Land and See

by James Hansen

Balancing on the precipice between the art house film and observational avant-garde experiments, Lisandro Alonso’s Liverpool seems to fit in these widespread traditions and still manages to find a space of its own. If Los Muertos is an older conceptual cousin to The Limits of Control, as I proposed earlier this week, Liverpool feels like a strange mixture of Peter Hutton’s At Sea and Gus Van Sant’s Last Days – at once slow and difficult, but also viscerally absorbing and, strangely enough, intellectually modest. The balance between the worlds and methods that are in play throughout a long 84 minutes underscore a dialectic that Alonso is constantly working through. Liverpool challenges itself, and the audience, with finding new spaces for fulfillment – a space somewhere between home and the sea, art house and avant garde, simplicity and complication, acceptance and denial, persistence and reciprocation – and it succeeds.


Although its formalism may still be challenging and inaccessible to some, Liverpool’s purpose, similar in fashion to Hutton and Van Sant’s films, is hard to miss and more familiar than most give them credit for. Each film can be “explained” with short statements or ideas (the life and times of a ship, the brief life of a trapped rock legend, the life of a lonely seaman) that have been key to a wide array of successful movies. But, of course, the formalism is what makes all of these films “difficult” and perplexing for audiences desiring classification of an accrued “meaning” behind everything that is seen, heard, and felt.

Taking these challenges a step further, Liverpool’s first 82 minutes, which have plenty of beauty on their own, are all arguably a set up for the final shot. The attempts to make short summations of purpose or label Liverpool as a supreme art house film in critical attempts to inform the “intended” audience only end up undercutting Alonso’s continuing attempts to craft a controlled hybrid of difficult simplicity and lucid arduousness which play off of the contradictory relationship between overly modest narratology (a man returning home) and long-take, observational formalism. Liverpool’s ability to nail this delicate balance, illustrated by the incredible pay off of that final shot – perhaps the only shot in the film with much dramatic impetus behind it – is a major accomplishment for the continuing development of Alonso’s work as an artist.

In discussion of the final shot in his 5-star review, Keith Uhlich writes, “Like everything else in this enigmatic masterpiece, the image resonates with myriad metaphorical possibilities. Yet the more we look, the harder its meanings are to pin down.” Just as the Liverpool ends and a clarification process begins to take shape, Alonso opens up the possibilities further, deepening the impact with something that is beautiful, direct, and simple yet bewildering, stirring, and thoughtful. Liverpool is Alonso’s finest achievement to date.

B+
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DVD of the Week: "Los Muertos" (Lisandro Alonso, 2004)

by James Hansen

Editors Note: Between traveling and other reviewing duties, our DVD of the Week series took the month of August off. Thankfully, its back now and will make its return on Tuesdays rather than Fridays, so as to not interfere with weekend film releases. Thanks for your patience!

In anticipation of his terrific new film Liverpool, which opens at Anthology Film Archives this weekend, our pick for this week is Lisandro Alonso’s 2004 film Los Muertos. This may be all you want to know according to Nathan Lee, who starts his review for the Village Voice saying, “See Los Muertos with virgin eyes; this cool-headed enigma is best approached cold, ignorant of everything but the title. "The Dead" is an ironic appellation for a movie so fiercely alive, though perfectly apt for what turns out to be a strange sort of horror film.” So, if you want to stop there and queue it on up, go for it. But I’ll continue anyways for those curious. (And certainly please read Nathan’s stellar review as well, if you wanna go into it “all the way” as he does and suggests is required in reviewing it.)

A slow, methodical, and extremely sharp work, Los Muertos may be some kind of cousin to Jim Jarmusch’s wonderful (yet much derided) new film The Limits of Control. Los Muertos tracks the journey of Vargas (played by nonprofessional actor Argentino Vargas), a man recently released from prison for the murder of his brothers. Closely following his trek down the Yacare River in a borrowed boat through the Argentinian jungle, Los Muertos lets the landscape absorb into its characters which help shape the underlying violence and existential quandary. Alonso’s direction to his nonprofessional lead actor? Don’t look into the camera and don’t make any facial expressions. Sound familiar? This Bressonian minimalism combined with the endlessly fascinating traits of a fiction/documentary hybrid provide Los Muertos with its casting glance into unseen places and spaces, all the while burying a deep emotion that is triggered within an engaged audience rather than displayed by the characters on screen.

This brief description should let you all know if Los Muertos is your cup of tea or not, although several unmentioned, more confrontational moments are likely to stir anyone – especially those affiliated with any form of animal rights group. All the same, even these brisk, stunning moments contribute to expanding the scope of the largely hidden world at work within Los Muertos. Or maybe the whole world is there all along. Glistening all around Vargas, and us, as the shimmers of light, fades to green, and non-chalant violence shows us everything we need to know about the nature of the places that surround us. Make no mistake – Los Muertos is a full blown display of an up and coming artist at work.

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