¡Qué horror! 2012
Candidate # 24
PENUMBRA
(September 2011)
From down
Argentina way, the Bogliano brothers, Adrián and Ramiro--also responsible for
the ultra-stylish Sudor Frio (Cold Sweat)--bring us Penumbra, where Margarita (Cristina Brondo)
is having a bad day, as a total solar eclipse comes creeping, the harbinger of
terrible things for poor, put-upon Marga.
All she really
wants to do is rent out an apartment and get back to Spain where she claims
things are so much better than Buenos
Aires, but circumstance and misunderstanding conspire to make her life
difficult.
Marga’s a not-so
likeable, not-really sympathetic lead, and there’s a certain amount of perverse
pleasure in seeing her discomfiture as the day wears on. But, this being a slow
burn of a film, a viewer’s outlook on Penumbra
will more than likely hinge on whether or not they can stand going through the
running time with Marga.
Girlfriend lies,
apparently sleeps around to get things done, uses people to get what she wants,
and generally just looks down on everyone and everything that isn’t Marga.
She’s not the
easiest protagonist to identify with, but if you stick this one out, it’s
ultimately a satisfying cinematic experience, more so perhaps than Sudor Frio, where the style simply oozed off the screen, sometimes to the
detriment of the material. In Penumbra,
the style is still evident, but restrained enough to allow the narrative and
the performances to stand on their own merits.
In light of Penumbra, I’m so looking forward to Adrián’s
contribution to The ABCs of Death, as
well as Ahí Va el Diablo (Here Comes the Devil), which will reportedly look
back not just on Nicolas Roeg’s work, but also Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock, a personal
favourite of mine, and a film that Bogliano apparently loves as well.
(Penumbra OS courtesy of impawards.com.)
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