Standard

After Juan Perón’s death in 1974, José López Rega, the sinister Minister of Social Well-Being planned a mausoleum that would be named Altar de la Patria (Homeland Altar), where all the transcendental and popular signs built in the collective imagination of the nation would be celebrated offering a haggard metaphysics in which the essence of what it is Argentinean would shine forever. Acha deconstructs this wish by contrasting the strength of the workers’ eagerness in tension to a reactionary codification of it. The workers are sometimes seen as ants destined to anonymously build the greatness of this nation. But they also get distracted and therefore forget their architectonical mission. Indeed, workers prefer to play cards, to fight among each other, or to jerk off. The intuition of the filmmaker lies on suspecting that Argentina is an impossible country and its presumed greatness always ends in debris, or in an organic nation with no mercy for dissent. As usual, Acha’s formal intelligence has to do with using meager material resources and building powerful shots with them. The fades, the sound design, the abandoned location that was chosen, and a diva of Argentinean cinema (Libertad Leblanc) who parades around in front of the camera all the time are enough to stage this tragic and farce-like allegory. (Viennale)