La León

Audience Reviews

View All (12) audience reviews

Audience Member La León (2007) I selected this because I was choosing some Argentinean films-this won the prize at the Berlin Film Festival. Plot: Life on the Paraná Delta in northern Argentina is slow and quiet. In the film a small group of people left there ekes out a living from harvesting the reeds along the riverbanks, separated from each other by the vast expanse of the river. Captained by Turu (Valenzuela) "El Leon" is the locals' main source of transport, making its owner a vital part of the spread-out community. Pumped-up by a sense of his importance Turu sees himself as guardian of the locals and their way of life. Like Alvaro (Roman), most men in the area make their living by harvesting reeds. Verbal communication is not a prized asset here, and while Alvaro is an equal part of the community, his homosexuality inevitably sets him apart in his own mind and limits his trysting opportunities to occasional encounters with stray visitors. Complications arise in the rural isolated backward community. Alvaro appears to neither hide nor proclaim his orientation-lonely sure but better adjusted than the bullying Turu, who has plenty more emotional baggage needing to be processed. Like Jim Jarmushe’s film Dead Man this film is very minimalist as cinema presentation. Otheguy's atmosphere of isolation affected me deeply but I feel most American movie fans will not understand this movie. There is not much dialogue. There is little conversation. There is the river and isolation and the jungle. The landscape is itself the main character. It is filmed in black and white. However, it’s not a pure black and white—rather, the film has a brown, almost sepia tone, almost as if it was filmed in color and then shown in black and white. It has the appearance of a world that has had the color drained out of it, which lends a dreamlike quality. It is a slow developing film; It is easy to see the climax coming. I still enjoyed it as it’s such an unusual film. Four stars. Most will not like this. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/25/23 Full Review Audience Member La León (2007) I selected this because I was choosing some Argentinean films-this won the prize at the Berlin Film Festival. Plot: Life on the Paraná Delta in northern Argentina is slow and quiet. In the film a small group of people left there ekes out a living from harvesting the reeds along the riverbanks, separated from each other by the vast expanse of the river. Captained by Turu (Valenzuela) "El Leon" is the locals' main source of transport, making its owner a vital part of the spread-out community. Pumped-up by a sense of his importance Turu sees himself as guardian of the locals and their way of life. Like Alvaro (Roman), most men in the area make their living by harvesting reeds. Verbal communication is not a prized asset here, and while Alvaro is an equal part of the community, his homosexuality inevitably sets him apart in his own mind and limits his trysting opportunities to occasional encounters with stray visitors. Complications arise in the rural isolated backward community. Alvaro appears to neither hide nor proclaim his orientation-lonely sure but better adjusted than the bullying Turu, who has plenty more emotional baggage needing to be processed. Like Jim Jarmushe’s film Dead Man this film is very minimalist as cinema presentation. Otheguy's atmosphere of isolation affected me deeply but I feel most American movie fans will not understand this movie. There is not much dialogue. There is little conversation. There is the river and isolation and the jungle. The landscape is itself the main character. It is filmed in black and white. However, it’s not a pure black and white—rather, the film has a brown, almost sepia tone, almost as if it was filmed in color and then shown in black and white. It has the appearance of a world that has had the color drained out of it, which lends a dreamlike quality. It is a slow developing film; It is easy to see the climax coming. I still enjoyed it as it’s such an unusual film. Four stars. Most will not like this. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/31/23 Full Review Audience Member One of those moody movies where things slowly unfold. It's nice to watch a movie like this every once in a while, because things aren't handed to you on a plate. You have to figure it all out. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/20/23 Full Review Audience Member Uma historia boa mas que custa a acontecer Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/27/23 Full Review Audience Member nice cinematography . Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/03/23 Full Review Audience Member Aside from the arresting visuals, which are some of the most beautiful I've seen all year, [i]La Leon[/i] is a rather drab and dull experience. It's set primarily in the Argentine jungles, where a day laborer named Alvaro lives a life of pure human simplicity. We see him eat, sleep, work, and occasionally we see him have sex. This last part is the main point of conflict as his homosexual appetites cause friction with the captain of the ferry boat "La Leon," which is used to transport cargo back and forth from the jungles to civility. Since there is almost zero character building, we don't learn or observe much about human nature beyond its most mundane activities. And while there is value to this kind of approach, certainly Ozu is the preeminent example of a director willing to pay extra special cinematic attention to even the most trivial of actions, it doesn't add up to much if one is not able to express the emotions of the character or of the scene. Director Santiago Otheguy is captivated by details and textures, such as the way the light plays across an empty dinner table or the swaying of reeds in the wind, but his excuse for a narrative is a thin one. This film could have probably worked better as a documentary....but it isn't one. More respectable than enjoyable, I believe it's best to appreciate movies like [i]La Leon[/i] as photo journals rather than as real movies. [center][img]http://www.dvdrama.com/imagescrit2/l/a/_/la_leon_2.jpg[/img] [/center] Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/25/23 Full Review Read all reviews

La León

My Rating

Read More Read Less POST RATING WRITE A REVIEW EDIT REVIEW