Silence is a Falling Body
Diciembre 2022. Época de Mundial. Mi cábala: ver películas argentinas. Así que agarré y me mandé este texto, en inglés, para, de paso, practicar el idioma. No aseguro que esté bien escrito, pero acá va, bien caradura y sin miedo:
I recently watched “El Silencio es un Cuerpo que Cae” (2017), de Agustina Comedi. In english: “Silence is a Falling Body”, there are versions with english subtitles too.
Let’s start with this: the story of Jaime, the father of Agustina, the director. A story telled by the VHS filmed by Jaime, a person who was maybe “destinated to live too little” because one woman with supernatural mind-powers said: “he is not from this world”. So he died at 53, in January 1999, in a car crash. Minutes before, he was recording with his camera. So incredible.
Jaime telled by his VHS, but too with the words of the people who knew him in live. And images captured by the director, his daughter (what a tribute!), born in 1986.
So it is a movie who breaks with the basic rules, and mix reality with fixion, with voices driving the narration (and more mechanisms).
Jaime was a lawyer. He had gay stories (he was bisexual I think) in the 70s, 80s, 90s, and he militated by left organizations with gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender.
In the middles of 80s he married with Monona, a woman, an they have a baby, Agustina. It’s incredible because a psychologist (I mean: a profesional of mental health!!!!) told Jaime that the was not entirely sick because he liked womans too, and it wasn’t too late to get him a CURE. Sounds like a crazy religious old man. A sect.
I have to say: I feel identificated with this film: explores personal, social, national faces of myself, of argentinians, of… history? It’s complicated and not to simple to say. I feel the gay history, the reppresion history, the dictatorship history all in… one person, in life’s persons.
A man who was the ONE in the family who filmed everything in the VHS times. So many families had that “one” in those 80s/90s times: I think right now in my uncle. He was definetly the man who filmed, and not show himself too much (he was holding the camera, obviously), but there are exceptions: when he left messages from USA to the family in Argentina, his country, and send it by the international mail.
You could watch it free and legal in CineAr, creating an account. https://play.cine.ar/play.cine.ar
