August 3 – September 5, 2010
Lecture Room
Free. Screens at the top of the hour from 12 noon during gallery hours. On Thursday, August 26, Sachs introduces the 7 pm screening, which is followed by a discussion.
Inspired by the short stories of Julio Cortázar, Lynne Sachs creates an experimental narrative about a group of girls on the verge of adolescence. While their lives are blissful and full of play, the political and social unrest of contemporary Argentina begins to invade their idyllic existence. Sachs’ brilliant mixture of film formats and the ethereal music of Argentine singer Juana Molina complement the shifts in mood from innocent amusement to protest. 2010, video, in English and Spanish with English subtitles, 41 minutes.
Presented in conjunction with Guillermo Kuitca: Everything—Paintings and Works on Paper, 1980-2008 exhibit.
Through some 50 large-scale paintings and 25 works on paper, Guillermo Kuitca: Everything traces nearly three decades of work from the Buenos Aires–based artist Guillermo Kuitca (b. 1961), one of the most important painters working in Latin America today, whose canvases have received significant international attention since the early 1990s. Departing from previous surveys, it explores both the conceptual nature of Kuitca’s singular painting practice, as well as its interdisciplinary origins.
Walker Art Center
1750 Hennepin Ave.
Minneapolis, MN 55403
As the lights came back on in the theater, I sat in my seat, trying to absorb everything that had played on the screen over the last 40 minutes. The camera angles, the plot (or lack thereof), the Spanish words combined with English narration…it was all too much. As I walked out of the movie theater, I felt a sense of disappointment. Why had I sat through that? I had just seen my first “art film,” and I had been completely unprepared for it.
“Con Viento en el Pelo,” (or “Wind in Our Hair”), inspired by the writings of Julio Cortázar, gives the audience an exclusive viewing of life as seen through the eyes of four young girls living in Buenos Aires, Argentina who have yet to discover the outside world that surrounds their “kingdom.” Director Lynne Sachs, an experimental filmmaker born in Memphis, Tennessee, is able to transform the girls’ ordinary lives into something a bit more extraordinary. Though character development is slim, we learn the most about Leticia, a physically disabled, yet confident girl about which the others note, “leads us.” Every day the girls adorn their bodies with colorful swatches of cloth, gaudy masks, and parts of discarded Halloween costumes and anxiously wait for the train to pass by to entertain the boarded passengers with their crazy outfits. They call themselves “statues,” which is a perfect description of their daily show. The train is the girls’ only reminder that there is a world beyond their backyard. The train brings people, noise, and a boy, Ariel, who soon befriends them. He becomes their only concrete form of communication with the outside world by writing them notes and throwing them out the train’s window.
The notes, written in Spanish, are only one of the numerous mediums Sachs employs to convey the movie’s meaning. Spanish dialogue and writing, English subtitles and narration, all contribute to the melting pot of cultural differences expressed in the film. The narrator has a magnificent voice for translating the girls’ rapid chatter. She can turn three minutes of undistinguishable murmurs to one clear line of understanding. In one scene, a girl chants, “Piedra, papel, tijeras”; yet, until the narrator informs the audience that this is simply the game “rock, paper, scissors,” the audience is lost.
Beyond the narrator’s voice, the movie contains few other vocals. This movie consists of one song: “Un Día,” meaning “one day.” Do not walk into this movie expecting a beautiful original score. The rest of the “soundtrack” is simply everyday sounds: birds chirping, dogs barking, kids laughing, the train chugging. At points, this lack of music works: it forces the audience to focus on the natural sounds of daily life. Other times it seems to leave an empty hole in the movie experience. Occasionally, you will hear a reporter on the radio announcing a farmers’ strike. But the girls pay no attention to it. Footage of demonstrations, reports of grain shortage, angry farmers yelling- these sounds barely break into the girls’ laughter as they sit at the table eating a variety of breads, which symbolizes a luxury that the girls take for granted. Only once in the movie does the narrator address the poverty in the surrounding neighborhoods. But the moment is brief, and soon the girls resume whatever game they had been playing before the outside world had intruded. This stark contrast reinforces the innocence of the four girls. The film does a nice job of juxtaposing the girls’ secluded “kingdom” to the chaos of the real world through visuals.
Every camera shot, though oftentimes seemingly random, has been crafted with great care by Sachs. The shots are often close-up, focusing on something that Sachs wants to be sure you notice. For example, you rarely ever see a full, detailed view of the girls. The frame might focus on a girl’s mouth if she is talking, her profile if she posing, her shoes if she is running. But at times, the camera angles are dizzying, forcing the viewer to try to decipher what is happening in the shot, instead of reading the subtitles flashing along the bottom of the screen. Wide-angle shots are rare: the backyard is one of the images that is shown from far away, which effectively relays to the audience how big the backyard, or their “kingdom,” appears to be to the four growing girls.
As I write this review, I realize I liked the film more than I previously thought. I understand and appreciate the careful decisions that went into every frame. Thought provoking and creative, “Wind in Our Hair” took me on a journey that opened my eyes to a life very different from my own. It showed me a genre of filmmaking that I had never been exposed to before, for which I am grateful. However, at times, the film ceased to hold my interest. Without the structure of a typical movie, I was caught off-guard by the lack of any real plot, problem, or resolution. What it lacked in plot, though, it made up for in originality and heart. Overall, the film did not fulfill my expectations and left me rather bewildered; however, from an artistic point of view, this film was satisfying to the eyes and the mind. “Wind of Our Hair” is a refreshing antidote to a movie industry dominated by special effects. If you go into the theater craving an action-packed “Clash of the Titans,” you should probably skip this movie. However, if you are seeking a movie that is artistic and stimulates the mind, “Wind in Our Hair” may be the perfect choice.
Con Viento en Pelo begins and ends with the approaching rumble of a train engine. For the young protagonists of the film, the train represents both a source of freedom and an interjection of cold, adult reality into their innocent, sheltered existence. This film forgoes a traditional narrative in favor of an exploration of the sensations that accompany the burgeoning adolescence of four Argentinean girls. This causes the film to unfold as a documentary of emotions, so to speak, rather than a conventional movie. Director Lynne Sachs is far more concerned with capturing textures, sounds, and feelings, the ingredients of memories, than action or dialogue. For example, in an early scene, Sachs juxtaposes a soft-focused close-up of a fluffy, wet dog with the cold, austere barbed wire fences of the Buenos Aires slums.
Central to the film is the dichotomy between the cold, urban adult world and its harsh realities and the warm domestic comforts of the girls’ homes and the lush gardens in which they play. The girls pretend to live in their own kingdom, where the forces of imposing adulthood are kept at bay by the walls of their imaginary fortress. They run, scream, laugh, and play while outside of their domain, their country is fraught with labor strikes and smoldering social tension.
Even in their sheltered existences, elements of reality manage to seep in and take hold of the young girls’ emotions. When asked what she is most afraid of, one of the girls responds with a recount of a dream she had in which she was kidnapped and her parents could not afford to pay her ransom. Adult issues like the threat of poverty or coping with debilitating illness are ever present in the girls’ lives, despite their best efforts to escape.
Leticia, the eldest girl and self-proclaimed queen of the kingdom, is marred by an unnamed ailment, which leaves her limbs stiff and brittle and demands constant attention. Rather than give up in the face of the disease, the girls mock it with youthful abandon. The girls play a game called “statues” in which they try to hold strange poses for as long as they can by the train tracks. In a way, this innocent game seems like a way for the girls to help ease the pain of Leticia’s ailment by experiencing it each themselves. They laugh at it with the belief that laughing at a serious situation can, through some sacred childhood magic, assuage the severity.
The omnipresent train offers the girls their first brush with the excitement and confusion of adolescence. A mysterious boy throws notes to one of the girls each time he barrels past them on his train ride. The mystery and allure of this situation lead them to envision him as a prince charming. However, they are sorely disappointed when the two finally meet face to face and the interaction is awkward and stilted.
Director Lynne Sachs utilizes a mixed-medium filmmaking technique in which documentary footage of Argentinean riots and protests is unexpectedly interspersed within the larger fictitious framework of the film. It seems as if these interjections of real footage into the film mirror the obtrusion of reality into the girl’s sheltered fantasy world. The disorienting effect of this editing drapes a homogenous haze over the film, blending fantasy into reality and vice versa. This exchange culminates in the cathartic final moments when the walls between the harsh, urban adult world and the girls’ kingdom of childhood innocence crumble and the screen is flooded with a rush of excitement and confusion about the adolescent limbo between child- and adulthood. Con Viento en Pelo ends with the images of the rumbling train and the girls’ outdoor safe haven becoming one as they fade into abstraction.
In slightly over forty minutes, Sachs is able to encapsulate not the events of childhood, but rather the sensations and feelings. All the while, the tensions and concerns of the adult world quietly smolder in the background, offering a constant reminder of the limited longevity of childish innocence. The film is often disorienting and confusing, but couldn’t the same be said about the transition from childhood to adulthood? Con Viento en Pelo is an experience intended to be felt rather than understood.
Family, history, and oblivion pervade these two short works. With the experimental documentary Last Happy Day (2009, 39 min.) Sachs reconstructs the life of a distant relative, Hungarian doctor Sandor Lenard, who escaped the Holocaust, settled in Brazil, and, among other things, translated Winnie the Pooh into Latin. Sachs’s daughters and their friends read from this text and and recite bits of Lenard’s biography, providing a piquant tonal contrast to the archival footage and the interviews with his son and his second wife. A visit to Buenos Aires and short stories by Julio Cortazar inspired the dreamy narrative Wind in Our Hair (2009, 42 min.), which deals with sisterhood, children’s games, passing trains, and brief encounters.
Inspired by the stories of Argentine writer Julio Cortázar, yet blended with the realities of contemporary Argentina, “Wind in Our Hair” is an experimental narrative directed by New York filmmaker Lynne Sachs about four girls discovering themselves through a fascination with the trains that pass by their house. A story of early-teen anticipation and disappointment, “Wind in Our Hair” is circumscribed by a period of profound Argentine political and social unrest. Shot with 16mm, Super 8mm, Regular 8mm film and video, the film follows the girls to the train tracks, into kitchens, on sidewalks, in costume stores, and into backyards in the heart of Buenos Aires as well as the outskirts of town. Sachs and her Argentine collaborators move about Buenos Aires with their cameras, witnessing the four playful girls as they wander a city embroiled in a debate about the role of agribusiness, food resources and taxes. Using an intricately constructed Spanish-English “bilingual” soundtrack, Sachs and her co-editor, Puerto Rican filmmaker Sofia Gallisa, articulate this atmosphere of urban turmoil spinning about the young girls’ lives. “Wind in Our Hair” also includes the daring, ethereal music of Argentine singer Juana Molina.
“Inspired by the short stories of Julio Cortázar, Lynne Sachs creates an experimental narrative about a group of girls on the verge of adolescence. While their lives are blissful and full of play, the political and social unrest of contemporary Argentina begins to invade their idyllic existence. Sachs’ brilliant mixture of film formats complements the shifts in mood from innocent amusement to protest. ” – Dean Otto, Film and Video Curator, Walker Art Center
“Inspired by the writings of Julio Cortázar, whose work not only influenced a generation of Latin American writers but film directors such as Antonioni and Godard, Lynne Sachs’ Wind in Our Hair/Con viento en el pelo is an experimental narrative that explores the interior and exterior worlds of four early-teens, and how through play they come to discover themselves and their world. “Freedom takes us by the hand–it seizes the whole of our bodies,” a young narrator describes as they head towards the tracks. This is their kingdom, a place where–dawning fanciful masks, feather boas, and colorful scarves — the girls pose as statues and perform for each other and for passengers speeding by. Collaborating with Argentine filmmakers Leandro Listorti, Pablo Marin and Tomas Dotta, Sachs offers us a series of magical realist vignettes (rock/piedra, paper/papel, scissors/tijera), their cameras constantly shifting over their often-frenzied bodies. A collage of small gage formats and video, the 42-min lyric is enhanced further by its sonic textures that foreground the whispers and joyful screams of the young girls with the rhythms of a city and a reoccurring chorus of farmers and student protesters. Filmed on location in Buenos Aries during a period of social turmoil and strikes, Sachs and co-editor Sofia Gallisá have constructed a bilingual work that places equal value on the intimacy of the girls’ lives and their growing awareness of those social forces encroaching on their kingdom. “ – Carolyn Tennant, Media Arts Director, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo, New York
“Argentine author Julio Cortazar is the inspiration for WIND IN OUR HAIR (2009, 42 min.), which loosely interprets stories in the collection “Final de Juego” against the backdrop of social and political unrest in contemporary Argentina. In her first attempt at narrative filmmaking, Sachs still retains her associative, playful structure and documentary eye. Four young women, again played by Sach’s daughters and family friends, grow restless at home and begin to make their way through Buenos Aires in search of excitement and eventually to a fateful meeting at the train tracks near their home. The film moves from childhood’s earthbound, cloistered spaces and into the skittering beyond of adolescence, exploding with anticipation and possibility. Argentine musician Juana Molina lends her ethereal sound to compliment the wild mix of formats and styles.” – Todd Lillethun, Artistic Director, Chicago Filmmakers
“I completely felt Cortazar’s stories throughout. The fluidity in which a ludic and serious tone mix and the combined sense of lightness and deepness capture the author’s vision.” – Monika Wagenberg, Cinema Tropical
Selected Screenings:
Palais de Glace, Buenos Aires
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN http://calendar.walkerart.org/event.wac?id=5786
La Habana Festival de Cinema Latinamericano, 2010
Anthology Film Archive, New York
Inspired by the stories of Argentine writer Julio Cortázar, yet blended with the realities of contemporary Argentina, “Wind in Our Hair” is an experimental narrative directed by New York filmmaker Lynne Sachs about four girls (performed by Argentine sisters Lena and Chiara Peroni with Sachs’ own daughters Maya and Noa Street-Sachs) discovering themselves through a fascination with the trains that pass by their house. A story of early-teen anticipation and disappointment, “Wind in Our Hair” is circumscribed by a period of profound Argentine political and social unrest. Shot with 16mm, Super 8mm, Regular 8mm film and video, the film follows the girls to the train tracks, into kitchens, on sidewalks, in costume stores, and into backyards in the heart of Buenos Aires as well as the outskirts of town. Sachs and her Argentine collaborators move about Buenos Aires with their cameras, witnessing the four playful girls as they wander a city embroiled in a debate about the role of agribusiness, food resources and taxes. Using an intricately constructed Spanish-English “bilingual” soundtrack, Sachs and her co-editor, Puerto Rican filmmaker Sofia Gallisa, articulate this atmosphere of urban turmoil spinning about the young girls’ lives. With the daring, ethereal music of Argentine performer Juana Molina.
Lynne Sachs
Lynne Sachs (NYC), experimental filmmaker will present her latest creation as a pre-premiere “Wind in Our Hair”, it is based on stories by Julio Cortazar, filmed in various formats (16mm, super 8, regular 8mm film, video) digitally mastered and set to music by Juana Molina.
And Which Way Is East (1994) a travel diary filmed in 16mm, which portrays her vision of the documentary that comes from contemplation, from prioritizing the moment and the light it displays, from her way of being in the world. This film was made in Vietnam with her sister the journalist Dana Sachs who lives there.
Awards the film has received: Grand Jury Prize, Atlanta Film and Video Festival; Sundance Film Festival; Ann Arbor Film Festival; Prize, Black Maria Film and Video Festival; Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Cinematheque; “Arsenal” Film Festival, Rega, Lativa; Pacific Film Archive; Mill Valley Film Festival; Vassar College; Yale University; Cornell Cinema; SF Asian American Film Festival.
NOTE: This film’s title is now WIND IN OUR HAIR/ CON VIENTO EN EL PELO
TRACKING LYNNE SACHS TOWARDS THE END OF THE GAME
(English translation of article published on September 6, 2008 in Diario La Republica’ de Corrientes, Argentina)
By Melisa Mozzati
Cold August winter in Buenos Aires. Lynne Sachs and a reduced crew are ready to begin the last shooting day of her first fictional opus. She chooses a small grove next to the Mitre’s train tracks in Palermo’s Park.
The last scenes are filmed in two different formats. Lynne captures images in Super 8 mm meanwhile Tomás Dota, a young Argentinean filmmaker and part of the local group that collaborates in Sachs project does the same in HDV. At one side, the classic and purity of the film dominated by the hand of an artist that feels in her environment with it, at the other side, digital technology in front of the perspective of the new generation. This is experimental cinema. A mixture of format and textures. Different ways altogether in the crucial moment of telling the same story.
Lynne Sachs adventures in a unusual path. As a natural born documentary’s filmmaker, she decides to produce her fist fiction movie in our country. After being invited by the Buenos Aires International Independent Festival (Buenos Aires Festival de Cine Independiente – BAFICI) in 2007, she promised herself to come back this year for summer holidays with her family to try to unveil a hidden project that our land kept for her.
Last May, while she was reading Julio Cortázar short story “Final de Juego” she realized that this would be her fist attempt in fiction. Later in Argentina, her next step was to find the actors and a dear friend of her, Paula Felix Didier, the world wide well known Director of the National Museum of Cinema “Pablo D. Hicken” who recently discovered the Fritz Lang original final cut of “Metropolis”, had the solution. She introduced Lynne to the children who would complete the cast: the sisters Lena and Chiara Peroni and Lautaro Cura. Maya and Noa Street, Lynne´s daughters, were part of the project from the very beginning. Now with enougt teenagers, Sachs could finally say: ACTION! Bettina Nanclares, mother of Lena and Chiara, as well as Felix Didier also took part in the film in the roles of the mother of the girls and Aunt Ruth, respectively.
But Lynne Sachs always escapes from conventionalisms. She added a diversity of looks and textures into this story full of deep emotions that go off like a train running at maximum velocity. For this reason, she used different formats. To her Bolex 16 mm, she added Pablo Marin’s and Leandro Listorti’s Super 8 and Tomás Dota’s digital video all of whome divided the shooting work into several locations. Starting at a house in Martinez that reminds us a 70s manor where the action starts rolling. This was Leandro Listorti´s first task. Then came scenes in Plaza Francia, National Library (Biblioteca Nacional) and Recoleta Cemetery (Cementerio de Recoleta).
Maybe the most complicated obstacle was to film in Mitre’s train station because the train passing, Ariel’s departure and the exact moment when the girls were doing the “postures” had to be precisely coordinated. However, everything was fulfilled with success and after a exhausting day everybody came back home with a smile of satisfaction in their face.
The day before the last was classic, one of those that must be in every experimental film shoot. When Lynne and Pablo Marin were just about to start filming in Retiro´s train station the police came out and they announced that they were not allowed to capture any image there. Very disappointed, they left the place and after only a few minutes walking they discovered a magical place – a garden full of sculpted animals by the Argentinean artist, Carlos Regazzoni. This nightmarish place was the perfect spot to register the proposed scenes.
Finally, we arrive at the cold August winter Sunday of the beginning of these chronicals and the actual end of the production. At this point, the narrator’s nightmare is on set. With the collaboration of psychologist and photographer, Inés Oyerbide, a necessary level of comprehension and appreciation of the several layers of meanings that lay beneath the oeniric moment of the story’s telling was reached.
As good filmmakers, Lynne Sachs doesn’t over explain the story’s closure. She lets us decide what is hidden behind every photogram. She does not overwhelm us with information avoiding our brain to get sleepy in a slow, placid carrousel of images. On the contrary. She invites us to this interesting trip in which anyone can infer what really is in this multi-textured chain that surrounds this magnificent Cortázar short story with so many comprehension levels.
Those who accept the invitation to this playful instant of cinema are welcome. Let’s reach to the end of the game as we like.
BREVIARY
Born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee, Lynne Sachs constantly tries to expose verbal language limitation seeing it as a complex visual and emotional imagery.
Always working in experimental area of cinema, she has dived in a great variety of themes such as genre limitations, radical identities, psico-emotional states, American idiosyncrasy and war conflicts.
Documentary genre is her natural environment but she decided to get into the world of fiction by the hand of one of the most fantastic fictional literature writers. Julio Cortázar´s stories are full of secret games and his work not only awakes a profound interest in readers but also is a connexion with the inner child that lives in ourselves.
Lynne Sachs was not the exception and she also wanted to have fun so she chose Cortázar´s “Final del Juego” (End of the Game) as the plot for her first fiction film, and Buenos Aires, Argentina as the perfect playground.
Filmography
With Sermons and Sacred Pictures (1989).
The House of Science: a museum of false facts (1991)
Which Way is East (1994)
A Biography of Lilith (1997)
Investigation on a Flame (2001)
The House of Drafts (2002)
States of UnBelonging (2004)
Final del Juego (in production)
By Melisa Mozzati – melisamozzati@hotmail.com – Corrientes, Argentina
SIGUIENDO A LYNNE SACHS HASTA EL FINAL DEL JUEGO
Melissa Mozatti
Diario La Republica’ de Corrientes, Argentina
6 Septiembre, 2008
Frío domingo de Agosto en Buenos Aires. Lynne Sachs y un reducido grupo de colaboradores se dispone a comenzar la última jornada de rodaje de su primera obra de ficción y elige una pequeña arboleda pegada a las vías del tren Mitre en los parques de Palermo.
Las últimas escenas se filman en dos formatos diferentes. Lynne capta las imágenes en Super 8 mientras que Tomás Dota, un realizador argentino y parte del grupo de jóvenes cineastas locales que colaboraron en este proyecto, registra en Alta Definición Digital. Lo clásico del fílmico de la mano de una artista que se siente cómoda en ese formato, por un lado, y la tecnología digital delante de la mirada de la nueva generación, por el otro. El cine experimental se basa en esto. En la mixtura de formatos y texturas, en las distintas formas de ver conjugadas al momento de contar una misma historia.
Lynne Sachs se aventura en un camino distinto. Documentalista por naturaleza, decide realizar su primera producción de ficción en nuestro país. Luego de haber sido convocada por el Buenos Aires Festival de Cine Independiente en su edición del 2007, se prometió volver en este año en unas prolongadas vacaciones junto a su familia para tratar de develar que proyectos le esperaban dormidos en nuestras latitudes.
Lo supo a mediados del mes de mayo mientras organizaba su estadía de varios meses en Argentina. Terminó de leer el cuento de Julio Cortázar, “Final de Juego” y decidió que ese sería su primer film de ficción.
Ya en Argentina, el problema era conseguir actores que llevaran adelante la historia y para tal empresa contó con la ayuda de una querida amiga, nada menos que la hoy muy reconocida por su descubrimiento del metraje original de la famosa “Metrópolis” de Fritz Lang que se suponía perdida para siempre, Paula Felix Didier, directora del Museo Nacional de Cine “Pablo D. Hicken”, que presentó a quienes completarían el reparto del film, las hermanas Lena y Chiara Peroni y Lautaro Cura. Noa y Maya Street, hijas de Lynne, eran parte del proyecto desde un inicio y, uniéndose al resto de los adolescentes, comenzó el rodaje.
La madre de las actrices argentinas, Bettina Nanclares, y hasta la propia Felix Didier también colaboraron en los papeles de la madre de las niñas y de la tia Ruth, respectivamente.
Pero Lynne Sachs escapa siempre a los convencionalismos y a esta historia de emociones profundas que se disparan a la velocidad de un tren agregó diversas miradas y texturas para lo cual eligió mezclar diferentes formatos. Ella, siempre captando las imágenes con su Bolex 16 mm, sumó la Super 8 de Pablo Marin y Leandro Listorti y el video digital de Tomás Dota quienes a su vez se dividieron la tarea de tirar toma en diversas locaciones. Empezando por una casa en Martinez que remite la idea de caserón de los 70s donde inicia la acción en el relato, Leandro Listorti fue el encargado de rodar las primeras escenas. Siguieron las tomas en Plaza Francia, la Biblioteca Nacional y el Cementerio de Recoleta.
Quizás lo más complicado haya sido filmar en la estación de tren Mitre ya que había que coordinar el paso del tren, la salida de Ariel (Lautaro) y el momento en que las chicas hacían las estatuas. Sin embargo, todo salió como debía y luego de un exhaustivo día volvieron todos contentos a casa.
La penúltima jornada fue de antología y de aquellas que deben estar presentes en los rodajes de cine experimental. Cuando Lynne y Pablo Marin se disponían a filmar en la estación de tren de Retiro varios policías se acercaron a impedirlo y decepcionados tuvieron que abandonar el predio aunque minutos después lo agradecieron ya que se toparon con el grotesco jardín de esculturas que se encuentra detrás de Retiro, lleno de animales esculpidos construidos por el artista plástico Carlos Regazzoni. Este lugar pesadillesco fue ideal para registrar las escenas propuestas.
Para finalizar, llegamos al frio domingo de agosto del inicio de esta crónica y del final de la realización. El último día de producción es la continuación de la pesadilla del narrador. Con la colaboración de Inés Oyarbide, psicoanalista de profesión y fotógrafa por vocación, se logró el nivel necesario de comprensión y apreciación de las distintas capas de significado que subyacen en el momento onírico del film.
Como los buenos cineastas Lynne Sachs no nos sobreexplica el relato ni su cierre. Nos deja decidir qué hay detrás de cada fotograma. No nos atosiga de información para que nuestro cerebro se adormezca tranquilamente en el transitar de las imágenes. Todo lo contrario. Nos invita a pasear y a que cada uno conjeturemos a voluntad que se esconde en el encadenado de las diversas texturas que envuelven un magnifico relato de Cortázar con tantos niveles de comprensión como uno desee hallar.
Quienes acepten la invitación a este momento lúdico del cine sean bienvenidos y que cada uno llegue al final del juego de la forma en que guste.
BREVIARIO
Nacida y criada en Memphis, Tennesse, Lynne Sachs intenta constantemente exponer las limitaciones del lenguaje verbal complementándolo con una compleja imaginería visual y emocional.
Siempre trabajando en el área experimental de la cinematografía ha tratado una gran diversidad de temáticas que van desde las limitaciones de géneros, las identidades radicalizadas, los estados psico-emocionales, la idiosincrasia norteamericana y los conflictos bélicos.
El género documental es el medio en donde mejor se siente pero ha decidido ingresar al mundo fantástico y de la mano (o de la pluma si se quiere) de uno de los mejores escritores de literatura de ficción, Julio Cortázar, quien incluye en sus relatos un cariz lúdico que despierta en los lectores no solo el interés obvio en una obra inteligente sino un punto de contacto con el niño interior que no descansa de los juegos.
Lynne Sachs no fue la excepción y también quiso salir a jugar, por eso eligió “Final del Juego” de Cortázar como argumento para su primer film de ficción y Buenos Aires, Argentina, como locación para el mismo.
Filmografia
With Sermons and Sacred Pictures (1989).
The House of Science: a museum of false facts (1991)
