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Simply Perfect

Excellent but underrated film

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Santiago is a successful interior designer, married and with one daughter. But his life falls apart after the family suffers a terrible car accident while he was driving. After that, a time ellipsis put us on southern Patagonia, a white-winter desolated airstrip where Santiago is now working, in what can be considered as a self-pursued purgatory. He's haunted by nightmares and day delusions. The fire marks in his body are a permanent reminder of what happened. He's a man on a search: a search for self-forgiveness, a search for courage to face the life he pretended to leave behind. The raw way of life he has chosen and the not less raw Patagonian environment that surrounds him, that envelops him, works as a mirror to his soul, but also as a cathartic path.

The film is an allegorical story of self-abnegation and emotional purgatory. The idyllic, privileged realistic urban story of a happy family is shattered, and the audience slowly comes to understand that Santiago is stationed at a rural airstrip in an unidentified place. The transition is not explained. Is it before? After? The only thing concrete in this mens' world is the remoteness of the place and the earthly comforts of alcohol, music, and dance – the visceral pleasures – and a clear absence of responsibility. As if in a mirror image to his other life, Santiago in this new place is working-class; he smokes and somewhat misbehaves. It is suggested that his employment and future hangs on the whim of a supervisor – out of his control. By choice? The film beautifully presents personal purgatory as a literally de-natured arcadia in contrast to the self-possession of his former life. It is a prison of the mind from which Santiago gradually emerges to ultimately find himself again walking with his wife to reconcile his guilt and ameliorate his self-alienation.

The explanation near the ending really got me - to dislike this movie that is. But what was in between did not prepare me to do much the opposite anyhow.And at TIFF, the programmer who introduce the movie gave me such hope.. "the new Argentina cinema" ...etc ..etc. OK, technically good, acting good (but not great. supporting cast was impressive), cinematography good, editing good, exceptional location ... yes, the light, almost overexposed white-furnished airy home in the beginning reflects well on the patagonia sequences and doubles as a symbol for the happy family ..yes, the lead male actor was good, his emotional isolation, and desolation plays well of patagonia. the people and events that took place in this segment is well pace and never hurried...but please someone check the story !!!! Not just for probability of a certain kind of response to traumas, but also plausibility, even a bit of reasoning for would help. The reason of this outrage ... ********* spoilers ahead ********* is that the lead male character mistook "a fact" in the trauma that caused his emotional shut-off to the outside world. And that fact is not far more signifigant then, for instance, a typo, or mistaking a number '5' for a number '8'... but he mistook a life or death situation.. that to me ... for a responsible person just does not make sense ... ************** end of spoilers *******so if the story is fictional, sometime, you can't based all of the movie's validity (justification or power of the narrative ) just so that you want to convey emotion itself. Everything, must come together as a whole, including gaps in the story. This I find is the most common flaw most(maybe 1/2 the time) movies suffers from.

***THESE COMMENTS CONTAIN SPOILERS***The first 15 minutes or so of this movie show you a happy couple with their cute little daughter. They live a nice life in Buenos Aires. That life is shattered when they're involved in a traffic accident. Next scene: the father is now in Patagonia where he works in a desolated airport. The director aims is to show a man having trouble with its past. Santiago feels like a murderer for driving the car when the accident occurred. But we figure out along the way that there's no reason to believe that the wife and kid were killed in the accident. A man's descent into inner hell. It all happens in beautiful, but rough Patagonia. The setting for this soul searching exercise is beautiful. The director moves at a slow pace, but some scenes are worth the time.Seen at the Paramount, during the Toronto International Film Festival, on September 10th, 2006.78/100 (**½)