Natalia Oreiro

Natalia Oreiro

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Wakolda Review


Excellent

Argentine filmmaker Lucia Puenzo takes a clever look at her nation's history with this charming but subtly chilling drama about events that never happened, but could have. As with her previous films XXY and The Fish Child, this story explores issues of identity and physicality from a young girl's perspective. And what it reveals about society at large is just as telling, mainly because the story is so intimate and honest.

It's set in 1960 Patagonia, where Eva and Enzo (Natalia Oneiro and Diego Peretti) are moving to the mountains to open a hotel along with their three children: teen Tomas (Alan Daicz), tiny 12-year-old Lilith (Florencia Bado) and youngster Polo. They drive north with German doctor Helmut (Alex Brendemuhl), who becomes the first long-term guest in their lakeside hotel. He also becomes fascinated by Lilith's underdevelopment: she looks like an 8-year-old, and he starts secret treatments to help her look closer to her true age. But his interest in the family continues with Enzo's doll-making hobby and, even more interestingly, the fact that Eva is pregnant with twins.

Early in the film, it becomes clear that Helmut is actually the escaped Nazi Josef Mengele, and that he's continuing his human experiments on this unsuspecting family. But since the story is told through Lilith's eyes, it's difficult to see Helmut as anything but concerned and helpful. Indeed, the entire community seems to be aware that Nazis are hiding all around them, but they don't really care as long as they're productive members of society. So it's Brendemuhl's subtly layered performance that reveals Helmut's darker willingness to break rules to fuel his research. Plus the interest of a local photographer (Elena Roger) who just might be a Nazi hunter in disguise.

Continue reading: Wakolda Review

Wakolda Trailer


Following World War II, German Nazi doctor Josef Mengele is being hunted down by Allied forces for being one of the perpetrators of inhumane human experimentation at Auschwitz. He's hiding out with an Argentine family on the other side of the world, masking his identity as he is welcomed into their lives. It's there he meets Lilith; Eva and Enzo's young daughter who appears to be growing at an abnormally slow rate. He explains to the family that it is his life's work to improve cattle breeding, while taking a massive interest in Lilith's genetics. The parents are worried about his relationship with Lilith - and more importantly, about just how far he's taking his interest. When a female photographer shows it, it becomes more clear that they are dealing with a man who's not all he says he is.

Continue: Wakolda Trailer

Cleopatra (2003) Review


Good
As Cleopatra, a retired Buenos Aires school teacher who is struggling to get by after her husband's layoff, and whose children long ago moved away, actress Norma Aleandro has a real screen presence. Her character is meant to be one who impacts those around her, and in Aleandro you can see it: She has a way of drinking in what others tell her, her bright eyes pondering their words with a bird-like stare, and she has a long, beaky nose. When she speaks, she flutters her hands or clutches at nonexistent pearls, and there's a swing in her walk that recalls nothing so much as a pigeon. Her openness to life is telegraphed in her reactions. In one scene she's taken with a song she hears on the radio while driving; when the man singing it says that his journey of self-discovery has revealed that there's a woman inside him, "and it's me," she blinks in surprise, considers this revelation, and then continues with her appreciation.

Aleandro is at the heart of the 2003 Argentinean film Cleopatra, and her quirky charm carries the film. The story follows her adventures after a chance encounter puts her in the company of a much younger and very beautiful television star named Sandra (Natalia Oreiro); Sandra is fed up with her producer/boyfriend, who's more obsessed with Sandra's career than with Sandra herself, and Cleo is fed up with her husband, who's given up on life following the loss of his job. Together the two embark on their own journey of self-discovery, taking off into the Argentinean hinterlands without notice and without a plan.

Continue reading: Cleopatra (2003) Review

Natalia Oreiro

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Natalia Oreiro Movies

Wakolda Movie Review

Wakolda Movie Review

Argentine filmmaker Lucia Puenzo takes a clever look at her nation's history with this charming...

Wakolda Trailer

Wakolda Trailer

Following World War II, German Nazi doctor Josef Mengele is being hunted down by Allied...

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