Non-New Argentine Cinema

This week Argentinian editor and occasional director César d'Angiolilllo died. Among many other films, he edited "Tangos, el exilio de Gardel", "Camila", "Miss Mary" and "Hombre mirando al sudeste", which stand well in the core of 80's Argentine cinema. "Hombre..." turned 30 this year, and while it can still move at several moments, and while its ideas still capture the imagination, it is possible that the revolution in cinematic language that Argentina helped spear during the nineties renders this film (and others from that period) seem particularly dated. Maybe the post-dictatorship mainstream became for Nuevo Cine Argentino an equivalent to what French post-war cinema de qualité became for the Nouvelle Vague: in a time filled with radical new ideas and realities, these findings inform films, but the cinematic language in which they are presented lags behind. The new language specifically opposes the previously dominant form. In both cases there is a reaction against an overly academic mode of production that -the new movement believes- debases the value of whatever is conceptually new because the mise-en scène feels tributary to a previous period. Of course this is a cyclical process and it is not inconceivable that the popularity of today's ultra-light, ultra-naturalistic (borderline "reality") production begets a new period where something like cinéma de qualité becomes canonical again. Personally I feel that the blunt, concrete approach that hatched around the turn of the century in Argentina in the Martel and Rejtman varieties is still welcome.