I started the second day of the film festival very quickly, without any foresight or curiosity about the film I was going to see. To tell the whole truth, the references that the Mexican Two Seasons can claim are not at the same time rare. In fact, it was selected in Zinemaldia itself to boost the script in the 2019 Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum and in the 2021 WIP Latam initiative for post-production projects.

Maria is the protagonist of "Two Seasons", a silent and prudent patron of the tequila manufacturer factory. As long as the fires of despair do not fade, Mary faces threats from foreign producers as well as a shortage of layoffs, along with Rafa, the girl she has hired and looks at the management of the factory.

Although we have the center of the film María, the intention of Juan Pablo González is ambitious, as he manages to create a rich plot of constructions, plants, animals and characters. Thus, the narration is constantly moving away from the central argument and, in the same vein, the aesthetically very careful planes that add little to the development of events, which express a skilled hand and a special sensitivity, abound. It is precisely in this temptation of beauty that occurs in daily life that the documentary formation of González is appreciated.

I could say that the mime and artisanal technique needed to make the tequila are also reflected in the film itself, in a careful treatment of characters and images. Two seasons has been a great surprise to the competition of Horizontes Latinos, a play that must surely be taken into account.

 

Without escaping the time limits in Latin America, today I have also had the opportunity to see My imaginary country, this time without concrete forecasts but with great curiosity. The signature of the director Patricio Guzmán, without a doubt, has opened its doors to this work, a suspicious speech that I found formally and artistically boring.

The documentary takes as its starting point the photographs and videos of the protests started in Chile in 2019 by thousands of students. Under the direction of Guzman's own voice-over, these images are complemented by testimonies and reflections of several women, offering a chronological account of what broke out on October 18 and triggered.

The facts and reports presented in the film are obviously not neutral. Thus, the documentary jumps from the streets to Parliament and, from there, to the appointment of President Boric, as if one were to take it accidentally. Certainly, the revolt was a necessary condition for opening a new institutional path in the country, but this does not mean that a consequence of the revolt and necessary was an institutional path. Along the tape, it is repeated several times that in the uprising that began in Chile there was no space for professional politicians. But Boric's government eventually presents itself as a representative and guardian of the revolt. In this way, the images of protests loaded with strength and hope become decorative propaganda to decorate the most progressive face of the left-wing social democracy, disfiguring its potentiality.

At the beginning of the film, Guzman says that while recording the first part of the masterpiece La Batalla de Chile, he met Chris Marker in Chile. Marker's advice was as follows: if you want to shoot a fire, you need to be in advance in the place where the first flame is going to be lit. After seeing My imaginary country, I fear that Guzman and his team have lost sight of the fire long ago and that they are only looking at the smoke it causes.