A Red Bear

Year: 2002

Grade: B

Country: Argentina

Director: Caetano

Review

pretty good little argentinean film about a guy who comes out of prison and tries to get to know his young daughter. the main character (bear) reminds me a bit of eric bana in “chopper” – he has the same sort of build and is just as much of a bad ass, but not as much of a prick. one interesting note on the film is that it uses an unusual number of sound bridges. one scene will be winding down and another will starting winding up by introducing the sound of that scene before the images. you might have a guy driving in his car thinking and then a woman starts reading a children’s story as a voice over. then, after a few seconds, the images will catch up and we’ll see the woman in bed with her daughter, reading the story. it’s a device that’s pretty commonplace, but this film used it more and the overlap was longer than is usual. perhaps this was to strengthen the link between the characters in the first scene and those in the scene that follows/overlaps.

i liked the film because it was balanced and low-tech. it never got saccharine, it didn’t rely on the action sequences, it never got bogged down with the dramatic elements and it had some comic relief. in the end, when the film is at its most sad, it doesn’t linger too much. it allows us to sympathize and understand what everyone is feeling, but it doesn’t beat it into us. a sleeper foreign film which should be checked out, but probably won’t. B. p.s. i have the vhs if you want to borrow it.