Azul oscuro casi negro (Dark blue almost black)
This is a “kitchen-sink” drama where we are
presented with a good-humoured and almost whimsical treatment of familial
situations that in real life would be at best unpleasant. It is the humour displayed
by the characters that, you could imagine, enables them to deal with the
difficult situations in which they find themselves. Set in
At
times in the film, the whimsicality of the treatment of what are serious topics
seems misplaced and unrealistic, but this approach is not without a certain
charm. In its favour, we can say that the the story doesn’t deliver trite
solutions to the characters’ dilemmas, and successfully keeps the audience
guessing (but perhaps not without some work on the audience’s behalf) as to the
eventual outcomes of the various storylines.
Cinematically, a recurring
feature in the film are scenes that segue into each other in a way that
is coordinated through sound (e.g. the roll-call at Mateo’s graduation) and a series of clever
cut-shots from one scene to the other. This feature is used best effect in the
opening scenes, particularly in the scene where Mateo is dragging a wheely-bin
up steps and each step is accompanied by a percussive sound and a cutaway shot
to the building where his father is the caretaker.
The filmmaker’s attention to detail is evident
in several scenes that involve lengthy conversations between two characters.
One notable exampe is Mateo’s conversation with his brother at the visiting
room, where the brothers are on either side of a glass partition and our
perspective changes often between the various sides of the partition, which
affects the timbre of the voices. When
Mateo and Natalia have a conversation on the rooftop of Mateo’s building, both
are in the shot but only the current talker is in focus. Interestingly,
Natalia’s approach to Mateo brings her into focus without an adjustment of the
camera’s aperture.
There are without doubt some scenes that are
extremely unusual, and charmingly so, such as when Mateo’s friend (given name
Israel, but people call him Sean because he looks like Sean Penn) is waiting
for a massage with a “happy ending” and confronts his father who is waiting for
the same thing from the same masseuse. Sean’s family situation provides the
material for the film’s second main storyline and Sean is also the source of
the film’s light relief, a role well performed.
Events in the film may remind the audience that
each of us encounter extraordinary situations in our daily lives. In this
regard, the enigmatic state of affairs at the the film’s conclusion perhaps
serves to reinforce a related idea, that a life led with decency and honour can
be as extraordinary and as worthwhile for one to choose to pursue as any other.