fri 01/12/2023

Argentina

The Substitute review - a Buenos Aires 'Blackboard Jungle'

If, as a teacher newly hired to instil an appreciation for literature in underprivileged high-school kids who think it’s useless, you don’t march into their classroom and try to ram Jorge Luis Borges down their throats. That’s one lesson learned by...

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Mulroy, Aurora Orchestra, Kings Place review - old and new worlds of song

You invariably come away from an Aurora Orchestra concert with ears refreshed and mind revived. As a storm swept across London on Sunday, the audience at Kings Place enjoyed their own cleansing wind in the form of this genre-spanning gig in the “...

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Mariana Enriquez: Our Share of Night review - delving into a violent, erotic world

Tense with horror and the sticky darkness of the Argentinian night, Mariana Enriquez’s writing is rich and occult. Her epic novel, Our Share of Night, vividly translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell, follows on from her short story collections...

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María Gainza: Portrait of an Unknown Lady review – queens of the unreal

It’s no surprise that the theme of fakes and forgery appeals so much to writers, who traffic in plausible illusions and often believe (in María Gainza’s words) that truth is “just another well-told story”. From the age of Balzac and Zola to modern...

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DVD/Blu-ray: South

There is little denying that the Antarctic continent is no longer possessed of the allure that it once was. By all accounts, particularly those unspoken, Antarctica has been betrayed, usurped, eclipsed.Beyond the sober walls of research laboratories...

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Selva Almada: Brickmakers review – men dying for love

To make bricks you torment the soft, moist and fluid material of clay and sand in a prison of fire until it becomes dry, hard and unyielding. In Selva Almada’s rural Argentina, that’s also how you make – and break – men. Brickmakers is the third of...

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Luis Sagasti: A Musical Offering review – the sounds of silence

Luis Sagasti attends closely to the silence that precedes, pauses, and follows music in this mesmeric collage of stories inspired by the sounds that humans – and animals, and stars – create. Like many authors before him, the Argentinian novelist and...

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San Sebastian Film Festival: Latin films thrive

Ever since Latin American cinema re-emerged in the 1990s from years in the shadow of dictatorships, films have been distinguished by a number of trends, including dramas about the dictatorship years and the social and psychological consequences;...

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Evita, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - a diva dictator for 2019

Following a triumphant resurrection of Jesus Christ Superstar, now playing at the Barbican, the Park works its magic on another of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Seventies rock operas. Jamie Lloyd’s stripped-down, super-sleek, contemporary take...

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Diego Maradona review - entertaining but skin-deep

There's something unsatisfying about the fact that Asif Kapadia's new documentary on the controversial 1980s sporting legend Diego Maradona has a two-word title. It would have created a neat synchronicity with his previous two films (Amy and Senna...

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Cannes 2019: Diego Maradona review - entertaining but skin-deep

Director Asif Kapadia's documentary on the controversial 1980s sporting legend Diego Maradona premiered at Cannes this week, and there's something unsatisfying about the fact it doesn't have a one-word title. It would have created a neat...

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DVD/Blu-ray: Zama

Atmosphere definitely dominates over narrative in Lucrecia Martel’s fourth film – long delayed, Zama follows almost a decade on from her similarly opaque The Headless Woman – but the Argentinian director offers bracing consolation for some early...

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