Viola

file alongside YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHIN' YET and CAESAR MUST DIE as one of those recent movies in which life and art seep into one another and each is illuminated. this may be the most excitingly directed of the lot though, and it's wonderfully breezy fun without ever becoming too slight. i highly recommend folks put an hour aside for this one.

Pineiro does an excellent job evoking an atmosphere with his camera. There's a relational, intimate way that the camera interacts with the characters, flowing easily between people. Further, I'm not sure I've seen digital photography look as good as it does here. As the conversations become increasingly inflected with repetition, memory, and dream, the film draws us ever deeper into the complex human experience.

A messy attempt at demonstrating the platitude "life imitates art".

An absorbing way to depict the frictions between life and invention is found in this Piñeiro's Viola, as the clever cutting and the amount of good-looking, repetitive close-ups end up creating narratives inside narratives. Not actually a film about acting -- as I was expecting --, but a tale dedicated to the very fundamental, ordinary things in everyday life.

Another Pineiro film, yet again as beguiling as it is inscrutable. This one might be the "simplest" and easiest to watch, only being an hour long probably helps (if anything, i actually wish it had been longer). The Rivette influence feels more pronounced than usual as well, maybe. Like other Pineiro films, nothing about it feels particularly "major", but at the same time again i find myself feeling like American indie filmmakers could do well to take some cues from what he's doing.

Attractive, simple but complicated.

Dense but not heavy, the weightless charm of Rivette is there, sure, but I think there's something completely new going on here. I tried to write about it: http://cinematalk.wordpress.com/2014/04/01/viola-2012/