his ex.

On the day of a particularly high-profile case, however, Sebastian’s life hits a bit of a speed-bump. Humoring his children, the lawyer lets them race down the stairs while he takes the elevator, the exact same “game” that Delia has previously complained about being “too dangerous.” Beating them to the lobby, Sebastian waits around until he gets a troublesome notion: the kids aren’t coming down. From this point, Luna and Luca’s father flies into a mad frenzy of activity, frantically searching his apartment building for any sign of his kids, all while trying to avoid alerting Delia to the present crisis. Enlisting a resident police office, Rosales (Osvaldo Santoro), for help, Sebastian questions his neighbors, many of whom seem to be decidedly odd, suspicious people. As the clock continues to tick down, the obnoxious lawyer must learn to rely on the help of others, even as he seeks to unravel the mystery of his kids’ disappearance. Is this related to his high-profile case? Does Rosales know more than he’s letting on? And, most importantly: will Sebastian and Delia ever see their children again?

Up until the midpoint revelation, Septimo is an endlessly tense, nail-biting bit of cinema, easily comparable to the work of fellow Argentinian Adrián García Bogliano (there are bits and pieces of his Cold Sweat (2010) and Penumbra (2011) littered through Septimo’s DNA). The acting is uniformly solid, with Darín and Rueda being easy standouts as the parents. There’s a real art-form to playing an asshole character (too much on either side and the character becomes either completely unbearable or thoroughly unrealistic) and Darín hits the bulls-eye with what seems to be studied ease. It’s all in the margins for the character: we get enough casual exposition to establish Sebastian’s more douche-bag tendencies (his infidelity with Delia’s best friend, his casually dismissive interactions with anyone “below” his station) but he fills in the spaces with some truly subtle mannerisms that are almost subliminal. We can see that Sebastian is an asshole but, more importantly, we can feel that he’s an asshole: as far as I’m concerned, that’s great characterization, right there.

For her part, Rueda’s Delia is a massively complex character, made more so by the fact that we spend so little time with her compared to Sebastian: like Sebastian, we pick up much of our impressions of her from the margins, with the added benefit of the surprise “revelations” of the mystery format. There’s a subtle sense of downplaying that really works with Rueda’s performance: she dials it back enough that, when Delia needs to let loose, her outbursts actually come with a little punch. Call it the benefit of knowing when to turn the knobs to 11 and when to exercise a little restraint.

The rest of the cast does equally admirable work, albeit in much smaller doses. Osvaldo Santoro is extremely charismatic as the gruff, no-nonsense police officer, while Luis Ziembrowski manages to make the character of the landlord seem kindly, sympathetic and a tad bit sinister. Perhaps most impressively, the Dovals do fantastic work as the children, Luna and Luca. Oftentimes, child performers are the weak link in any production: it pretty much comes with the territory. In this case, however, Abel and Charo hit every single required beat, managing to walk a tight line between adorable urchins and actual flesh-and-blood people.

If I have any real complaints with Septimo, they lie more with what is being expressed than how it’s being expressed (although I’ll freely admit that the midpoint resolution and resulting “twist” ending did nothing for me and actually knocked the film down a peg or two, in my mind). While I won’t give away the final revelation (astute viewers will probably be able to piece at least part of it together well before the final act), suffice to say that it felt more than a little misogynistic and casually cruel, at least to this viewer. It seems that Amezcua went out of his way to establish Sebastian as an unrepentant cad throughout the film, only to suddenly end up in his corner by the finale. It feels a little unfair, sure, but it also feels as if it blatantly disregards many of the subtle points that have been raised throughout the rest of the film. I’m not sure if Amezcua was making an actual point or whether I just read a bit too much into it: regardless, this ended up leaving a distinctly bad taste in my mouth that impacted my overall impression.

Slightly muddled message aside, there’s an awful lot to like here. As stated earlier, the first 40+ minutes of the film are some of the tightest, most tense and atmospheric that I’ve seen recently: I don’t throw that Hitchcock stuff around lightly, after all. When Darín is frantically racing around his apartment building, barging into locked residences and alternately cajoling and threatening anyone who crosses his path, there’s a sweaty, adrenalized sense of panic to the proceedings that are pure cinematic bliss. Perhaps it was asking a bit much for Amezcua and company to sustain that fever pitch for the entirety of the film but I still can’t help but feel a bit disappointed. Here’s to hoping that, next time around, Amezcua lets us all twist on the hook just a little longer.

7/13/14: A Little Dab’ll Do Ya

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Adrian Garcia Bogliano, Argentinian film, auteur theory, Camila Velasco, cinema, Cold Sweat, Facundo Espinosa, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, foreign films, Here Comes the Devil, horror film, Marina Glezer, Movies, nitroglycerine, Omar Gioiosa, Penumbra, political struggle, thriller, youth vs old age

I’m gonna go ahead and declare a winner in this particular race: writer/director Adrian Garcia Bogliano is the current king of South American horror/thriller cinema. There you go: take it to the track, cause that’s the surest bet you’ll get all day. Across the span of ten full-length films and one short in The ABCs of Death (2012), the Spanish-born Bogliano has been quietly, but expertly, making a name for himself. His efforts appear to be paying dividends, since his most recent feature, Here Comes the Devil (2012), has been widely heralded as a modern-day psychosexual masterpiece and he currently has his English-language debut, Late Phases, scheduled for wide release later this year.

Since we’ve already discussed Here Comes the Devil earlier, I thought it might be a good time to take another look at one of Bogliano’s earlier films: in this case, I decided to go with Cold Sweat (2010), perhaps my favorite film of his (up to this point, at least). To be honest, you can’t really go wrong with any of his films but if you want some pure, undiluted Bogliano, this should hit the spot like a sledgehammer smashing a plate-glass window.

We begin with a news-reel-footage-type intro that manages to pack an extraordinary amount of information into a remarkably small space. To whit, the conflict begins in Argentina back in the ’70s, when the Popular Revolutionary Army (PRA) steals 25 boxes of dynamite from a mining complex in Cordoba. Shortly afterwards, their rival group, the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (AAA), murders several members of a PRA squadron, seizing their weapons, along with the 25 boxes of explosives. The AAA eventually ceased all activity but the boxes of explosives were never found. Smash-cut to the present, in brilliant color, and we’re off to the races.

Our protagonist, Ramon (Facundo Espinosa), has a bit of a problem: it seems that his former girlfriend, Jackie (Camila Velasco), met some hunky blonde guy online and proceeded to kick him to the curb. In order to find out exactly what happened, Ramon uses his new girlfriend, Ali (Marina Glezer), as bait to set up a meeting with the same blonde guy. They end up at a run-down looking tenement building and Ali disappears inside for her scheduled rendezvous. When Ali doesn’t reappear after a reasonable amount of time, however, Ramon begins to get worried and sets off to investigate on his own.

Turns out Ramon was right to worry: as we see, Ali has stumbled into something quite strange and certainly much more hazardous, as she gets captured by a mysterious old man. The old man (I dubbed him Walker, thanks to his walker but the film never actually calls him anything and I’ll be damned if I can actually figure out who the actor is, as great as he is) and his partner, Baxter (Omar Gioiosa), are hold-overs from the old AAA and are, despite their kindly appearances, two of the biggest sons of bitches to walk this earth in some time.

The duo enjoy kidnapping and torturing young people, forcing them to answer riddles and figure out strange coded messages. Their method of choice? Turns out that Walker and Baxter are particularly fond of nitroglycerine: they delight in applying the volatile explosive to their victims and watch as their prey does everything possible to avoid touching, bumping or sweating. As Ali witnesses, one drop is, literally, all it takes to blow an unlucky young woman’s head into a million separate pieces. Walker and Baxter are also really into horrible experiments, as we see from the insane, feral women that are kept locked in the building’s basement.

When Walker and Baxter go off to attend to other business, Ramon is able to get Ali free but refuses to leave until he can also locate Jackie: she may have run out on him, but Ramon is still very much in love with her and can’t leave her to the devices of the insane old terrorists. As Ramon and Ali each set off on their own, one to find an exit and the other to find his former lover, the stakes have never been higher: after all, when all it takes is one drop to blow you sky-high, you tend to be a little overly cautious.

As Ramon and Ali stalk through the house (and are, in turn, stalked), they come upon one horrendous discovery after another. After Ramon successfully locates Jackie, a new wrinkle is introduced: Jackie has been completely slathered in nitro and any sudden move will set her off. As the love triangle grows ever thornier, Ramon and Ali must work together to save Jackie, all while evading the slow-as-molasses but unbelievably dangerous Walker and his hulking partner, Baxter. Unfriendly punks next door…blood-thirsty feral women…stolen dynamite…all this and more greet our intrepid trio as they soon come to discover that the past doesn’t always stay dead and buried…and evil can reappear at any time, in any place.

Here’s the single most important thing to know about Cold Sweat: the film is a complete white-knuckle rollercoaster ride and it doesn’t really let up for the better part of 90 minutes. If you enjoy tense, thrill rides, look no further. There’s a lot of other stuff going on here (the political element, alone, could take up another page or two) but for purposes of this review, let’s get one thing straight: if you’re in the mood for nail-biting, needle-to-the-red excitement, this is your film, right here.

Here’s another thing to note: Cold Sweat is absolutely not a perfect film: in fact, in certain ways, Cold Sweat can be a rather moronic film (the bit where Ramon tries to get help by updating his Facebook page is, to paraphrase the immortal Tap, the very dividing line between clever and stupid). Here’s the thing, though: you really won’t care once you get caught up and the thing starts chugging along like an out-of-control freight-train. And you will get caught up in it, I guarantee.

You see, Bogliano is one of the current undisputed masters of creating and sustaining complete and absolute tension: when he turns the screws, he’s just as invincible as any of the past masters of suspense. There are certain scenes in here (Jackie’s agonizingly slow crab-walk escape from the equally slow but determined Walker; the amazing scene where Jackie constantly bobs up and down in the water, trying to avoid Walker’s acid attack; the scene where Ramon tries to help the nitro-coated Jackie down from the table; the attack of the angry punk rockers) that are so well-made, so perfect, that they deserve to be in a hall-of-fame of some sort. And don’t even get me started on the absolutely wonderful scene where Ramon finally takes down Baxter: shot in slo-mo and equal parts elegant and jaw-dropping, the scene may actually be my single favorite scene in a film…ever. I’m being dead serious, here: as I watched it, I tried to recall if anything else ever provoked that intense a reaction from me and I’m hard-pressed to come up with anything. Perhaps something from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) but it’s gonna take a lot more rumination to ferret it out. Suffice to say that this particular scene is one of the best ever and leave it at that.

Cold Sweat is an amazing thriller made into a classic by its wealth of small details: Ramon’s Sorcerer t-shirt (for those who might not know, Sorcerer (1977) was William Friedkin’s nailbiter about roughnecks trying to move an unstable shipment of nitroglycerin in the jungles of South America)…the undeniable sexuality of the scene where Ramon tries to help Jackie, right down to the numerous close-ups and zooms onto sweaty skin)…the bickering between Walker and Baxter, who may be insane killers but are also elderly men on a budget…the truth behind the blonde guy who first tempted Jackie…the generational conflict between the decidedly old-fashioned Walker and Baxter and the “snot-nosed kids” that they currently hunt…these (and more) are all of the wonderful little details that help make Cold Sweat so special.

Truth be told, there’s very little bad that I can say about Cold Sweat. Yes, the film does occasionally lean towards the silly and/or unbelievable but trust me: you’ll find that impossible to care about once you realize that you’ve spent the last several minutes holding your breath and praying that no one gets blown up. The film looks and sounds fantastic (the discordant, atonal score is definitely a highlight), has a great cast (Walker and Gioiosa are pitch-perfect and, if Espinosa, Glezer and Velasco can sometimes come across as obnoxious, this is perfectly in line with their characters) and a brilliant script. There’s also something undeniably awesome about a modern thriller/horror film that features a pair of elderly guys as its main antagonists: you’d be hard-pressed to find anything else quite like this. While critics and fans, alike, fawned all over Here Comes the Devil, Cold Sweat is the real deal, possessed of none of the stylistic quirks that sometimes turned me off of the other film.

The greatest compliment that I can really pay Cold Sweat is that I wish it were possible to watch the film all over again, with fresh eyes: when you don’t know where the surprises are coming from, it adds a whole new layer to the film. To that end, however, I’ll just need to try to see the film with as many neophytes as possible: if I can’t experience it fresh each time, at least I can live vicariously through those who are seeing it for the first time. So, if you’re gonna give this one a spin, give me a call: I might just be available. All Hail King Bogliano: long may he reign!