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Heidegger maintained with full prose that emptiness is nothing. Not even a fault. That the void acts as a founding act that seeks to forge places. Then (or before) he gave the example of the pitcher whose definition and meaning is neither its interior nor its condition of waterproof but, precisely, its emptiness. And he added: "that nothing in the pitcher."
Manuel Martín Cuenca,
who presented
La hija
out of competition at the San Sebastián Festival
on Wednesday
, is a reader (or should be) of the philosopher to the point of building a good part of his filmography from a minimalist conviction that is more aware of what he removes. of what it adds;
more interested in suggesting than teaching.
The daughter
is, as before her
Caníbal
'(2013), a good example of that creed determined to forge places from the hole, from everything that the camera leaves when it leaves.
The film tells the story of a couple determined to have a child. Whatever it takes.
To do this, he will not hesitate to shelter a pregnant adolescent at home under the agreement that, once the gestation period is over, the child will change mothers and have a father.
To get here,
the daughter
takes her time. The first scenes just show a furtive encounter in an indeterminate place in the forest that is not clear if it is kidnapping or dating. It is just a hint of everything that will come next. Martín Cuenca thus builds a
haiku-
like
thriller
with the virtue of surprising at every turn.
No gesture, however minimal it may seem, is banal;
always with the viewer's gaze bent in a gesture that wants to be both questioning and surprise. Nothing is obvious. Nothing is given. It matters, precisely, that nothing in the clay container that the thinker said. The fact that the whole plot revolves around a body that, little by little, comes alive, weaves a beautiful metaphor and adds power to that image of the void that founds worlds, of that jug that fills up.
It is true that the film does not achieve everything it promises with due rigor. At times, it becomes too explicit and pressing; at times, he surprises with overly arbitrary script decisions (the resolution of the confinement seems so brutal and gratuitous in its desire to attract attention that it disarms).
And then there is that overuse of the drone
in its eagerness to capture the incredible landscape of Jaén that, directly, works against the main postulate of the film. The drone, by definition, shows everything and turns everything into an imposted postcard, into a
balance
souvenir
.
Be that as it may,
The daughter
, supported in the first place by the always disconcerting and wise interpretation of Javier Gutiérrez in the role of being lovable and frightening, cautiously advances towards that same precipice on which the lonely house rises where almost everything takes place.
It is intended a journey through the fog and on the snow towards the unknown.
And there, in the drive of two opposing maternity wards (the biological mother and the other), of two vessels that give and want a new life,
he approaches the fearful construction of a deep and full emptiness.
It was that.
The 'thiller' as 'antithriller'
For the rest, the official competition section was closed on Wednesday, awaiting the arrival of
Johnny Depp
to receive his Donostia Award, with
Enquête sur un scandale d'etat
(
Investigation of a state scandal
), by the Frenchman
Thierry de Peretti.
The director's proposal for such powerful films as
Les Apaches
seems as provocative and challenging as it is
ultimately just confusing.
It is about telling a journalistic investigation from the opposite position to which films of the genre are accustomed to us. The typical argument of an ethically unbeatable reporter against the industries and adventures of power (all of him) is now dismantled by the hand of a story built on a material as unstable as doubt; a
thriller
that, in truth, is the opposite:
antithriller
.
The real story is told (everything happens from 2015 to now) of a police mole and his relationship with a journalist. Together they set themselves the mission of shedding light on the sewers of a state that, by combating drug trafficking, ends up being a drug trafficker himself. The investigation of the hard-working champions of the rule of law will lead the couple to trace even the link
between the LAGs in Spain and drug trafficking.
But Peretti's proposal wants more. It is not about reproducing the schemes of the cinema of
Alan J. Pakula
and much less of his best apprentice,
Steven Soderbergh.
The idea is to describe the path of the heroes without giving up also telling their miseries associated with ego and paranoia. On the other hand, the villain, incarnated in a vibrant way by
Vincent Lindon,
does not allow himself to be sucked into the usual Manichaeism. He is the bad guy, yes, but he does not lack motivations as moral as those of the others.
The problem with the film, we said above, is that, despite the commendable effort to address the most adult part of the adult audience avoiding child reductionisms, it soon ends up in simple chaos.
His determination to tell everything, say everything and explain almost everything turns the narrative into a stormy journey of comings and goings, incapable of encouraging
little more than discouragement.
Pity.
Be that as it may, the intent and the certainty of a solidity in the staging remain aside, this time, of any doubt.
By linking one film to another, everything that is suggested in
La hija
is overrepresented in
Enquête sur un scandale d'etat
.
Contrast day.
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