Nachmittag

this is a great film. just saw it at the buenos aires independent film festival, so as angela shalenec's marseille, a couple of years ago. a perfect portrait of tedium and utter hopelessness. The film does not go anywhere, so do the character's lives. (so do ours?). much of what's going on has been thankfully ommitted, and thus it's left to the viewer the activity of picking up the pieces and the recollections. and yet, even if we don't make the effort, as i didn't, and we let ourselves be carried away, we get a certain sense of weariness. boredom, which is, by the way, a strictly chekhovian topic. everything unfolds slowly, in between silences and dead moments. an atmosphere of torrid heat causes everyone to lack their will and interest in things. this compulsion toward one thing or another seems completely absent and the characters move themselves between a never ending present and an oblivious past which, little by little, is revealed. yet don't expect surprises. there aren't any. doesn't it happen the same way in our lives?