The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, February 8-14
Paraguayan Hammock (2006)
Directed by Paz Encina
“Slow Cinema” is a label that’s been used in the past few years to catalogue certain cinema that takes its time with its shots and narrative (if there even is a narrative), but that isn’t necessarily experimental in the way it treats form. Usually the films in this category are very long and not from Latin America, but along comes Paz Encina and her feature debut, which follows an old couple from sunrise to sunset in 78 slow-moving minutes, with dialogue in Guarani, an indigene language from Paraguay and adjacent countries, a tongue that’s dying as its native speakers get older. Consisting of fewer than ten static shots, this period piece features the old couple bickering over the never-coming rain, the dog their son has left under their care and finally that son himself son, who has gone to the war with Bolivia. The weight of the conversations slowly transcend the constant fighting, offering a telling, political consideration of the scars of war, and the static imagery makes you pay attention to the musical nature of the language, and what it’s actually saying about the final destiny of their son and their culture. Jaime Grijalba (February 11, 12, 5pm at MoMA’s Encina retrospective; Saturday screening introduced by Paz Encina)